Big, dumb bull calf syndrome

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jkwilson

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Seems like whenever we have a bull calf with any size to it, say over 90lb BW, they are very slow to figure out the nursing and standing thing. Mu-Se shots (past white-muscle problems), tube them with colostrum or instant colostrum and bring them in where it's warm and dry is our standard treatment. Most won't suck a bottle aggressively enough to get anything out of it.
In the past, at a vets recommendation we've mixed part of a package of Resorb with the colostrum for energy, but the results were mixed, and another vet said it might interfere with the immunity transfer from the colostrum.
Usually they are okay after 3 or 4 days of late nights and early mornings feeding them and helping them learn to nurse, but it would sure be nice to have them pop up and nurse like the 70 lbers do without living in the barn
Current dumb bull is out of an 8 year-old cow who has always had moderate sized calves, and a bull who has good calving ease EPDs and has thrown mostly 70-75 pound calves. Healthy, and able to stand and kick :x , but not much sucking instinct or urge to root around momma for food. We don't usually feed too heavy to try to let them get hungry before the next feeding.

Anybody got advice for getting them on their own a little quicker?
 
"Anybody got advice for getting them on their own a little quicker?"

I expect its got to do with time under pressure.....bigger calves have a harder time getting on the ground....takes longer. Solutions are lighter calves or hooking the chain to em as soon as you see the big feet..not much help I know
 
tapeworm":2k2ho0mi said:
Solutions are lighter calves or hooking the chain to em as soon as you see the big feet..not much help I know

Yep, calving ease to me means easier on the owners! As we all know, EPDs don't mean jack when you're up to your knees in wet manure and afterbirth with a worried 1300lb cow in your face. Four calves in three days, 71, 60, 101, 77. 77 was out of a heifer who had it unassisted while we were in the barn trying to get 101 to figure out what an udder was. 60 was out of a heifer daughter of the cow who had the 101. All the same bull. The average birthweight is fine, but statistics don't tell the whole story.
 
I usually don't have any problems with our calves since they are Longhorns but I had a cow give birth to a pretty large bull calf back in January and he had trouble standing at first-we actually had him go to the vet and get tube fed. This was after we noticed that he had never gotten up after over twelve hours. Once we tubed him he was ok getting up even though his back feet were a little bent. The vet said that they would straighten up and they did. However, he had to be tube fed two days in a row and I was about to give up on him. We even milked the cow and put it in a bottle but he wouldn't nurse. I decided that I wasn't going to do anything else-he was either going to nurse on his own or he wasn't going to make it. The cow is a big beefy cow with a large udder but the calf was not interested. The calf was born on Saturday-we tubed him on Sunday and Monday, we never saw him nurse, when we tried to make him he would fight you and do everything he could to get away from the teat. Finally on Wednesday night I was feeling sorry for him and decided that I was going to milk the cow again and try the bottle again on Thursday morning-he looked ok but I saw no evidence of him nursing. On Thursday morning I went to milk the cow and he was up and nursing away. Today he is a great looking calf and doing fine. I do believe that there's something to these big calves being slow and it may be because the cow had a harder time giving birth.
 
No doubt that the stress from a long, hard delivery causes oxygen deprivation and results in slow starting calves...thus more prone in calves that are too large for the cow to deliver quickly.

Had a real wreck about two years back at calving season with "dummy" calves that didn't have a fig to do with birthweight though.

Honey had bought a new two year old bull from a breeder that he hadn't tried before. Bull was a little short necked and on the boxy side, but his numbers were great (uh-oh...just got thinking that Ollie's gonna like this one).

Trouble was that we're pretty sure he sired at least thirty-odd calves.

Why trouble?

Because for a couple of weeks we had up to ten calves a day hitting the ground, two feet of snow (and wet snow at that - for you southerners that are unfamiliar with snow; it's very heavy and sticks to everything), winds out of the nor'east that just didn't seem to let up and then the offspring of the "Wonder Numbers" bull to contend with.

Thirty-odd calves that had the same style of conformation as that bull. Decent birth weight but no brains at birth. Thirty-odd calves that had no suck relfex (some for up to three days, most at least for two days).

Thirty-odd cows to run into the maternity pen, tie a leg back, and try and wrestle with a calf lacking the idea of what to do with a teat in it's mouth...even when drooling with hunger. So enter the joy of tubing to feed the calf until the "Hey! A teat! I wonder what would happen it I sucked this" light came on between it's ears.

Needless to say, the novelty of the performance wore off very quickly, for both the cows and ourselves. Unfortunately every calf needed the routine several times a day to be fed.

All the while being deluged in new calves during cruddy weather.

