And then there is one

Help Support CattleToday:

cowgirl8

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 12, 2014
Messages
5,620
Reaction score
611
Location
NE Texas
We are down to our last heifer to calve. Still have a few cows crossing the finish line.. This is the time I think, I'll have more time. But no, getting hay cut and the guys hooked the shredder to a tractor and said 'Have at it'.....I have so many things I want to do...
Yesterday I spent the evening getting a calf to nurse. The cows udder is big and low and calf tall, but there is absolutely no reason she shouldn't be able to nurse, instead noses in arm pit and flank.... This has been an ongoing thing since sunday.. Yesterday I nearly blew my top, everything went wrong, from cow not cooperating to calf was covered in calf poop and it was hot...The cow milks so easy and has beautiful milk..I give the calf a taste to wake it up with a bottle, push it up to the cow in the chute, gets a teat in mouth, sucks a couple times and quits. UGH!!!! This every time, since sunday.. she'll nurse a bottle fine, but has no interest in a teat.. This morning I had help, did the same steps, calf was wide away and very hungry. Finally got the calf to drain half the udder. Before she was tired and full, we let the cow out with her. I walk to the house to get my 4wheeler and drive by, nose way up in the cows flank.....AGH!!! Classic Simmental case of LUTCS....low udder tall calf syndrome. I'm all too familiar to this condition since so many sims of last century had this.. Its been years, still don't like it...
 
I sold a 6 year old Simmental yesterday with a 1 month old calf for $1425. She had big teats and a big bag. Once the calf could get all 4 quarters sucked down i sent her packing. Should of done it a couple of years ago. I'm done dealing with baby sitting cattle.
 
True Grit Farms":1xuumfoy said:
I sold a 6 year old Simmental yesterday with a 1 month old calf for $1425. She had big teats and a big bag. Once the calf could get all 4 quarters sucked down i sent her packing. Should of done it a couple of years ago. I'm done dealing with baby sitting cattle.

You got a heck of a price for a cow in that condition.
 
True Grit Farms":396extky said:
I sold a 6 year old Simmental yesterday with a 1 month old calf for $1425. She had big teats and a big bag. Once the calf could get all 4 quarters sucked down i sent her packing. Should of done it a couple of years ago. I'm done dealing with baby sitting cattle.

One ole cow can cause more problems than all the rest combined. We had several like and every year it was to get them up milk them and then get the calf to suck while they were still in the head gate. I sold the last bad one not long ago unless some of the younger cows eventually gets that way. Good price as I sold 6 ole cows in pretty good shape (no calf) not long ago for average 55 cents a pound.
 
TennesseeTuxedo":j5gbkim9 said:
True Grit Farms":j5gbkim9 said:
I sold a 6 year old Simmental yesterday with a 1 month old calf for $1425. She had big teats and a big bag. Once the calf could get all 4 quarters sucked down i sent her packing. Should of done it a couple of years ago. I'm done dealing with baby sitting cattle.

You got a heck of a price for a cow in that condition.

She was a dang nice cow, just to big and her last two calves needed a little help latching on. And her older sister was the cow Vincent brought home yesterday "lucky" the high bid was only $960 and he wasn't selling her for less than a $1k. She's heavy bred and the one that "cowboy" Brad saved for me last week. I'm not dealing with cattle problems anymore. If a cow or heifer screws up one time their going for a ride, no more second chances around here.
 
I've got a few big udder cows that are leaving this fall. I don't know where they came from though, I don't remember their udders being so big in the past. Probably never had a calf have a problem until now.
I don't understand why some calves can handle it, and others don't. BUt this rooting up high is such a sim thing. Since we're mostly angus now, those critters know where their meals are.
The way I use to handle this problem back in the day was to take a bottle to the calf and feed it in the pasture. Eventually, they figure it out. I only do that for a few days though so the cows milk doesn't start drying up and only if their udder is not so huge its distorted. I'd say 50/50 would work. Some times the cow would allow it, some times i'd be risking my life. Many times i'd find the calf alone, they'd get up to nurse the bottle and in the distance i'd see mama headed my way...I'd be like...Hurry hurry....i'd bolt in the last second....lol... I was braver in my younger days....
 
You have more experience with sheitty mama's and sheitty calves of anyone else in the cow bidness.
 
jehosofat":3lxukj0c said:
You have more experience with sheitty mama's and sheitty calves of anyone else in the cow bidness.
I don't think I do if you go by %...THe more cows you have the more you deal with, or if you don't you just let them die like some people...Since its my job and how we make a living, I try to save them all....
Today she nursed in the chute by herself. So we know she knows where it is...Yall will hear me scream if I look down there and she's rooting around the flanks again...
 
cowgirl8":2v6zurcd said:
jehosofat":2v6zurcd said:
You have more experience with sheitty mama's and sheitty calves of anyone else in the cow bidness.
I don't think I do if you go by %...THe more cows you have the more you deal with, or if you don't you just let them die like some people...Since its my job and how we make a living, I try to save them all....
Today she nursed in the chute by herself. So we know she knows where it is...Yall will hear me scream if I look down there and she's rooting around the flanks again...

I think you should paint it purple.
 
backhoeboogie":1c9ha88f said:
cowgirl8":1c9ha88f said:
jehosofat":1c9ha88f said:
You have more experience with sheitty mama's and sheitty calves of anyone else in the cow bidness.
I don't think I do if you go by %...THe more cows you have the more you deal with, or if you don't you just let them die like some people...Since its my job and how we make a living, I try to save them all....
Today she nursed in the chute by herself. So we know she knows where it is...Yall will hear me scream if I look down there and she's rooting around the flanks again...

I think you should paint it purple.
It all worked out...cow is back with her herd. Once the heifer caught on, she had the whole udder nursed. Was a big relief since it was almost a weeks worth of trying..
I had another cow who had some really long teats. Really thought i'd have to get her up, specially if the calf was tall. Its a different herd and the bulls in that one were mostly angus last year and not the sim mixed ones. So the calf was tiny and I wished I had taken a picture of her udder, she had 3 banana sized teats and the one he nursed was like a straw...
 
True Grit Farms":23kis0wc said:
Bad udders and teats are easy to fix. Very few people if any on CT can understand your management practices.
I'm guessing there are around 5 questionable udders out of our 300 cow operation. We plan to sell all of them. Its been a work in progress since last century to rid our herds of bad udders, sims were notorious of having big udders. I think we've done well to have this many cows with this few bad, although not as bad as I've seen other post, udders. This last case was the calf and not a bad udder. I love driving though our herds and seeing all the well proportioned udders now..wasn't that way last century...
 
cowgirl8":3h7iuvzp said:
True Grit Farms":3h7iuvzp said:
Bad udders and teats are easy to fix. Very few people if any on CT can understand your management practices.
I'm guessing there are around 5 questionable udders out of our 300 cow operation. We plan to sell all of them. Its been a work in progress since last century to rid our herds of bad udders, sims were notorious of having big udders. I think we've done well to have this many cows with this few bad, although not as bad as I've seen other post, udders. This last case was the calf and not a bad udder. I love driving though our herds and seeing all the well proportioned udders now..wasn't that way last century...

Good Lord . . . . . . .how was it the century before that? Noah must have left you the two best tittied cows he had.
 

Latest posts

Top