Started here today. Only brought her in from field yesterday. Heifer calf.
Pretty solid looking calf.
1st one calved on Friday, few days early so probably in all the mayhem of the storm, the stress brought it on (shed doors blown off & loads of trees down in the yard). A lovely Lisna Sir Bull calve, calved herself and up and sucking in minutes. Hes a good solid calf. She is a AAx cow and I've never had to handle her.
it’s a strange one in the fact it’s when the two are sucking that she’s kicking. If I let in the weaker lad on his own, she stands quiet but then when I let in the second lad she’s kicking one of them.
I’m still letting them in to her twice a day with cow in head gate. Next move I’m going to put her into the slats with 5 other cows. Going to shut out all the calves for a night and then let them in hungry and see where the two end up in the mayhem. They may well end up sucking one of the other cows which would be fine.
Be doing this on Friday as will have more time over the weekend to monitor how things are going.
I’ll keep ye posted.
How many days do yous think time is?
Hear people saying an animal calved before or after her time, but how long is time.
290 days?
285 to 290 here on average.
Heifer calves tend come early ~ a week. bull calves tend to go over time - could be a week to 10 days.
We work off 290 days as all would be to continentals. Have had some at 282days and one went to 295
Chance them both at her now in a pen, not the crush, giving her a bucket of ration. She dont like the thought of a 2nd one at her but might used to it in the crush just train her to the 2 if them in a pen
As for gestation, if you can look up the days for both the bull and cow/heifer on ICBF and take the average. Seems to work. A lot of these newer 5 star bulls now, have lower gestation.
tried it in the pen. She’s grand when eating the nuts but kicks when nuts gone.
My AAx cows are 280-284, LMx 283-288 & LM around 290. I'm finding as I breed to purer LM the gestation increases.
try pick up a powder type feed, like a Weanling mix/maize powder idea that has nuts and powder mixed in. Or mix something yourself in a bucket. The powder feed slows down how fast she will eat the bucket of nuts. They tear through nuts here while they much slower with a finer feed.
If you can find a large round rock and put it in the bucket so she has to lick the nuts from around it. I used to that with horses that bolt their feed.
can you put a spancil on her two rear legs? Just so she can’t kick? As long as the calves are not getting badly kicked they will work around her over time.
I've had it here, it's just time and repetition. The cow eventually gives in, had been worried when letting them out but calves end up feeding at different times and again when they big enough they both stick to her
That only makes them contrary
have 5 other cows shut out from their calves for tonight and so be letting her in with all the cows and calves in the morning and see how that goes.
As long as the other cows don't attack her - endangering the calves.
will leave all the cows together for a few minutes before letting in the calves.
quick update on this. The slats didn’t work as one calf made no effort to suck his own cow and tried a few other cows and got kicked away.
Took them back to their own pen and with patience and thickness, got them going. Leaving calves in full time with cow and Both calves sucking away.
The joys of sucklers…………
Cow calved last night, head down and in awkward position so had to get a neighbour to help. Got him out eventually & all good thankfully. LM7077 Pablo, big long calf. I'm impressed so be interested to see how he goes.
That's the 5th year in a row that Cow has had some sort of problem calving (back ways, upside down etc) so she's on the cull list (although I've said that every year).
Here I was thinking at last, teagasc was thinking of the poor old farmers. Tiredness, pain and aches,
https://www.teagasc.ie/news--events/daily/dairy/pain-relief-during-the-calving-season.php
First calf landed here an hour ago. A lisna sir bull calf out of a sim heifer at 284 days. Was big enough.
And another lisna sir heifer today aswell at 279 days out of a Lis na ri gucci cow.
Any pull or calve themselves. Maybe you get away fairly good because the cow is outwintered
I'd to pull the calf out of the springer alright but wasn't too bad.
The dry weather at the moment must be a blessing when Calving outdoors.
No work with this one, a grand way to find them.
Fantastic on so many fronts. Cows loosened out from exercise. No caked dung to harbour scour. No straw bedding. And to top it off a lively calf. Well done @Limestone Cowboy
I had another one yesterday evening that wasn't so fantastic. 4th calver calving with the head gone back but a very quiet cow so I threw a few nuts on the ground to her outside and she stood for me to straighten him up and pull him. She was licking him and looing at him before I left so I came back 2 hours later to see if he had sucked and she had fecked off and abandoned him. Brought the calf down home into the shed and thawed a can of beastings and fed him and have to go try find her now.
Keep the head up as we all have those types of ones from time to time. Hopefully today will get things back on track with that pair
