When to give C&D shot to new borns?

[101]

This forum has been really interesting!! Back in the 50"s working at home we never had overeating in our calves, makes one think about why now, most of our cows milk better, calves have better genetics, better nutrition today with minerals and cubes. When I was growing up I can only remember one time Dad bought some cubes, more like (chunks) of Cotton Seed Cake in a very dry year to help get thru the winter, Dad said before he ever fed the stuff again he would sell the cows first. Back then our yearling didn't weigh what a lot of our caves do today. Sorry this is too long, just thinking. Good luck 101 ( I do remember we had what Dad called Milk Fever, same as what we call Grass Tetany today )

 

[Silver]

( I do remember we had what Dad called Milk Fever, same as what we call Grass Tetany today )

I believe Grass Tetany is lack of magnesium. Milk fever is a lack of calcium in the bloodstream.
When I was little I remember my grandfather saving a cow that was down with milk fever by using a lantern pump on a teat to push milk back. She was up and around in not many minutes.

 

[cure]

I don't know if it is so much mineral or feed as it is the maturity of the cow. We vaccinate all our cows at prey check then the ones we keep home ( usually the old cows or second calvers) we run back in and give them a booster as well as the first calves when the first calvers calve we c and d the calves but don't do anything to the other cows calves. We have never had a problem with them but usually get at least one of two a year that get it on the first calvers. And everything is feed grass hay with a little alfalfa and a trace mineral salt block.

 

[loomixguy]

Friend over east of Sheridan Wyoming calves late Aug- Sept. warm fall rain in October and the cheat grass jumped ,they were dosing calves left and right with Penicillin and Antitoxin.... they lost a lot of calves that fall.

I would guess a flush of green after being on dry grass for a couple months might do that. That's too bad. Did it ever happen again? I've heard of grass tetany in those situations too.

Amen. That happened here 10 or 12 years ago. Horribly dry all summer and then a nice slow 2" rain around Labor Day made the cheat grass & brome pop. I was running around all over the place sweetening the troughs up all I could and adding liquid mag to them.

 

[PPRM]

Interesting thread. food for thought reminds me we all fight our own battles and circumstances.

My issues with Clostridials tends to be on yearlings. We are pretty diligents vaccinating cows twice per year as the silage like feeds we have access to can be pretty problematic. Zoetis guy told me we don't get much maternal immunity passed to our calves.

Our pastures are relatively small and irrigated. We have lots of free choice mineral and I don't see much if any dirt licking. Calves readily find our cows.

We Vaccinate calves at branding (45-70 days). We revaccinate about 21 days prior to weaning and again at weaning. We fenceline wean with a few groups of cows taken from the babies at a time. We vaccinate again as yearlings. At 18 months of age, I get the the ones that aren't within a month of being sold as beef and hit them again.

Good thoughts on Alfalfa FH. Seems like a cow and calves biggest nutritional need is when she is rebred 3-4 months and the calf isn't weaned. Our two biggest fights are clostridials in older calves and calcium in our cows. We vaccinate for the clostridials and use combinations of Alfalfa and Calcium in our feed (Mainly fall calving cows as we are feeding them when they are nursing and have rebred)

 

[101]

PPR, We used to keep Bone Meal out years ago for Calcium, but can't feed it to cows anymore, my feed rep told me that Milk Replacer was about the only thing that had Calcium in the would actually amount to anything, am I wrong in this? What do you use to add Calcium in your program? Good Luck and thanks. 101

 

[loomixguy]

Your dry forages "should" have enough calcium in them to meet NRC specs. Feeding limestone ought to make up any deficiencies.

Test your feedstuffs! Then you know and aren't guessing.

 

[tamarack]

A good mineral program will go a long ways to prevent some of these problems but some of the cows just don't eat enough of it milk fever is seen more in dairy herds but does happen to heavy milking cows and the treatment is calcium in blood and with grass tetney can be helped if a person puts some dry hay out before turning out to lush pastures they will eat some of it. I feed my baby calves free choice Diatanatious earth (sp) in a creep feeder and it helps with scours and they don't eat much dirt with it out.

