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

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.