Rough calvings!

[willowgirl]

Man, we are a roll here ...

Lost a girl this weekend ... had a twisted uterus; even the vet couldn't save her. The calf was already dead, and I guess the vet was of the opinion that C-sectioning her would just release the toxins into her system, which would probably not have a good outcome. A shame ... she was a very good cow. RIP, Mehitabel.

Then last night, the boss had to pull Peewee's calf ... upside-down, backwards and dead. I haven't seen Peewee yet (he was gonna wait until morning to bring her in to milk ... no need to rush since there was no calf in need of colostrum) but I'm worried ... she was a fat cow at dry-off, which increases her risk of metabolic problems.

And Funnyface is about a week in milk and seemed ketotic to me last night ... boss was gonna give her some dexamethasone, maybe a bottle of dextrose too.

Of course we have had about five others calf in the past week with no issues, but it's the ones that give you problems that stand out in your mind, I guess. Oh, and we have a fresh heifer who WILL NOT let down her milk for love nor money without a shot (Oxytocin). GRRR!

[Awnry Abe]

Raising livestock, and dairy in particular, sure does have its ebbs and flows. That sure sounds like an ebb. (And more like goat drama!) How many cows the boss have in milk per season?

[willowgirl]

We're having a rough time of it right now, that's for sure! It's rare for us to have more than 1 or 2 culls a month, and very rare for a cow to die on the farm. I can't remember ever losing this many of my girls all at once! Boss put two on the truck Monday, too (Lil Red, an underperforming 3-teat heifer, and Elvira, a dry cow who turned out to be open).

And Peewee died last night.

We're milking 92 right now, which is normal for us; we generally average between 90-100. On a positive note, most of the slew of heifers we've had freshen recently are milking like gangbusters! (Except for the little dummy we're still shooting up with Oxytocin.) Hopefully the preg test results will come back from the DHI tomorrow and will contain some good news ... I could use some right now!

It's funny; I was looking through the records tonight. I bred Peewee and another cow, Cindy Lou, on the same night last winter. Cindy Lou calved about a week ago, gave us a nice heifer, and made 82 lbs. of milk on her first test postpartum; Peewee and her calf both died. You just never know what you're going to get in this line of work ... just have to keep doing the best you can, I guess.

[aoconnor]

What a sad run for you. It's always heartbreaking to loose a calf, but when momma goes too, it's just downright hard. We lost our first goal this year, but she didn't have a chance really. Her dam was a slaughter auction pull just days before she foaled, and she had a horrible uterine infection plus pneumonia. Poor baby didn't
Survive the birth, but I am so thankful the mare is well on the mend and hopefully will stay well going forward.

Sorry about your losses, hopefully it will be only those.

[Skandi]

FiL had a terrible year for calves lost 3 out of 5, one still born, one to lightning, and the last took the mother out with it, broke both her pelvic bones, "luckily" she made it to the slaughter house, so at least most of the meat was salvageable, though I have got about 40lb of bruised meat in the freezer for the dogs.

[willowgirl]

On second thought, I feel bad about "liking" those last two posts, due to their sad subject matter, but I did want to thank you guys for the encouragement, but I was too tired to find the words. lol

All quiet on the western front tonight! Whew. I yanked CIDRs and gave a round of Lute shots to five cows we'll breed on Friday. Hopefully they will all settle and have uncomplicated deliveries ...

[WindyRidge]

There must be a some unwritten rule in the dairy world - when it rains it pours! We lost our best cow last week - she slipped and split down in the barn. We gave her about 3 days trying to get her up to no avail. Thankfully we have a friend who will help us butcher our down cows, so she's now in the freezer.

We leave our girls outside to calve whenever we can - the barn floor is grooved but so slick we don't like cows heavy with calf to be in there and we don't have a better facility to house them in (have long wished for one but never had the funds to build it). Anyway, had a second lactation girl that looked close so we kept watching and waiting but a calf never appeared. Finally guessed it was DOA as we never found it. She's not milking well at all and will probably go in the freezer this fall. Partly our fault as we should have brought her in sooner. But I think she has other problems as well.

And then we lost a new heifer and her calf. Still scratching our heads over what happened. She was part of a group of 10 baby calves we bought from another dairy trying to improve our herd. We got them when we first switched to organic and partly through bad luck, partly through our ignorance as we made the switch we lost 7 as calves. Bright the remaining 3 to calving, and lost her.

