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Heifer slipping calf

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  • 04-10-2021 3:32pm
    #1
    Registered Users Posts: 8,740 ✭✭✭


    Assume this lady has slipped below. She is 3 months to day from calving?

    Do I need to do anything? She is on an out farm with no easy way home for at least the next 3 weeks.





Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 2,421 ✭✭✭Jb1989




  • Registered Users Posts: 8,054 ✭✭✭funkey_monkey


    I'd try to take her home the hard way then. Don't think I'd leave her out there with colour of a cleaning for 3 weeks without some sort of intervention.



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,740 ✭✭✭893bet


    What is the intervention?



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,421 ✭✭✭Jb1989


    Possibly an antibiotics if her insides were moveing when they shouldn't be.

    Did you see any sign of a calf body or does it come after the cleaning in this instance?



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,421 ✭✭✭Jb1989


    Phone call to your vet now might be no harm if replies here are slow.



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  • Registered Users Posts: 8,054 ✭✭✭funkey_monkey


    Intervention might be an injection to induce the calf if it is not already out and antibiotics. Antibiotics only - if the calf is out.

    If the calf isn't out would be bad as it will start to go off inside and poison her and worst case scenario would be losing the cow if she couldn't birth it. I wouldn't expect a living calf at 3 months out from due date with that colour of cleaning unfortunately.



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,740 ✭✭✭893bet


    Def assume calf is gone.

    It will be Friday before I can get her home. Will ring the vet in the morning to see what they advise for treatment.



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,740 ✭✭✭893bet


    I walked the field as best I could and found nothing. But it’s a big square of ground. It’s raining now stop. And the fox could easily have it whipped.

    Gut feeling feeling says she still has it.



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,054 ✭✭✭funkey_monkey


    Done all you can do, just ask the vet what signs you need to look out for. Keep us posted and good luck.



  • Registered Users Posts: 837 ✭✭✭dohc turbo2


    Ur vet will most likely want her blood tested



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  • Registered Users Posts: 8,054 ✭✭✭funkey_monkey


    @893bet - did you get any word from the vet?



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,740 ✭✭✭893bet


    Isolate her and keep an eye. Unlikely to have passed the calf if there is something hanging out the back still and it can take up to a week. Cleaning and take another few days after that.

    Don’t touch the cleaning as it may be samonella as the most likely cause.

    Gonna have to wait till Friday in either case.



  • Registered Users Posts: 530 ✭✭✭RD10


    Had a 2nd calver do that few years ago.

    Same stuff hanging out the back of her, vet said she was likely about to abort rather than having just aborted and to keep an eye, I think the next morning there was a fetus on the ground.

    Mine was inside when it happened so was easy spot.

    I'd keep a eye out on yours with the colour of that. Make sure no smell etc.

    Best to ring your own vet for advice though.



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,054 ✭✭✭funkey_monkey


    @893bet how is she coming along now, any better?



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,740 ✭✭✭893bet


    Home since yesterday. Clean as whistle at the back. Father thinks she passed it as if she hadn’t there would always be a bit hanging as it wouldn’t break cleanly.


    Not sure what do do with her now. Either feed her on or sell and sell at xmas or sell soon enough.

    She was 555kg early July, and surely 600 now. But is tall and long and still growing rather than putting on flesh.



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,028 ✭✭✭minerleague




  • Registered Users Posts: 1,302 ✭✭✭Anto_Meath


    Get her checked out before you make any decisions. As said she could have had twins and lost one.



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,054 ✭✭✭funkey_monkey


    If there is another one I'd expect it to be poisoned by the aborted one.



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,421 ✭✭✭Jb1989


    Well 893, how she since?



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,740 ✭✭✭893bet


    100 percent. Never a sign of anything from her since.

    On nuts twice a day and loving life




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  • Registered Users Posts: 849 ✭✭✭Easten


    Was there huntsmen in the area? I had a heifer throw a calf before after them shooting in the same field. Hunting season opened last week too.



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,740 ✭✭✭893bet


    Unless a lone huntsman. Heavy boggy land and hunters would be very rare. The only thing I can think of is that I dosed her for worms the few weeks before with Curazole, but that is supposed to be safe during pregnancy.



  • Registered Users Posts: 849 ✭✭✭Easten


    Any of them "zole" treatments are harmless unless you give them about 5 times the dose and even then you'll just have a cow with a sick stomach for a day or two.

    From the pic the heifer looks in fine form, it she was distress or poor you'd think that might be a factor so for me I'd be thinking it must be something external happen her.



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,558 ✭✭✭older by the day


    I had a fr heifer slip one this time last year. Passing dirty stuff, for a few months after. I was talking to the vet and he said a fox probably took the foetus but she passed it a couple of months later, I found it on the slats . I never touched her. She went back in calf in may .



  • Registered Users Posts: 820 ✭✭✭Sugarbowl


    Found a cow with the cleaning hanging out of her this evening. No reason for it off hand. A big older cow of the bunch so wouldn’t be bullied. A May calver… didn’t see a foetus yet. Unless fallen into the slats. Gave her a dose of curafluke the first week of November. I thought of you 893bet when it happened. Surely it wouldn’t be the dose that cause it?! A real lesson for myself not to be counting my chickens before they are standing in the straw…



  • Registered Users Posts: 8,054 ✭✭✭funkey_monkey


    I would have thought the foetus would have been too big at this stage to go through the slats? She might have got trod on hit at the feeding gate.

    Lost one like that a few years ago - getting hit or trauma of some sort was the only conclusion we could think of.



  • Registered Users Posts: 666 ✭✭✭The man in red and black


    The only way to diagnose what caused abortions is examination by a vet, bloods and sending foetus and cleanings to the lab. If you do all of that you will get an answer on average 50% of the time. Unfortunately sometimes by the time the calf is actually aborted the bacteria that caused the infection is long gone, salmonella can be one that does this. Calves are swimming around in 50 litres of amniotic fluid to cushion them from trauma. Trauma is often blamed but rarely the cause.

    It's always worth investigating because if you find out you have something you can vaccinate for causing abortions you don't want to be waiting until the 2nd or 3rd abortion to find that out. Can also be related to mouldy silage at this time of the year.



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