Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Rural Living How's your calving going?

We are little over halfway done here and the weather has been great. It literally warmed up a few days before they started hitting the ground...

Knock on wood we are around a 2% death loss and a couple of those were calves that we are pretty sure got stepped on.

Heifers have been going very well, haven't lost a calf with them yet. Couple wild pushers/head butters at birth but they settled down a couple later and mothered up fine.
Calved out around 35 so far and have pulled 3 (big)calves. One set of twins and the heifer took them both.


Very thankful here.



How's it going on your place?

Sorta just getting started on some early ones.


Heifers are about half calved out.


No trouble so far.

Glad to hear Jim.


Man, talk about perfect weather.

A half inch of rain wouldn't hurt my feeling though. Guys are talking about hitting the fields next week.....

Yes. I would not mind too much if it rained some.


We have about 500 acres pre worked and all our hay ground is rolled.


Are you still looking at a three point bale unroller?

Only the two pair of twines we had to pull. Thanks to Jake's hard work, they are doing well. We are hardly started though.

Jim, yeah, we should get a bale unroller. Don't need it now but when it's too muddy to use the pickup one would be nice.


I see one listed on a local auction.

Bale Master....

Never heard of it so looked up the specs and it should handle 3000lbs which is way more than any of our bales weigh.




Richard, next week you and Jake will be busier!

Starting to get into the thick of things here.

The calves we have are doing pretty well. Pulled a big bull out of a heifer, a couple of onery mothers, and one sluggish/ dumb calf. But everyone else has been good.The weather has turned pretty chitty. Pretty good thunderstorm coming through tonight. 9-10 days of the next 14 shows thunderstorms/rain showers. Can't seem to get close to caught up work wise.

Ben, any pics?

Still going...

Holding my breath things continue down the path they are headed.

Got some heifers coming up. Never look forward to that.

Our policy on heifers is, if she is trying, but not had it, we call the vet. If she has it before the vet arrives, we call and stop them.

Richard, do you pull many calves yourselves?

Haven't really been taking any pics lately.

Heifers 1st calf








Here's one from a few weeks ago. Probably couldn't even get up to that spot anymore.

Ben, that heifer is in good shape!

Good chow makes all the difference in the world.



You're too busy to be fiddlin' with a camera....grin



Great pics man, your boy is getting bigger!

Ben, good to see you post.

Sam, not long time now. I used to with mixed results.

We have 6 calls so far...11 more to go..
The first 4 we had were the gelbvieh heifers we bought them from from a local girl that AI them from their herd bull...(squeaking by ranch).. They all had no trouble and are all good mamas..they were babysitting for each other the next day...Calvs are doing fine..
Check out SQB ranch. They have some nice Bulls

Just got home from a dystocia call, mature cow with calf showing 1 leg and head out, 1 leg way back. Got him pushed back in and got the other leg up, pulled him by hand then. She'd been too long, calf died while owner was trying to help her before he called me. Had a heifer dystocia this afternoon, just a normal presentation big bull calf, pulled and got live bull calf.

In general it seems birth weights are heavier this year. Probably more uterine prolapses. Don't see as many dystocias as we did years ago, more attention to calving ease bulls and we do more heifer pelvimetry that will catch some potential wrecks. February and a lot of March was very cold, it was rough for quite a while.

We have so many fall calving cows around here it sure mixes up the work-today we were semen testing bulls, pregging fall cows, working fall calves and of course the dystocias. Oh, horses, dogs & cats too!

I'd better go to bed and get a nap in-in case somebody has problems tonight!

My nephew tells me that he is down to 4 cows left to calve. Only lost one and he's pretty sure it was a still born. Pretty amazing considering the weather they had while calving.

34 live ones so far with 9-10 more to calve... Have had to pull 2 so far, but the heifers were on the smaller size and weren't supposed to get bred, but the bull had other ideas obviously. Haven't noticed any large calves so far like I've heard others talk about.

Glad to hear everyone is having good luck.


Doc, I don't know how you do it but I'm glad you do!


