Cow dry 2 months after calving

Biscuitus

She lost her calf a few days ago and I put her up the crush to milk her out and every quarter was completely dry. The calf was only born late March. I'm shocked. She's always been a poor milker but this is a whole other level.

longgonesilver

Sorry to hear about the calf, what happened him?

KatyMac

Is that why she lost the calf. Happened to me good few years ago. Calf died and I couldn't understand why, so was planning to get another to foster on to cow, but when I checked to make sure she didn't have mastitis or anything there wasn't a drop of milk. Calf had starved. It was in the days my father was looking over the cows/calves for me and he never noticed. He was happy that it was sucking and nobody ever thought the poor divil wasn't getting anything.

patsy_mccabe

Had a similar situation years ago when I started suckling. Bought a white charolais heifer thinking she had some shorthorn breeding in her. Her calf was the only calf not thriving. Got the vet to look at the calf. Vet looked around the yard at all the other calves and could see they were all thriving.
"Are you sure she has milk?" . It never occurred to me as the cow had a big enough bag. The first cow I culled from the place.

Bass Reeves

Biscuitus wrote: »

She lost her calf a few days ago and I put her up the crush to milk her out and every quarter was completely dry. The calf was only born late March. I'm shocked. She's always been a poor milker but this is a whole other level.

Well that's the decision made anyway

Biscuitus

longgonesilver wrote: »

Sorry to hear about the calf, what happened him?

I'm a little unsure of the exact cause. She's always been a poor milker so I bottle feed her calves for a few weeks until they lose interest. This calf wouldn't take to the bottle and looked like he was getting enough milk. It was only in the last few weeks that I noticed him going downhill. I put it down to her poor milk quality but I never would have imagined she dried up. The calf got sick so I rehoused them. I saw him sucking away at her several times and didn't think anything of it.

A hard lesson to learn to learn.

Albert Johnson

Biscuitus wrote: »

I'm a little unsure of the exact cause. She's always been a poor milker so I bottle feed her calves for a few weeks until they lose interest. This calf wouldn't take to the bottle and looked like he was getting enough milk. It was only in the last few weeks that I noticed him going downhill. I put it down to her poor milk quality but I never would have imagined she dried up. The calf got sick so I rehoused them. I saw him sucking away at her several times and didn't think anything of it.

A hard lesson to learn to learn.

Without wanting to sound as if I'm lecturing you but for the love of God and baby Jesus is there not enough hardship in suckling without drawing down more of it on yourself. By this I'm talking about bottle feeding the calf due to its dam's lack of milk. A suckler cow's only role is to produce and rear a worthwhile weanling, if she's not capable of the above without much intervention then she's not worth keeping imo.

I like to think of myself as a very patience individual but if she was a poor milker with me she'd be out the gate pronto because life is too short for that craic. I'd probably split them and sell the suck and her as a dry cow but either way she'd definitely never see the bull again. I can never understand lad's keeping cows that require you to do there job for them, a good cull will go a long way in the price of a replacement springer at any stage. I'm sorry about the calf but take it as a lesson that either the cow does the business or she's out the gate.

whelan2

What's the cows breeding?

Biscuitus

Albert Johnson wrote: »

Without wanting to sound as if I'm lecturing you but for the love of God and baby Jesus is there not enough hardship in suckling without drawing down more of it on yourself. By this I'm talking about bottle feeding the calf due to its dam's lack of milk. A suckler cow's only role is to produce and rear a worthwhile weanling, if she's not capable of the above without much intervention then she's not worth keeping imo.

I'd say the same thing if I heard someone on here doing the same thing but often farming on paper vs in practical are two very different things.

This is her heifer calf from 2018, now a mother to this 2 month old heifer calf. 3-4 weeks of bottle feeding twice a day when she was a calf and I now have a lovely cow with lots of milk that went in calf first serve, calved this lovely future replacement heifer unassisted and is now back in calf again.


If I culled the cow I'd have lost this fabulous cow. The mother is gone now but I do feel the extra work was worth it when I see the payoff.

Excuse the weeds! Drought burnt up the farm as you can see from the yellow grass so I had to abandon all plans of topping or spraying until it rained again.

whelan2 wrote: »

What's the cows breeding?

Angus