 

[PPRM]

Your dry forages "should" have enough calcium in them to meet NRC specs. Feeding limestone ought to make up any deficiencies.

Test your feedstuffs! Then you know and aren't guessing.

I have some High moisture Vegetable screenings we mix with our Hay. Cheapens the feed a lot. protein is real good. Feed Tests tell us the only thing we are short in is Calcium. When we don't add enough, dead cows tell us the same thing.

We add Feed Grade Limestone.

 

[Faster horses]

Your dry forages "should" have enough calcium in them to meet NRC specs. Feeding limestone ought to make up any deficiencies.

Test your feedstuffs! Then you know and aren't guessing.

I have some High moisture Vegetable screenings we mix with our Hay. Cheapens the feed a lot. protein is real good. Feed Tests tell us the only thing we are short in is Calcium. When we don't add enough, dead cows tell us the same thing.

We add Feed Grade Limestone.

We have found a lot of calcium in forage isn't available to the cow--in Montana, anyway.
Calcium for cattle is like calcium for humans. Both species do
well to supplement it. In feedlot situations, they have found that adding
calcium increases rate of grain.

101, it saddens me that a qualified feed salesman made that statement about calcium. You can supplement calcium easily......it's part of mineral..........it's actually the largest part and it is important that cows have added calcium, it helps them to keep milking in the fall, when the grass dries up, etc. It's darn important for lots of reasons. Milk, teeth, bones.....we had cows that were born when we weren't on a mineral program, get stifled when they were older. We attributed it to not
enough calcium when they were young. We also had cows get a hump
in their back because they didn't have the calcium they needed when
growing. Same with teeth. We had cows that were young that had no teeth......oh yeah, Calcium is a big deal.

 

[daisy.605]

I'll have to try that.
I don't have dairy quality hay and mostly feed alfalfa or alfalfa/orchard grass hay. A few years ago, when the prices shot up, I stopped feeding cake and lick tubs.
Usually, when it storms I double the amount fed, partly for bedding. I guess I'm pampering them to much.

I'm curious. If you don't mind me asking, what are you feeding your cows that over-eating is a problem?

I have a suggestion. A diet of alfalfa and/or grain hay can lead to entertoxemia. Going to grass hay or grass hay with a small amount
of alfalfa helps that situation a lot.
Baby calves don't need a big blast of milk, causes more problems than not.
A diet lower in protein after calving will result in less milk production and the cow will 'come to her milk' as the calf grows and takes more.

FWIW

I normally feed them alfalfa and grass hay. The problem comes after a snow storm, when the calves are hunkered down and don't nurse like they would normally. When the storm passes, they over eat and die. I also give the cows scour boss shots prior to calving.

How much of that hay is alfalfa? I don't mean to beat a dead horse here,
but if you could feed straight grass hay after calving, I really think some of
your overeating problems would disappear. Alfalfa hay helps to create more milk production and baby calves just can't handle it. Grass hay is more like mother nature and milk production increases as the calves get bigger and can handle the milk. I realize Overeating can be a "good managers disease" but sometimes, we are killing with kindness. I'm not saying not to give the shot, I'm saying what might help to avoid the problem, or to cut down on the problem.

As a FWIW, I have an article that talks about cows' diets high in protein at breeding time. It was specific about the cattle being on cereal grain pastures that were 20% protein. There had been a problem getting the cows bred and research was done on the reason why. What was deducted from that study is that the
high protein in the diet upset the PH in the uterus. The eggs could not attach to the uterine wall. The cows cycled, but did not conceive. They ran the cows in different pastures at breeding time and solved the problem. I thought that was very interesting. It was written by Dr. Price as the Consulting Nutritionist for Beef Magazine some years back.

Good luck!