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Even Angus cattle can have troubles

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Soapweed

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Right at noon, we had two heifers calving. One heifer had her calf, and the other was coming right so we went in to dinner. After we came back out, the second calf was born and doing good. The mother was deader than a doornail, and Peach Blossom pulled about four feet of afterbirth out of the heifer's throat. She had choked to death.

Cows after calving will eat the afterbirth, to "hide the evidence" from coyotes and other predators. Kids eating buggers do it for much the same reason, to hide the evidence. :? :???: :wink:

Anyway, we sure lost a nice mild-mannered nice-uddered good potential cow. :cry: She'd have been a good one. On the other side of the coin, an alert brand inspector at the Martin Livestock Auction last week found two red heifer calves wearing our Spearhead brand. They had strayed away from their home pasture back before we preconditioned the calves in September. I knew we were short, but figured they had probably died. Anyway, I am proud of the brand inspector for helping us find the strays.
 
Soap,

Sometimes stuff happens, glad your calves were found.....I generally cull any problems, but a deal like this, well if it is a good hiefer calf she had, and another cow can raise her well, would she be a keeper. I'd say so if she grew up to merit it. I can be pretty hard on culling, buit sometimes things happen that have nothing to do with genetics,


PPRM
 
Soap, that message was kinda like "what do you want to hear first, the good news or the bad news?"

Sure sorry about your heifer. Darn it all anyway!!!!

But glad you got those heifer calves back. Yep, good job on the brand inspectors part. Doesn't it make you wonder what happens in a state without a brand inspection?
 
I hear you on the tough luck.I am calveing 40 1st calf heifer's this year of those I have one that is/was a poor doing sickly looking thing I was trying to get some weight on her but she has looked like this since early fall about 2 weeks ago I went to feed and there lays a cow dead she had rolled up on her back and died as she was heavy with calf.Of all the cows to die the worst one in the whole herd did.I was sad but glad it was her and not a good one.

Last night I had a heifer calve she was laying down when I went out to check her they calf was all out with the sack over its head and neck I quickly got it off the calf lived but it was a close call.

The worst wreck I ever had was easter morning 2003 My silage pile was about 12" high and I feed it with a hot wire the cattle had eaten away at the bottom the top caved in and killed 7 cows in one shot I had lots of orphan calves that day. :cry2:
 
As long as we are telling sad cow tales here, Denny's reminded me of something that happened to us in W. Montana.

We had a bad lightening storm and lightening struck a tree with 5 cows and 4 calves under that tree. Killed them all; and get this: they weren't pairs. So we had dead cows and bum calves from that deal.
 
Faster horses said:
As long as we are telling sad cow tales here, Denny's reminded me of something that happened to us in W. Montana.

We had a bad lightening storm and lightening struck a tree with 5 cows and 4 calves under that tree. Killed them all; and get this: they weren't pairs. So we had dead cows and bum calves from that deal.
Click to expand...

That happened to my wife's uncle 12 Milk cows under an oak tree killed them all.To make it worse he had dropped lightning coverage a week earlier.
 
As a young man, my dad worked for Fred Tuchenhagen north of Gordon, Nebraska. The ranch was of modest size, but Dad says everytime he made the rounds checking cattle, he went through two states and four counties. Four corners came together, which were Shannon and Bennett Counties in South Dakota, and Sheridan and Cherry Counties in Nebraska.

Fred told my dad about one of the saddest deals he ever saw. It was a beautiful spring day, and he was feeding his Hereford pairs. About thirty or forty calves were kicking up their heels having fun playing on such a nice day. They went running and bucking down along a fence, and frolicked right out onto some rotten ice. The ice gave way, and the whole herd of little calves fell into the water and perished.
 
When I was young, I'd let these things get to me, now ai kinda take a deep sigh and deal with it. "When I was young"' Heck, in the cow business 41 still is young, LOL,


PPRM
 
last year my first calf the cow prolapsed and died the next one the wolves killed the cow. (wait....what wolves??!! There was no snow to show tracks so it could NOT have been wolves....must have been "coyotes") At times like these, I just have to remind myself they are all born to die...some just take shorter trips than others!
 
Hanta Yo said:
I'm just glad we aren't the only ones with hard luck stories...
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An old Rancher told me that everyone takes a turn,I told him that I did'nt want mine.
 
Yes, The brand inspector did a great job! And I live in KS where the is no inspection. Were the calves being sold by some one who should not have had them??? Like they would not have known your brand or could not have found it out. Anyway-my Dad told me about a cow that did the same by choking on afterbirth,but what is one to do about it-it is a process of nature!. About a month ago had a heifer calf and really did not know if she should claim the calf or not-well she decided to like it when she was in a pen for a couple of days-appeared to be doing fine-turned them out and later in the day calf was dead.Who knows what happened-had a twin to put on her. Good luck to all of the people calving! :)
 
Talking about grafting twins...when in Wyoming, we had a cow with a nice calf that we found dead after it was a few days old. So we grafted a calf on the cow as she was a nice Hereford cow. Few days later, the calf was dead. So we visited with the vet, he said there was obviously something wrong with the cows milk. Never had that happen before or since. Always something different going on.

Talking about that, remember the 'water heads' we used to get in the 60's and 70's? We had straightbred Herefords then and haven't had a water head for a long time. Wonder what caused that?
 
Soap, Did you get to the bull bash??? The radio station was playing the song Big balls in town. Made me laugh.. Was through your country Saturday. I went to Bingham to a funeral. It was good to be in the Sandhills, although it did look dry......
 
Faster horses said:
And those were Herefords, too, Soapweed?

Do you know what caused it? Was it hereditary?

Oh for the good ole days...NOT!
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Hydrocephalus........Went along with dwarfism.
Resulted by trying to breed "baby beef". It was common in other breeds also.
 

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