Finding Dead Calf

farmer2018

I have a week old perfectly healthy suckler calf that a found stretched out dead this morning in the shed. Would the main cause of death be his mother lying on him. What are peoples experiences with situations like this?

Lady Haywire

Week old should be able to jump out of the mothers way if she went to lie on him. I'd put it down to a heart issue or an underlying cause & forget about it. You'd drive yourself daft if you started thinking of all the things you could/should have done to prevent an occurrence which you may never see again.

Sugarbowl

Dehydration perhaps? That happened here last Autumn. Went downhill really quick and too late when we found him. He was only 2 days old at the time.

JeffKenna

If the calve wasn't sick beforehand then I'd be inclined to go with a heart issue.

As the above poster said try not to think into it too much, these things happen in life I'm afraid.

farmer2018

Will see because I am getting a postmortem done to find out.

whelan2

Drove into the yard the other day and a cow had a calf pinned against a concrete wall with her head. Ran over to stop her and the calf just dropped down dead. If I hadn't seen it I wouldn't have believed it

farmer2018

whelan2 wrote: »

Drove into the yard the other day and a cow had a calf pinned against a concrete wall with her head. Ran over to stop her and the calf just dropped down dead. If I hadn't seen it I wouldn't have believed it

Was it her calf?

CHOPS01

When Dad had milking cows and later sucklers here always found it tough whenever there was a dead calf. Hard not to let it affect you.

whelan2

farmer2018 wrote: »

Was it her calf?

No.

Albert Johnson

farmer2018 wrote: »

Will see because I am getting a postmortem done to find out.

I imagine that a heart defect or something similar made the calf unviable long-term and it's probably best chalked up as one of those freak occurrences you'll experience from time to time. However a postmortem is a good idea and should hopefully set your mind at rest regarding the cause.

golodge

You should be able to see if somebody has lied down on the calf. We had it happen once two years ago. Have let ~2weeks old calf out from the calving pen to be with the herd and found him dead the next morning... But it was clearly visible that somebody has lied down on him. He was lying in a position calves usually sleep in, but his one side looked like a heavy thing had been pressing it.

patsy_mccabe

whelan2 wrote: »

Drove into the yard the other day and a cow had a calf pinned against a concrete wall with her head. Ran over to stop her and the calf just dropped down dead. If I hadn't seen it I wouldn't have believed it

I see cows doing it here the whole time. Never had a casuality but it can be vicious at times. Cow usually gets a whack from me when I see it.

farmer2018

Lads, if I was to dry the cow out would ye bother keeping her? Its a long time to wait for another calf. The cow is nice quality, but not top quality she has not a massive amount of milk but a nice tidy udder.

She is pedigree cow.

Lady Haywire

Either foster a calf onto her or gate in my opinion. Have rarely had luck here keeping a cow over a summer. Got too fat/dry cow mastitis/lost calf the following year/bullied others with calves at foot.

Albert Johnson

farmer2018 wrote: »

Lads, if I was to dry the cow out would ye bother keeping her? Its a long time to wait for another calf. The cow is nice quality, but not top quality she has not a massive amount of milk but a nice tidy udder.

I'd personally give her the road, a foster calf might be an option if she's docile enough to handle regularly if needed. It's near impossible to make anything off sucklers when they produce a weanling every 12 months and a dry cow is only making a bad financial situation worse imo. If your away working then I'd recommend the mart tbh, average springers or calves teams aren't massively expensive at the moment if you were interested and the price of the cull should take the sting out of any purchase. My advice with the way the beef game is gone is if you have sufficient stocking levels for the payments is to flog her and put the money towards a holiday or similar, you'll have more benefits out of the like and less work and worry.

farmer2018

Albert Johnson wrote: »

I'd personally give her the road, a foster calf might be an option if she's docile enough to handle regularly if needed. It's near impossible to make anything off sucklers when they produce a weanling every 12 months and a dry cow is only making a bad financial situation worse imo. If your away working then I'd recommend the mart tbh, average springers or calves teams aren't massively expensive at the moment if you were interested and the price of the cull should take the sting out of any purchase. My advice with the way the beef game is gone is if you have sufficient stocking levels for the payments is to flog her and put the money towards a holiday or similar, you'll have more benefits out of the like and less work and worry.

Forgot to mention I am in pedigree sucklers which is somewhat more viable than commercials.

Lady Haywire

farmer2018 wrote: »

Forgot to mention I am in pedigree sucklers which is somewhat more viable than commercials.

