Poor Start

[Maple Leaf Angus]

Had a poor start to the calving season today. Walked through the barn checking on things and found a small, dead calf laying in a pen, all licked clean. Our cows are not supposed to start calving for about one month.

The afterbirth was lieing still attached to the cord, which was wrapped tightly around the left hind leg halfway between the knee and the hip. It was so tight that it left a deep groove around the leg when I untangled it. And a very heavy cord, too.

Has anyone ever seen anything like this? I wonder if it was so tight that it cut the circulation off in the cord causing the calf to die and the cow subsequently aborted it.

Update: Daughter just got in from checking and called me to come see what is going on - another dead calf.

Turns out that it was the same cow and she dropped dead twins.

This is exactly how I started off last year. Why so many twins? Last year we had 10% and only kept less than half of them alive.

I don't want any more twins.

 

[Faster horses]

We just had our first heifer calve yesterday. She had a real nice bull calf out of Magnitude. I have heard there are a lot of twins around this country this year and there are problems with them. One place had 4 sets and lost them all.

I'm with you on this. One live healthy calf is good enough.

 

[Denny]

In 10 years I have only had 1 set of twins the cow claimed and raised both of them but I don't want any twins just a live healthy calf preferably bull calves..We've had 42 calves so far with one getting stepped on and dieing.

 

[Manitoba_Rancher]

We ve had 4 sets this year... all alive

 

[baling wire]

We usually start out with dead premature twins . T his year year was no exception except the first one was alive and the second one dead three weeks early. Since then we had four sets all alive in three days and none since. We pull one off and bottle feed until we need a graff.

 

[righter]

I think there were 12 sets here and we are nearly done calving. All that were born alive lived, most cows took both calves, a few were grafted off if there was a good cow who had lost her baby through no fault of her own. This was on about 900 head.

 

[Silver]

We've got 3 sets on 100 head, all 3 sets alive and on their mothers. We had 2 sets in a few hours the other day. We do seem to be having a real run on heifers, as of tonight 59 heifers to 43 bulls. I'm with you guys though, I don't want any twins. Or preemies. Or big dummies. Or any more heifers. Am I being too fussy?

 

[Rowdy Ranch]

I have posted about twins earlier this year,but only one set this spring out of 300 and last yr had 5 or 6 sets with all born unassisted and all sets both live calves except one calf on one set. Most of our cows just wanted one and bottle feed them til needed a graft. In the fall cows this past fall there were 6 sets out of 180 cows (that we know about) with 3 cows raising both calves. And as far as heifers-who cares as long as a live calf is on the ground. Also the past few yrs. we have sold our heifers for replacements and received steer price. Just a thought! :shock:

 

[kolanuraven]

We had a set of twins yesterday late....itty bitty things I mean. 2 little heifers that might...and I mean might weigh 25 lbs a piece.!!!

Named them Tinker and Belle and Belle is the smallest and is sooooooo weak. She's yet to nurse so we've been using a bottle on her till she gets a bit better....but she looks weak. Tinker is tiny also but able to nurse.

Not sure if the cow is gonna make it...she had the cavles on her own with no problem but she's old and I sense something amiss with her. Had to pull the placenta as she had retained....but the innards just didn't feel right.

So time will tell.

 

[Kato]

We had a cow deliver a dead calf with exactly the same problem. The cord was as tight as could be around the back leg. The calf had been dead long enough that it's eyes were sunk into it's head already. I pestered my husband to check the cow, because this calf was quite small, and sure enough there was another one in there. And to our surprise, it was alive.

I think twins just get move around and rearrange themselves a little more than singles, and this is the result.

 

[kolanuraven]

Just had to put the cow down and get her out her misery. Looks like in that short period of time between last nite about 8PM and this AM about 6 AM...septicemia had already got a foothold.

No use in letting her suffer....so now I've got 2 bottle babies to raise!!! My Aussie dogs are bigger!!!

 

[kolanuraven]

Here are the twins....Tinker and Belle Tinker is 28 lbs and Belle is 21 bls. Tinker on the left....Belle on the right