Calving on dry ground here and right in the final big push for new calves. Perfect weather and that makes life all the easier.


Little extra hay on hand and we've been feeding more lately. Keep em' happy and maybe help keep them off the fences trying to get every last new blade of grass.

Got one calf that is just a dink.

I don't know what it is, but that calf just isn't "right".

About a week old now... Which surprises me. I didn't think it'd live this long. I don't think it will make it, but if it does, it will probably go into the feed pen.

Sometimes you just get dink like that. Hate to see it.

LAst heifer calved a couple days ago. Missed her until dark of course and she was a bit confused and wouldn't let the calf suckle. A bag of frozen colostrum. Threw them in a pen/jug for the night. Next morning I ran her into a chute and got the calk to suck 3 quarters out. Into a jug and let them be. This morning, all is good.

Ended up losing that calf. There was something wrong with it from birth. I saw it as soon as it was born and knew something was wrong.

Sick calf




In other surprises...

I can usually tell when a cow is gonna calf. I'm pretty good at it. (Most of the time)

But one of them fooled me. Didn't bag down even a little. She had it and surprised me. If I hadn't noticed how she was acting, I never would have had a clue, and gone and found her calf.

This one is bright eyed and bushy tailed.



Raising cattle is pretty damn unpredictable. Still. Even when you think you have a good set of cows and a good bull.

We pulled a big bull calf from a heifer today. A cow had her calf by herself.

Found two orphaned twins yesterday in the main bunch of cows.

At least I think they were twins. Maybe 50-60 pounds apiece...


Down to 11 heifers left, home stretch!

I spoke too soon about that calf dying...

This morning I found it. Not in great shape. Needs some TLC.

Had to go to town for some milk replacement. On Easter, dammit. Only thing open was Walmart, and they had a small bag of it.

Got a half gallon down it.

Guess we'll see. Not counting any chickens yet, but it has a better chance now. I'll not leave a calf to die if I can help it.

What was deal with that one?


Did you see a cow with it?

Had it nursed?
(if not it's dead...)

Good luck Barry! Any calves we get now are early calves. Of course, you can figure on a few of those.

We calve on grass, and hope for good weather, but even later in the season the weather can be bad on any day.

Yeah, it got colostrum. It's a bit over a week old. It's mama had one of those low. low hanging udders, and it just never took off.

I had written it off as dead, but then yesterday morning, I saw it and brought it in. Not sure at all it'll make it, but it has a better chance now.

Not sure what causes a bad udder like that, but I'm gonna sell that cow.

I had two of the last ones born yesterday. Damned buzzards got after one cow trying to get to the afterbirth while it was still hanging out. A 223 does a good job of persuading them to leave.

Had to shoot that calf this afternoon.

Hate to do that, but it wasn't going to get better at all. In fact, after feeding it, it got worse. There was something not right about that calf from the moment it was born.

Hate to kill one, but sometimes that's the kindest thing to do.

That's the only option sometimes. Better to put it out of it's misery than to have it linger for weeks.

We just had our third pair of twins. A mature cow, we will watch close in the morning.

Did a C-section this evening, heifer trying to have a 134# bull calf. All the rest of this bunch has been having 65-80 lb calves, no trouble. They let her go too long before catching her, calf didn't survive.

Heifer has a chance to stay to stay in the herd if she will adopt a twin from a couple days ago.

My associate called me last night for a little extra help on a C-section he was prepping. Mature Angus cow, empty weight no more than 1200# in good body condition.

Overdue by her ultrasound date, posterior presentation with rear hooves of calf just protruding from her vulva. Huge hooves.

Delivered a heifer calf that was the biggest I've ever seen in 38 years of practice. Hoof tape said 140 lbs, but knew calf was a lot bigger than that. 204# this morning on a scale. Yeah- 204 lbs!

She was bug-eyed, limp as a rag. Thick neck & body. Unable to hold her head up. I checked for for defects, but really didn't find anything obvious. Gave them a guarded prognosis on survival-she was dead when they went out this am.