Has the cow produced anything of merit in order to keep her or average pedigrees? Am in pedigrees here too & just because they have an orange piece of paper with them, it doesn't give them a free pass to have a year long holiday!

farmer2018

Lady Haywire wrote: »

Has the cow produced anything of merit in order to keep her or average pedigrees? Am in pedigrees here too & just because they have an orange piece of paper with them, it doesn't give them a free pass to have a year long holiday!

To be honest no, my opinion is unless you have top pedigree females you are wasting your time.

Good point you have to draw the line somewhere!

The other option would be put her in calf and then sell her.

Lady Haywire

farmer2018 wrote: »

To be honest no, my opinion is unless you have top pedigree females you are wasting your time.

Good point you have to draw the line somewhere!

The other option would be put her in calf and then sell her.

Might be your best option, there's always a market for a pedigree & she'll come back in heat quick enough with no calf on her.

farmer2018

Lady Haywire wrote: »

Might be your best option, there's always a market for a pedigree & she'll come back in heat quick enough with no calf on her.

What breed have you?

Lady Haywire

farmer2018 wrote: »

What breed have you?

Limousins. For my sins

farmer2018

Would ye milk her for a few days and then dry tube her. Or do it straight away and feed her very little for a few days?

1373

farmer2018 wrote: »

I have a week old perfectly healthy suckler calf that a found stretched out dead this morning in the shed. Would the main cause of death be his mother lying on him. What are peoples experiences with situations like this?

While bedding calves one morning, a calf just dropped dead beside me . Perfectly healthy , put my hand on its heart and it had completely stopped

lab man

1373 wrote:

While bedding calves one morning, a calf just dropped dead beside me . Perfectly healthy , put my hand on its heart and it had completely stopped

Sickener

Never wrestle with pigs

farmer2018 wrote: »

Would ye milk her for a few days and then dry tube her. Or do it straight away and feed her very little for a few days?

Don't touch her, when the seal's of the spins haven't been broken shell dry up herself in a few days. Only feed her hay or dry silage for a week.

farmer2018

Never wrestle with pigs wrote: »

Don't touch her, when the seal's of the spins haven't been broken shell dry up herself in a few days. Only feed her hay or dry silage for a week.

The calf was sucking her for a week.

Never wrestle with pigs

farmer2018 wrote: »

The calf was sucking her for a week.

Sorry thought you lost it at birth. Dry hay for a week or two and she'll dry up. Keep the spot-on on her if your putting her to grass for mastitis.

Say my name

Never wrestle with pigs wrote: »

Sorry thought you lost it at birth. Dry hay for a week or two and she'll dry up. Keep the spot-on on her if your putting her to grass for mastitis.

I see mentioned elsewhere where some people feed garlic supplements and I think sulphur supplements to cattle on grass for flies. Interesting I thought.
Mid west USA ranching type scenario.

Anto_Meath

Yes I keep the garlic lick buckets with the cows and heifers. (would have a bit of boggy land that the cows love in the hot summer as its nice and cool and its always full of flies) used to always have 1 or 2 ladies that got summer mastitis or a dry start but thankfully since the cows have the garlic bucket there hasn't been any issues.

patsy_mccabe

Went out this morning to find the cow that calved last night, was lying on the front legs of the newborn. Calf must have been stretched out when she lay down. Had to pull calf out from under her. Calf fine but still.

farmer2018

The post mortem results came back the calf died from Bacterial E.coli.

Muckit

Would that be from something they ingested in shed? Dirty udder/teat?

farmer2018

Muckit wrote: »

Would that be from something they ingested in shed? Dirty udder/teat?

Vet said that could be a possibility but I had plenty of straw down and the shed clean. The other thing it could be is the down to colostrum, the quality of the milk or bacteria in the milk.

Pie Man

The worst one I had was when out herding cows and calves, one of calves was asleep. I must of startled him, he jumped up with a awful fright. Thought notting of it and went on with the rest of the herding, came back a few minutes later and he has stone dead.
That was some phone call to try and explain it to the Auld lad. Any time I come across a sleeping beast now I shout and let them know i'm coming.

Parishlad

Pie Man wrote: »

The worst one I had was when out herding cows and calves, one of calves was asleep. I must of startled him, he jumped up with a awful fright. Thought notting of it and went on with the rest of the herding, came back a few minutes later and he has stone dead.
That was some phone call to try and explain it to the Auld lad. Any time I come across a sleeping beast now I shoot and let them know i'm coming.

That's taking it a bit far now isn't it!

Pie Man

Parishlad wrote: »

That's taking it a bit far now isn't it!

Shoot, shout, either way it gets them up.

