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You can't save them all

G

George

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May 29, 2005
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Cow #8 had her calf Thursday and I tagged it and moved her in with the others with calves.

Friday morning #8 was off by herself, not unusual but in a strange location - - - upon checking the calf was at the bottom of a 6' sink hole and from the mashed grass must have been there all night.



I climbed down, got the calf out and it took to mom like it was glued on - - - Moved all the cows and calves to a different pasture - - - Saturday morning #8 was off by a thicket - - - calf was wedged in so tight it could not move - - - I got it out and it went back to sucking. I did not get a photo of it in the thicket.

I did not check the cows before church this morning but mid afternoon I went to check and #8 was on top of a ridge while all the others were in the valley - - - went to check and the calf was stuck upside down in a tree stump and dead as a door nail.



I guess the calf wanted to commit suicide and I stopped it twice but he was to determined!

This breaks my 6 year streak of 100% calf crop at weaning time.
 
Sorry, George. This might be all for the best. The "stupid" EPD is not anything you really want to propagate into the genetics of the rest of your herd.

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My son and his father-in-law had a calf about 4 months old that they found hung in a tree - - - neck in a fork about 5' off the ground - - - they think she had to have jumped to get up there and probably died in minutes - - - Some of them are just bound to die.

About 20 years ago I noticed the neighbor's bull with his head thru the tree lined fence socializing with my cows - - - did not think anything about it - - - next day same thing - - - as I was on horseback still did not think anything about it. Next day my young son and I walked to check the cows - - - the bull had his head stuck and from the look of the ground on his side of the fence he had been caught all this time.

Went and got the neighbor and with a handy man jack was able to spread the trees enough to free the bull - - - I was afraid he was going to drown himself drinking so I would let him drink what I thought was enough and drive him away from water for about 4 hours then left him on his own - - - he survived with no noticeable ill effects.
 
That one was certainly determined to die.. unfortunate.. I lost 1 calf in the last 6 years, C section that took FOREVER for the vet to get here.. timely arrival would have certainly been a different outcome.. Lost a cow 6 weeks ago.. had to be my best cow of course.. still pizzed about it.
 
The rest of my year didn't go a whole lot better.. Lost another cow in the summer to what I'm chalking up to be Lyme disease... Oh I got better than 100% calf crop at the expense of cows... Hopefully I've had my share this for a while.
 
George said:
My son and his father-in-law had a calf about 4 months old that they found hung in a tree - - - neck in a fork about 5' off the ground - - - they think she had to have jumped to get up there and probably died in minutes - - - Some of them are just bound to die.

About 20 years ago I noticed the neighbor's bull with his head thru the tree lined fence socializing with my cows - - - did not think anything about it - - - next day same thing - - - as I was on horseback still did not think anything about it. Next day my young son and I walked to check the cows - - - the bull had his head stuck and from the look of the ground on his side of the fence he had been caught all this time.

Went and got the neighbor and with a handy man jack was able to spread the trees enough to free the bull - - - I was afraid he was going to drown himself drinking so I would let him drink what I thought was enough and drive him away from water for about 4 hours then left him on his own - - - he survived with no noticeable ill effects.
Click to expand...
Neighbor sounds like mine,the only time he checks them is when he gets the calves up to sell...
 
I had a cow do that a couple years ago . I put a block at the base of the tree and she stepped up on it and got loose
 
I knew a guy in CA that bought a few high dollar horses out of Nebraska that lost two of them getting wedged in a tree like that. Turns out they had seen just about everything there was to see on a ranch except trees. The last one got sold cheap because the other common CA ranch feature that he'd never seen was steep terrain.
 
We had a Montana raised horse that got wedged between two trees. Mr. FH had to cut one tree down to get him out. Then he wedged himself between a pole fence and a tree. Same thing. Had to cut a tree down to get him out. (the trees weren't very big, but big enough he was stuck.) That was a good horse that was accident prone. We sold him, and I don't think the man who bought him had any problems with him. He had trees too.

And...we were riding up the creek when we smelled something dead. Started looking and found a calf who had fallen off the creek bank. There was a tree root sticking out of the bank. The calf wound up with his head caught in the V of the tree branch and the bank.
No kidding, you can't save 'em all.
 
Big Muddy rancher said:
I hope the summer of smoke doesn't affect the health on the calves.
Click to expand...

I've wondered about that kind of thing, the long-term affects it has/will have on calves, cows etc. Being that it hasn't just been one fire for a short amount of time, but a long-term deal.
 

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