Average Calf Death loss Rate?

[mmanitoba]

This year has been terrible, calfs born dead within hours of living, stept on in calving barn, broken leg and had to shoot, sac over the nose. The ones that are born dead i cant figure out, and the ones that could have been saved if you had of seen them are bad too.
Whats the normal death loss these days???
We have 250 cows and 50 of them out of that ae heifers. 135 calves so far however some out of that are dead.

Thanks

 

[rockridgecattle]

Where are you in Manitoba? Are you in the drought area? Are you in the flooded area?
In either area there is a good chance that the death rate will be higher if the nutrition or TDN was not met with the extreme temperatures that we had. What was your hay like how did it test out?
I know that broken legs and stepped on do not fall under nutrition, but most everything else does. IF the nutrition requirements are not met, you will see calcium problems cropping up, Retained placenta problems, poor quality colostrum, high rate of navel ill, scours, tough birth sacks. We will have to be even more dilegent this year in watching for cropping problems and nipping them in the bud.
If calves are dieing within hours of birth, I would get one posted. Just because of disease reasons. I know it costs but not knowing will cost you more.
We are luck in living in Manitoba when it comes to MAFRI help. The have livestock techs that can help set up a costed feed ration, they have forage guys that can help with ways to repair damaged lands, financial guys to help us figure out where we are going and where we want to get to, nutritionists, AG stability guys within MAFRI that can help us with our forms. All at no cost to us. Make use of them and call your local GO office. As well we have some pretty good vets in Manitoba. Talk to that vet of yours and gets some herd health help.
I wish you luck.

RR

 

[LoveMoo11]

I agree with RockRidge-you should call a vet and get this checked out. Your calving loss should not be that high unless you are a terrible manager and since you are taking steps to figure this out I am guessing you aren't. You might have a disease of some sort that is killing these calves, or it could be something environmental/with the cows themselves. Good luck, hope things get better for you.

 

[Avalon]

We havea small herd of 25 so its probably hard to translate but I'm thinking we only lose about 1 every two to three years. We only go to the pasture once or twice per week even during calving. Im sorry about your losses that sure sounds like something out of the ordinary.

 

[Nesikep]

we have 18 cows, and I would venture to guess that we lose one a year.. some do get stepped on since they just love hanging around the manger when the cows eat, we try to keep them away... but good luck... we've had some years where we've lost 3, with a couple close calls as well.. we had one cow knock off after having twins about a month ahead of time, we ended up giving them to the neighbor who calves out earlier, he had some wet cows as surrogates.. this year we would have lost a cow and calf had we not been there, a heifer with a 110 lb calf, hind legs first.. my old man and I had to pull with everything we had in us to get it out... we do have some bad years... and put it this way, we've been trying to get up to 20-25 head since we started with 12 cows in 1991... the next spring we lost 2 cows, 3 calves, and another two cows we weren't going to keep... the next year we had scours, lost 2 calves, then had an atypical pnuemonia hit us the following couple years that claimed about 5 good cows, we had some with bad hooves, they got culled, bad udders got culled, tendency to prolapse.. culled, and then there are the ones who can't stay in our side of the fence, or that want to kill us when we go around them, they end up going too.. I am certain I would find it depressing to look in our records and count how how many losses we've had in 18 years