Breach birth - first calf of the year

[ann]

Hi
Presented with a breach birth last night, thankfully mum and calf are both O.K. it set me wondering if any one has come up with any suggestions as to why we can go years without this problem and then get several in a herd of approx 15 in one year, discussing this with my personal midwife he also pondered on the fact that in a herd of about 130 cows he had had far more breach biths in the last year or so.

Maybe Duncan has a theory on this one? or anyone else, I know the DCS ask for info on assisted births, what do they do with it?

Ann

[Duncan MacIntyre]

Good old "Lady Luck" can play some very strange tricks with small numbers when we try to apply logic to it. This is why some herds can have a big percentage of heifer calves or vice versa, but overall things average out. This is why so many Dexter breeders refused to accept that the chondrosysplasia gene was a single gene and will on average give 25% bulldogs, 25% long legs and 50% short legs - the statistics only apply when looking at large numbers.

Incidentally, do you mean true "Breech" births or are you getting them hind legs first? True Breech means that the hind legs are tucked forward, either bent at the hocks or completely straight from the hips, so that the tail is presented.
I do not think there is any increase in breech births in recent years.

However we are seeing almost an epidemic of difficult calvings due to torsion of the uterus, where the whole uterus containing the calf placenta and fluid, is rotated so that the birth canal is twisted into a spiral. This is blamed on bigger deeper cows with big leggy calves - so the Dexter world will let this one pass by. In commercial dairy herds I would estimate we see 20 to 30 times the numbers that we used to.

I am not certain that the DCS has ever used the info available on assisted calvings, but if it is recorded it would be possible to spot bulls which had an unexplained high incidence of bad calvings. 99% of the time this info may not be needed, but improtant to have it there if we need it.

Duncan

[Duncan MacIntyre]

Yes its me again,

forgot to say in last post that I also suspect that the true incidence of "posterior presentations" ie just the hind feet coming, not breech, is almost certainly underestimated because many of them will be born without being seen.

Duncan

[Rob & Alison Kirk]

Before the birth of a calf, it has to turn inside the cow....if the calf is too big or mother is over fat, this may prove difficult or impossible causing a breach birth.

Our own cattle are winter housed with access to blocks and fed good quality hay/haylage. They receive no concentrates, the cows are not overfat and the birth weight of calves is approx 22kgs. Boram Dexters are typical dual-purpose cattle and produce sufficient milk for their calves without extra feeding. Extra feeding of a normal healthy Dexter will only cause difficulties at birth.

We use our own Dexter bulls and in 15 years of Dexters have never had a breach birth ..... perhaps one front leg being presented with a knee instead of a hoof preventing delivery of the calf which we can easily sort out providing we're there. Even this type of delivery can result in a dead calf (through strangulation) if it is not sorted out in time.

Look at your feeding management. Our system suits us and the cattle are happy, but everyone's Dexters are kept under different circumstances and what suits one herd may not be suitable for another.

Hope my comments will be of some assistance.


Alison Kirk
Boram Dexters

[ann]

Hi In Reply to the question was it a true breach the answer is yes, only a tail and the bum in the birth cannal.

In reply to the Kirks questions, yes this cow is a good doer, but she has reared a very big calf and has only been on a very limited hay supply since she came in, I never weigh my calves, I don't have the facilities, but the calf is quite small, once we got the legs back she just slid out with no effort on our part.

I don't feed concentrates and my cows are on a silage/straw mix, the 2 previous cows one was very thin and the other was carrying more weight than I would prefer, but she is the sort that would get fat on thin air, she is rearing a commercial calf which is growing like a mushroom and still looks very bonny

thanks for the comments anyway.

Ann :p :p

[Inger]

We had one cow this year who needed help with a calf coming backlegs first. The calf is long-legged and the cow is short-legged. I have to say that the 3 necessarily assisted births this year, were all for short-legged cows. In the previous two years, we used a different bull and only assisted slightly with 1 cow during that time. I don't believe that short-legged cows have sufficient internal room to enable a large calf to turn easily.

We had a long-legged heifer (1st calver) who had one of the largest calves born this year - 30.2 kgs completely unassisted. She is not tall in statue either, only coming up to waist height. Mind you, she had to push fairly hard. I won't be using that bull on heifers again. The bull is short-legged, but it must be hiding some large genes, as all his off-spring have been larger than average so far. Not good for first-calvers. A trap for young players.

[ann]

Unfortunetly a short legged bull, is just quite often a large bull with short leggs and they often throw big calves, thats why I very rarely use anything but the non shorts.

There are some nice meduim sized non short bulls around

Ann

[Inger]

I wish I'd known our bull was a carrier before I bought him. Still he throws lovely muscular calves, so I'll keep using him, just on 2nd or more calvers, that's all.

[Jo Kemp]

Probably teaching my granny to suck eggs but I see you have short-legged cows and a short-legged bull ... the risk of a bulldog (deformed) calf from short to short is 25% - none if you use short to long always, regardless of which is the short parent.
Jo