Albert Johnson

Pie Man wrote: »

The worst one I had was when out herding cows and calves, one of calves was asleep. I must of startled him, he jumped up with a awful fright. Thought notting of it and went on with the rest of the herding, came back a few minutes later and he has stone dead.
That was some phone call to try and explain it to the Auld lad. Any time I come across a sleeping beast now I shout and let them know i'm coming.

The fright could have caused an underlying heart problem or similar to flare up, I've heard of calves to drop dead after physical exertion which placed extra stress on a "dodgy" heart or similar. Making any animal aware of your presence is a good idea but I'd imagine that the above calf had some "miss" in him and wouldn't have been viable long term imo. It's still an unsettling experience and would definitely leave you scratching your head for awhile afterwards.

SuperTortoise

Never had a calf drop dead but i did have a cow in the early stages of red water, brought her in to the shed in trailer as soon as the four legs were off the tailer she dropped like a stone, i was told red water puts savage pressure on the heart and too much excitment will bring on a heart attack.

Never wrestle with pigs

Worst one I had was a cracking pb SIM heifer a few years ago. Around February and her dam was bulling in the shed. I set up the pen next to put her into as I usually do to stop everyone jumping and injuring themselves for the day.

As I got into the shed her calf was sucking and up a cow goes to mount, then down she comes and smacks the calf in the back of the head with her front foot. Dropped like a stone. I actually think it was one of the best calves I ever breed. Sickening ha, that one still pees me off lol.

Albert Johnson

A man near here wouldn't rise that early in the day and is a real night owl when it comes to doing the everyday jobs. A few years ago he was putting a bale into a ring feeder for a few cows on a particularly rough winters night using the front loader of the tractor. Perhaps the bad weather had the cows hungrier than usual or he was in a rush to get back indoors as whatever happened he dropped the bale onto the heads of 2 cow's which broke there necks. I always thought that the driver's of the knackery lorry's must hear some absurd tales of woe regarding how stock went to meet there eternal reward.

_Brian

Albert Johnson wrote: »

A man near here wouldn't rise that early in the day and is a real night owl when it comes to doing the everyday jobs. A few years ago he was putting a bale into a ring feeder for a few cows on a particularly rough winters night using the front loader of the tractor. Perhaps the bad weather had the cows hungrier than usual or he was in a rush to get back indoors as whatever happened he dropped the bale onto the heads of 2 cow's which broke there necks. I always thought that the driver's of the knackery lorry's must hear some absurd tales of woe regarding how stock went to meet there eternal reward.

I’ll admit to leaving a bale doelwn on a weanlings head feeding cattle after work maybe 10 years ago on a winter evening. Poor lights and driving rain
Didn’t notice until I had put the tractor in shed and walked back to yard. He was passed out at that stage.

Big scramble to roll bale back with loader and I got him round. Had to lift him to a shed, vet out next day and gave me anti inflammatory and pain killers for him. Got up in few days and after a week was back in yard.

Close one.

Albert Johnson

_Brian wrote: »

I’ll admit to leaving a bale doelwn on a weanlings head feeding cattle after work maybe 10 years ago on a winter evening. Poor lights and driving rain
Didn’t notice until I had put the tractor in shed and walked back to yard. He was passed out at that stage.

Big scramble to roll bale back with loader and I got him round. Had to lift him to a shed, vet out next day and gave me anti inflammatory and pain killers for him. Got up in few days and after a week was back in yard.

Close one.

It's something I'm always conscious of especially in sheds with narrow feed passages, it would be very easy to pin a head between the tyre and barrier during the melee that ensues during feeding. I've heard of a few incidents and I'm amazed that it doesn't happen more often tbh. I reckon that you couldn't have the feed passage wide enough to minimise the above risk and it's handy to be able to have a few bales in and still have space for parking the tractor. A lad locally had a mesh screen hinged above the barrier that he could close back the heads while putting in bales in a very tight passageway, I thought it was a good idea.

sonnybill

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

I see cows doing it here the whole time. Never had a casuality but it can be vicious at times. Cow usually gets a whack from me when I see it.

Same as that , I hate a bully

whelan2

sonnybill wrote: »

Same as that , I hate a bully

Wouldn't it be great to give the bullies in real life a whack with a stick, a good half inch wavin pipe would do

farmer2018

If the E.coli came from the milk is there a chance that if the cow has a calf in the future the same could happen? What are peoples experiences?

gozunda

farmer2018 wrote: »

If the E.coli came from the milk is there a chance that if the cow has a calf in the future the same could happen? What are peoples experiences?

Could have just been a sub clinical infection perhaps - E coli from mastitis could have been passed to the calf?

farmer2018

gozunda wrote: »

Could have just been a sub clinical infection perhaps - E coli from mastitis could have been passed to the calf?

No because the cow had no mastitis.