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Hello after a long furlough.

Silver said:
Soapweed said:
Silver said:
Welcome back Bob. And yes, if you have a good method of getting a calfs head straight when it's nose is touching it's hip, I'm all ears. In my experience to this point, when I run across this situation I don't try very long before I dig out the scalpel and local anesthetic.
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We had a cow in this predicament last spring. I checked on her, and realized she should be showing more progress because the feet had been showing for quite some time. I put her in the barn and into the headcatch, then put on gloves and worked on her for quite awhile with no success. Our oldest boy happened to be visiting and having supper with us that evening, so I called the house. Peach and he came up to the barn. Peach is very talented when it comes to getting a stuck calf out of a laboring cow, but she didn't have any better luck getting the calf than I did. I was debating which vet to call to make arrangements for a C-section, when our big strong blacksmith son asked if we minded if he gave it a shot. With sheer brute strength and the power of Peach's prayers, the calf emerged fit as a fiddle. :-)
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I think I possess the strength..... perhaps it is my short arms that are the source of my misfortunes. :???:
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When the head is back like this, sometimes it is hard to get a good grip. Putting your fingers in the eye sockets gives something to hang onto, and it is not detrimental to the calf. Another thought is that I love the "cleanliness" of wearing long plastic gloves, but if the chips are really down, a person might have slightly better grip going in with bare arms and hands. :?
 
Oh, I'm not afraid of grabbing a hold of anything that gives me traction, but first you gotta be able to reach that far.
 
gcreekrch said:
I haven't invested in one yet but our vet has a glove that has velcro-like grips at the fingertips. He claims it improves grip by a whole bunch.
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I've got one of those...and he's right....they're great!
 
I have been thinking of a snare like contraption to go in and get over the head.
Of course, it may just be handier to stock up on needles, anasthetic, scalpels and such for such emergencies.
 
In my younger days I did a fair amount of range calving here and there-nothing like doing an embryotomy laying on the shore of a lake in the dark in a pool of icy water. Since we did some management changes I've really got out of practice-Ty gets some experience helping a neighbor from time to time-his first arms in episode he untangled a set of twins. One of the most successful ranchers I knew up here used a model 94 30-30 for dystocia-how successful was he-well he rode broncs till he got a down payment on a ranch-eventually he had 500 cows and survived a partnership breakup with a son-in-law and a divorce a few years later-a bit rough around the edges but he was all cowboy and a good friend.
 
I worked for Clyde Weber in the mid forties and he showed me a trick that has saved two or three cows for me and one of a friend that I happened on that had been trying to turn a head back. The fact that I wear a 37 inch sleeve length shirt gives me quite an advantage so I never gave up easy and before I started the following method had already worked long enough to realize the calf was dead.......

This is the proceedure: Hook on to one foot putting on pressure and start skinning the hide off the leg as it comes further out. It takes a lot of pressure but you finally have the hide off clear to the shoulder and the leg pulls off at the shoulder. Do the same proceedure on the other leg. That gives you plenty of room to get the head turned around and a rope around the neck by which it comes easily.

My experiences were before veterinarys were readily available. I recommend a caesarean over the above but if everything else fails it works!
 
Bob M said:
I worked for Clyde Weber in the mid forties and he showed me a trick that has saved two or three cows for me and one of a friend that I happened on that had been trying to turn a head back. The fact that I wear a 37 inch sleeve length shirt gives me quite an advantage so I never gave up easy and before I started the following method had already worked long enough to realize the calf was dead.......

This is the proceedure: Hook on to one foot putting on pressure and start skinning the hide off the leg as it comes further out. It takes a lot of pressure but you finally have the hide off clear to the shoulder and the leg pulls off at the shoulder. Do the same proceedure on the other leg. That gives you plenty of room to get the head turned around and a rope around the neck by which it comes easily.

My experiences were before veterinarys were readily available. I recommend a caesarean over the above but if everything else fails it works!
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There was an oldtimer out here that did the same thing, and I have had it filed in the back of my mind for many years. I haven't tried it because I have been fortunate enough to have been mentored in the art of c-sections by my father. Having said that, I did have to shoot one cow this spring when things went wrong. After opening her side up I was unable to gain purchase on the calf and wrest it into position for delivery. Everything was so tight in there it was all I could do to get my arm between the gut and the cows ribs, and then I could only feel the back of the calf and no legs. And only with my finger tips. Fatigue and resignation set in and I exercised the only option I had left. A pretty sickening series of events in my opinion, but I guess that's ranching. Dad tells me you can't lose them if you don't have them.
 
I saw a vet have to use the pullers to get a calf out the side during a C section it was pretty bizarre but even with me helping we couldn't pull that calf back out of the pelvis-a yearling char heifer that got bred by the big boys-the calf was alive too.
 

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