On the upside, in the last few days the remaining 2 heifers from that group successfully calved. They're largely jersey and seem so very tiny lol. Most of our herd is Holstein with some jersey mixed in, but all at least half again as big as these two girls. We're hoping to move toward smaller cows in the future but it takes time.

Oh, and then yesterday we had a newborn calf take off. Had him with his mama almost to the barn when something spooked him (no idea at all what) and off he went through the fence and across the field. Kept going right past the rest of the dairy herd. By the time we opened gates to get mama through after him, he was out of sight and mama was distracted by the rest of the herd and wouldn't call for him. Sigh. I did hear her calling last night so I'm hoping he'll turn back up but haven't been outside to see yet.

So kinda like you I'm hoping things start looking up from here!

[willowgirl]

Katie, I feel your pain! lol

Re: the slippery floors: We had trouble with our main barn for years! We'd always lose at least a couple of cows every year to splits, or if we didn't altogether lose them, they'd spend months in a hospital pen with hobbles on (a pain to bring in and out for milking). Our floors were grooved, too, but still very slippery, especially noticeable when cows were bulling.

Two years ago, my boss contracted with a company called Agri-Trac (I only remember this because the name and date are written on the bulletin board in the milkhouse, LOL) to groove our floors. It took them a better part of the day to do it, and I'm not sure exactly what they did, but whatever it was, IT WORKED! We very rarely have a split now, and especially at the outset you could really see the difference in the cows -- they moved much more freely, less gingerly than they had before. You could tell that they felt a lot more secure in their footing. Even the silly heifers don't fall when they take off running around the barn! It's a lot easier to spot heats, too, when they bull all over the place, instead of just in the one corner where they always hung out before (the footing there must have been a little better for some reason).

We're in SW PA, so I'm not sure if this company operates anywhere near your area, or how much they charge, but I'd definitely recommend them if you can get them. It was well worth the money IMO!

If I see my boss tonight, I'll ask him if he remembers how much it cost, and pass that along if I can.

[WindyRidge]

We could have built a new barn with all money from cows lost over the years! Problem is coming up with the chunk at once to pay for getting it done.

Our end goal is actually to remodel part of the barn into a tie stall. Most people think we're nuts to go from a parlor to a tie stall. Once upon a time hubby's dad started the dairy and even when I met him they were milking around 80-90 cows. Hubby's dad passed away, the uncle that did much of the milking passed away, and the uncle's wife who helped out disappeared never to be heard from again. So it was hubby and I running with the debt of his dad and just us to do all the work. We've evolved over the last few years - we're still hanging on by a thread, but I have hope there's a light at the end of the tunnel. So long story short, we've become organic, grain-free, milk once a day, and plan to milk around 25 (about what we're milking now). Given that, a tie stall seems way more efficient than the parlor we have now.

Like today - we had the two tiny jersey heifers in a parlor designed for big old Holsteins. I had to stand behind them to keep them from turning around. This morning we brought them in last, but it can be a real pain when they come in the middle of a group and then run up on the far side of another cow where you can't reach them. We've more than once given up and sold an otherwise good cow who was a slow milker - we could've had another set done but for waiting on that one cow. Not to mention the extra time of shuffling the girls around the barn to get them to the holding pen for the parlor and then driving them all in. With our system, none are high producers so they don't really care if they're milked and now that there's no grain in the parlor there's no incentive there at all.

We were REALLY hoping to be able to get it done for this winter and may yet be at to cobble something together. At least stalls. Even if we have to still milk in the parlor, we can lime the daylights out of the path there. Without them milking about the lime would last all winter.

[willowgirl]

That reminds of of back when I was a tester, I had a farmer who was milking in an older parlor designed for the smaller Holsteins of yesteryear. It was a swing-6, and when he ran six Holsteins in, it was really jammed! So he added some Jerseys, thinking if one or two Jerseys came in with every batch of cows, the parlor would be much less crowded. Sounds like a good plan, right? Except he didn't factor in that Jerseys are smarter than Holsteins, lol. Those Jersey girls all learned to come in together, in the first group, and get it over with, and get back to the feed bunk in time to get the first shot at the fresh feed that was being put out for them while they were being milked.