Calving cows - After they are born

[nuttalls]

we have had our 3rd calf up to yet this year. but her mum kicked it, rolled it left it. What aperformance weve had, calf home then day after mum home. tied her up,put her in crush head to gate,but no anyway on day 3 she now lets it suck 1 side on her own. she has had previous calves. glad human,s dont do this jean jordeth,

[Inger]

Have you had a wet Winter? I've talked to a number of farmers who have had just the same, from a number of their cows. I myself had a cow who pushed her calf into the world and had no interest in it thereafter. We ended up hand-raising it. The previous year she had reared her bull calf fine. The only difference was the dreadful Winter before the birth of her second calf.

We've concluded that the very wet Winter we had, pushed the cows to their limit and even though they hadn't lost all their condition, they had mentally given up and had no energy left to look after their calves with. Some farmers had so much rain that weakest calves, just drown in the puddles. We all hope never to have a Winter like that again. It came after a drought during the Summer for some areas of NZ and feed was thin in the sheds. Our cows are kept outside on most NZ farms and hay/silage is fed to them to supplement their Winter grazing. There was less hay about and it was so expensive that when we ran out of hay, it was cheaper for us to buy dairy pellets for our cows, rather than hay. Some of the older cows didn't like the pellets very much, but most of the heifers would eat it.

We still had a few calves that were slow to get up and get going. I had to feed colostrum to 3 calves this last season. Normally the calves are up and drinking within 20 minutes of birth. So it was rather a shock to see these problems cropping up. Molasses is a good boost to get the cow up and looking after her calf. I got really desperate with the second heifer that didn't want to look after her calf, so I poured molasses down the length of the calf's back and the mother licked the calf clean, which aided the bonding process and stimulated the calf to get up for a drink. I was glad it worked, as I didn't want to hand-rear a second calf.

I hope you can get your cow and calf bonded. Cow reared calves do much better than hand reared calves.

[Broomcroft]

I had a cow that would not accept her calf at all. She tossed it in the air and I got very near to the point of having to separate them to stop her killing it. But just managed not to do that.

So I kept them together in a 15 foot square pen for about 2 months. For the first week, I trained the calf to come to the bottle and just gave it enough to keep it strong but still hungry. Although, every now and again I would give it plenty to fill it up.

When I gave it just enough, that would make it very hungry and it would pester mom. It got more and more confident and more aggressive and eventually he trained mom to suckle her. As I say, that initial process took a week and now you can't separate them.

Sometimes sheep will reject and ignore and lambs that appear to be inferior or weak. Natural selection I suppose. It was as though once the cow realised this was a rally healthy strong calf, she wanted it.

Mom will be culled this year though!

[nuttalls]

hi inger and clive, after lots of head tying bronwen loves her calf, i took floss the dog and that did the trick, now the cow is very protective,and very halter trained it took her 4 days to clean as well. were going to take her and babe and 3 others shows. i,v been halter training them thats been fun!!! jean jordeth

[wagra dexters]

This topic came up before, ages ago.
My mother says they used to use sugar to avoid cows rejecting their calves. I don't know how scientific that is, but perhaps the cows might have a touch of hypoglycaemia.
Whatever it is, sugar does work. A Murray Grey friend had a big problem with rejection. Following my mother's advice, he poured molasses over the hay for the springing cows and never had the problem again.
Margaret