My previous record was 162# bull calf out of a 1700 lb SimX cow 6 or 8 yrs ago. He lived about a week-never could get up or stand on his own.

I guess "Facebook" says there was a 208# calf this spring out in Nebraska somewhere.

Had three a.i. Bred heifers have heifer calves on Tuesday. First one no problems, second had to drop her calf right next to the first one and she got confused on which calf was hers. Both heifers got worked up and we had to separate them til she figured out which calf was hers. Went to check her later and had a third one on the ground. All are together now and seem to be well adjusted to motherhood. Barry

Our caves are coming fast. Four pair of twins so far. Son Jake is putting in about 6 hours a day just on cows, and calves.

Why all the twins Wabigoon? Extra special bull?

This is interesting to me as I've just started getting into cattle the past couple of years. I saw C_Hell note that he'd had a large number of twins born this year.

I looked it up and the occurrence of twins averages around .5% or 1 in 200.

With goats, generally it's the condition of the female that results in twins. Good and excellent weight/health in a mature doe will usually result in twins (occasionally triplets). Young and first time bred nannies are more likely to have a single kid. Low weight and poor conditioned nannies often result in a single kid. Freemartinism in goats is very rare, I've never seen it. We love twins with one buck one doe.....one to keep for the herd, one for income.

I have 3 cows that were late calving this year, and one finally calved yesterday. These are cows having their fourth calf, so they are proven producers. I'm wondering if it's the bull. He's a registered Black Angus, good temperament, throws good calves, and none of the cows have ever had a problem calving. Maybe it's just a freak thing. I hope so.

That bull probably throws big calves. Some do.

I've seen some angus do it as well, but not often.

Last calf......finally. That made 2 this weekend.

Barry, this bull has never thrown a big calf. Never had a problem with a cow having a calf......knock on wood.

Damn!



Pulled a grand total of three calves all spring.


80-100lb bull calves all three.
(bred heifers)



Thanks for all the great posts, very interesting.

Never heard of a calf that big.

That's the largest I ever heard of.

Years ago, I was working for a fellow that had a dairy. He AI'd a few (8-10) of his largest Holstein cows to a Chianina. We had to pull every calf and lost all of them because they were too big for the cows to birth. Never weighed one, but they were huge.

No doubt, that's a huge calf...

Half weaned already!

My associate had a section about month ago that weighed 175 on a spring scale. I didn't actually see that one.

No doubt it was "overdue" also.

This am I'm off to semen test 14 bulls, and this afternoon I have 70 fall calves to work and we will ultrasound and bcs-age their mommas. And whatever else needs done today...

Haha!

Yeah....nice leisurely pace.

Last calf I had was first calf heifer that picked the only puddle of water in the 10 acre field to drop her calf face first into.. one of the nicest angus heifers I had also.. Was the same day I found a 6 week old calf laying in the creek for no apparent reason and looked like it had been there all day.. drug it out of the water, got some warm milk into it, dried it off and covered it up to try and warm it up, only to have it die anyways...

We did a little mini-branding today and got 15 more late pairs out.

8-9 left to go.


They are about slicked off enough to make reading the bleach marks hard to see but they are all marked late to late as fuuck....

Mostly old cows and a couple weirdos that are always late. Pain in the ass. Flies, haystack is getting about gone, etc.....

Vet did a fine job on the ultrasound.

Good evening from Wabigoon Ontario Sam. Son Jake tells me we are down to about nine as well. You, and your father have more cows of course. Now if the market would just perk up.

Richard, greetings, enough about cows....


How is the fishing?

Slow, slow Sam. I' am better at raising cattle.

Talked to a buddy yesterday that had a prolapsed cow... 3 year old. He fixed her several months ago, and kept her until a week or so back, and took her to the sale, as she was in great shape. Fat even.

She brought $375.


I have a cow with a low suspended udder I need to sell. Hell, at those prices, I ought to just have her butchered. I'm sure she'll eat just fine.

Down to seven cows left, for us, not so bad.