Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Rural Living Lost A Good Cow Yesterday

Had one of my better cows die yesterday. Middle age cow, bred with her fifth calf, didn't think she was due for another month or so. Showed no signs of being sick. Only visible sign of anything out of the ordinary was a little blood coming out of her rear end, which leads me to wonder if it could have been something calf related.

I hate to lose a cow, as it's money down the drain. I know it's part of it, but I always find myself second guessing if I had missed something, or should have done something different.

Whenever I hear blood out the rear end, I usually think about Bovine Coccidiosis.

https://www.cattle.com/articles/title/Coccidiosis.aspx

Sux to lose a good cow...

It does suck to lose a good cow. Mid aged ones known the routines, that's worth a lot.

Yes, losing a good cow hurts.

Hurts both the pocket book and the heart. I like some of my cows more than I like some people.

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Outfit I worked with kept them on until they showed up barren. We've had some big old girls that were up to 18 before going down the road. It is good to have some around that know the routine where they do things like stop on the scale for weighing without a need for the head catch. Had lots with more years in than staff.

When I think of Coccidiosis, I think of younger cattle. Lots of times it's cattle moved to infected pastures. If this older cow hasn't been moved to a new pasture or new cattle brought into the pasture she was in, I would look for other reasons. Not saying it wasn't coccidiosis, but it's kinda unusual in older cattle.

From what you said about the blood coming from the rear end and no signs of being sick, I think you might have guessed right when you figured it might have been calf related.

I assume such a sadness can be butchered and eaten?

Would depend on what she died of.

She's probably pretty well priced now if you're interested.

Maybe if you're a buzzard, coyote, or possum.

What's worse, the rendering plants won't take anything over eighteen months old.

I have found that dead cows and such don't last very long if left on a good dry piece of ground away from the road and house. We have quite a population of coyotes around here that will strip a carcass down in short order. Not much left in a weeks time.

We bury most of the older deads, Can't dig frozen ground.

For a number of years, our county had a contract with a nearby rendering plant to come and pick up dead animals. It was an awful experience to get behind one of those trucks on a hot day. It was also even funnier to see the driver sitting in the truck, eating a sandwich, and everyone outside heaving and gagging because of the smell.

I have enough land, with no real close neighbors to complain, so I just drag a dead cow to a remote area and let nature take it's course. Our coyote population is way down here, so it's mostly buzzards and possums that do the work.

Coyote bait.

Yep!

Indeed. Guy up the road has used a couple this year, and Daughter #1 checked his progress while on a trail ride Saturday. She said he's up to 12 yotes so far.

yep it is sad to loose a good cow always made me sad, but now that this cow died i would put the cow out 300 yards from the kitchen window with my rifle ready. you will be surprised how even in a low coyote population area how coyotes show up.

Around here the feral hogs eat carcasses.

Hogs eat hogs. Have trail cam proof. Sorta lost my appetite for woods killed hogs.

Nasty cannibals. And some wonder why I don’t eat’em. Glad to shoot’em.

DF

Over the years around here, it seems coyotes won't dine on a cow if there were any shots or treatment efforts to save the critter. Only start eating if conditions and temps get really tough. Let a cow just tip over and die on her own, and she's gone in about 3 days.

What is she eating? Usually when you find one dead out of the blue on our ranch 90+ % of the time it happens it's a poison weed of some sort, or feed (corn stalks, sorghum, etc...) extremely high in nitrates.

When we had the cattle trucks we hauled a lot of retired dairy cattle to Beef Packers in Fresno,Ca. Every once in awhile we’d get a dead one and would haul it over to the rendering plant on the way out of town...... More than once you would see a couple wetbacks sitting on a bloated up cow with their lunch boxes enjoying a burrito and a soda lol.