6. Water and feed pans
I like to gather extra feed and water pans
before calving. If heifers need to be
put in the barn, they have to be penned separately with their calf which means
we need several feed pans and water holding tubs.
Think of this like a calf sized
incubator. If we have a calf born on a
cold day or they have a mom that doesn’t want to lick them and dry them off, we
put them in this Hot Box. It has a
heater that warms and dries the calf, so I can go check on other cows and
calves. It has a flap that the calf can
walk out when they want to, but I have only had one calf ever walk out in the
last 7 years.
That’s right! We have blankets made just for calves to
wear. These work great for calves that
need to stay in the barn or are abandoned by their mother. I also keep lots of thick old blankets around in case we don't have room in the Hot Box or to keep a calf warm on the way home from the pasture.
Heifers are our first time mothers. Unlike, people we do not have Lamaze classes
for these girls. We check them at night
sometimes multiple times to make sure they aren’t having trouble. A good flashlight is a must…usually one that
is rechargeable.
As our heifers have babies, we move them to
another pasture. We have found that it
reduces the amount of illness we have in the calves, but it adds a level of
confusion and constant change. I have
found that taking a piece of the boys sidewalk chalk keeps everyone up to
date. I mark off when we move a new pair
then anyone who goes through that gate knows how many cows to look for.
The list of cows on our clip board becomes very important about
day 35. Often we sort the cows that are
left to calve and bring them to one pasture for closer observation. At the end of 45 days and 200+ calves, things
start to blur in the mind and sleep deprivation may be setting in as well, so no I don't know that calf 155 goes with cow number 15. Disappointing to some of you I am sure. If a calf gets sick, we can quickly look at the list and locate his mama if they need to be kept in the "hospital" pen for closer observation and treatment.
We try to tag every calf when they are
born. Why? If the cow or calf gets sick and needs to go
home, then we know who they belong to, just like babies and their mamas have
matching bracelets in the hospital.
Think about the wheeled basinets in the
hospital. We can put a calf in this
sled, place the net over the top of him so he doesn’t fall out and move him to
the barn or take him to the veterinarian.
Since the calf is on ground level, the mama will follow the calf if we
tow it behind a truck or 4 wheeler and we can keep her in the pen until the
calf is ready to be with her again. This can be a real back saver. You might imagine that a slimy wet calf is hard to hang on to and nearly impossible for 2 people to try to wrangle. With the sled, we can slide the calf in (even if they weigh over 100 pounds) and 2 or 3 of us can lift it onto the truck or into the trailer.
What questions to do you have about our soon to be here babies? What pictures would you like to see? Let me know here or on my Facebook page and I will see if I can get the information or visuals you want.
Have a great week!
-A Kansas Farm Mom
On a recent tv show it showed veterenarians trying to help cows deliver babies with great difficulty. The calves were finally delivered lifeless. Since cows and calves are so expensive and quite a loss if calves are stillborn, is there a way to get them breathing again instead of just assuming they're gone? One time they showed that pouring cold water on the calf's nose will cause them to gasp and then start breathing. Calf twins were both stillborn because they were in the wrong position and sufficated. Why would they not try to recussitate them?
ReplyDeleteNancy,
DeleteSince I did not see this show, I can't answer for that particular situation, but I will try to explain what we do on our farm to evaluate the situation.
I had not heard about the cold water, but we often take a clean piece of straw and stick it up the calf's nose (little bit) only enough to tickle the nose and make the calf sneeze. Often when a calf has a difficult birth there is more fluid than normal in his lungs and airway and this helps to clear it. We used to try to hang them upside down to get the fluid to drain, but researchers have found the straw in the nose to be more effective and less stressful to the calf. Often once the calf sneezes, they start breathing well.
If these twins were in the wrong position, I assume that they spent quite a bit of time getting the legs and heads into the birth canal. It is our experience that if you put you fingers in a calf's mouth during a difficult delivery that it almost always will suck on your fingers or bite you. It could be possible that the calves showed no sign of life before they even got them out of the cow. After 45 minutes to an hour of difficult delivery there probably would have been no life left to save in the calves, but like I said I did not see the exact situation. Additionally, our experience has been that not all veterinarians are created equal just as the fact that not all doctors are created equal. There is a lot to consider and hard to evaluate even when you are in the middle of the birth.
Hope this helps.