Calving!

[domsmith]

Started calving last week slow and steady.

But whilst feeding the cows out on the hill i noticed a cow who had clearly calved. fearing the worst i got back to the farm and went out on the bike to find what had happened.
found a healthy little black beauty sat on his own. cow dutifully came over to check on him. he hadnt sucked and needed quite a lot of effort to get sucking.
whilst doing this i noticed another cow on the hill, this time when i get over she has popped a calf and its bloody dead! if i am honest i usually only see 60-70% born and they are nealry always fine anyway, so dont know what went wrong. looks like it never got a breath squashed tongue in the mouth.

i could have kicked myself round the farm, for missing the first one, but to miss 2..... well i dont know.
i think i have started a little earlier than i intended and not been on top of my game yet.

to loose one so early puts the pressure on!

dominic

[ann]

Sometimes with the best will in the world we can't be every where, I lost a calf 2 years ago and I couldn't understand why as it was perfect, however i watched her like a hawk last year and when the calf was born the bag didn't break and it was still full of fluid, the cow was starting from the rear end so unless I had been there the calf would have drown in the bag, it was so strong that it hadn't burst when the calf was born and it took some breaking, this makes me almost 100% sure that this is why the first calf was dead but perfect. Since this happen I have spoken to several people who have had the same problem, so maybe this is why your calf was dead, and unless you had been there when she dropped it there would have been nothing you could have done.


good luck with the rest of your calving

[Louisa Gidney]

I've chewed on for 2 weeks with a calf that was chilled to start with, never got properly warmed up & 2 attacks of scour. He's finally turned the corner. In contrast a fit 6 week old calf went off its legs on Good Friday, suspected meningitis. It hasn't been able to stand since and refused to suckle this morning, so had it put down. What a rubbish Easter it has been.

[Rob R]

We've had a couple of calves go down like that this winter Louisa, though they were six months old. I'd weaned them shortly after housing as they were all getting out of the shed so we put them in the high security pen (the one with a finished feed barrier). I regret it now, thinking the double dose of stress wasn't good but didn't want calves going through the neighbour's garden over new year so it had to be done. It's so annoying when they go down - the second one was very bright & alert, just with a complete inability to stand, it just looked like it was lying down happily.

[Mima]

Hello there,

Has anyone any cases of Schmallenburg (or how ever you spell it!) ? The full spectrum of effects of this are still being discovered, we have had one Beltie calf deformed and confirmed, the rest so far show no external signs and Dexters will start to calve this week, so keeping a watchful eye.

Mima

[Rob R]

No signs here in the sheep yet, but the cows are about a month off calving, so keeping fingers crossed. I haven't heard of anyone else in the area having a problem yet either. It seems to have been a year for a lot of finger crossing...

[Louisa Gidney]

I'm wondering about Schmallenberg in the sheep. Have had 2 ewes abort, which has never happened before, since I started with sheep in 1985! Several look not to be in lamb, again unheard of.