It was a rude calving season. We sold that bull in the spring before he had a chance to pass on his 'genetic gift' to any more calves and didn't keep any of his daughters. We have not had repeat performances since.


Take care....sorry for rambling again. Trying to stay awake till next check.

ps. Which is why I have the world of respect for any purebred breeder - regardless of the breed that he/she is raising - that does NOT sell as registered stock any calf that cannot get up and go on his/her OWN steam.
 
Used to have a lot of dummy calves when we first got the Brahmans, culled that out of them, haven't had one in several years now. The quickest way we learned to get them on the cow was to milk the cow, put milk in bottle, feed part of it to the calf, get him or her excited and take them over to the cow. One person held the hips of the calf the other held the calves head down and worked the teat into it's mouth. Most of the time we could get the calf on the cow in a day, the secret was to get a little milk in it and it will want more. Another thing is we tie one of the cow's back legs up in the air, discourages her from kicking.

The way I get a calf to take a bottle that doesn't know what to do with it is straddle the calf with it's neck between my legs. With one hand hold his lower jaw, work the bottle nipple into his mouth from a corner make sure the tongue is not over the nipple. Then to make them suck place your hand over their nostrils when you feel swallowing in their throat give them some air. If they don't continue to suck cover their nose again. After a few swallows they start getting the idea.
 
Thanks for that post CattleAnnie. As a begineer, that's one of those potential wrecks I'm sure I would have never seen coming.

So is the lesson here then to rotate/introduce new bulls into a small seperate subset of the heard the first year before rotating out the bull he's replacing? What do you do differently now to try and avoid that situation again?
 
Pray a lot (there's no fool proof system for wreck free calving...at least it sure doesn't seem that way for this particular fool) & we're pretty fussy now about what breeders we buy from (if we go out to a bull sale and see pen after pen of bulls from a breeder with a big range between the best and the worst quality, we steer clear...because obviously the breeder is more interested in making another two grand off the buyer than using a bit of quality controll with his knife/bander). Dead give-away is post-legged, sickle hocked, feminine, poor scrotal circumference, etc. Those boys should be on a plate, not breeding cows.

I suppose that although we do like see good EPD's on potential bulls, we now tend to put a lot more value on actual type and conformation. Oh, and personally I like to see a bull that doesn't look like he's ready to go on a hook. Too fat can lead to hoof problems and sometimes seems like lazy breeders (not enough libido).

Just my two cents worth... but there's a lot of folks with way more experience that could undoubtedly offer you better advice. I was just reminincing over dummy calves.

Take care.
 
I've got a cow that had a 95 pounder her first time unassisted (the heaviest ever born on this place) and he was one of the most vigorous you could hope to see. Never a problem. Her second calf was 92 pounds unassisted, same story. He got around so well at perhaps an hour old, he nearly climbed through the fence! Those 092 calves really tended to be problem free and good doers.

On the othere hand, another cow had a fifty-something pound calf that was just as vigorous. Which reminds me, we sold him and his mother last year. He became a show steer, and ended his career last night by placing fourth in his class, weighing 1250#. He got spanked by three black steers :cry:
 
Like Cherokee, I've also had some "dumb Brahman" calves. The thing with Brahman and Brahman cross calves is if the weather is the least bit cold / rainy / miserable, they don't want to get up and nurse. We've had our share of those experiences as well.

Breeding them back to continental bulls solved that problem remarkably well! :)
 
Something to think about is Selenium deficiency. I realize you said you gave a MuSe shot, but sometimes the bigger calves actually are so deficient, they need more.
I use BoSe (same thing just different concentration) They recommend 2.5 - 3 /per 100# (or close to that). We give 4 cc per 100# right away at birth. If I have a "dumb sucker", I give it 1 cc each day after that. White muscle disease (selenium deficiency) affects large muscles - the tongue is a large muscle. They just can't make it work.
One of our 4 calves born during our Nor'easterner was a 95# bull that took 15 minutes from feet to birth. Got right up - no problem - EXCEPT - no suck. After 2nd day, my husband was ready to shoot him. We haven't had to help a calf suck for a long time - had to milk cow & tube calf for 2.5 days. Than, yes, the light popped on - suck, suck, suck.
 
Kudos to you, Jeanne!

Using that knife or a bander on a calf like that is what makes the difference between someone that's in the business to make money at all costs, and someone that's in the business for the long haul.

Thank you for having the conviction to rise above the almighty quick buck and therefore produce livestock with vigor.

Enough good cannot be said about vigorous calves. (Just my opinion, though.)

Take care and keep up the good work!
 
Jeanne - Simme Valley":a60fni79 said:
Something to think about is Selenium deficiency. I realize you said you gave a MuSe shot, but sometimes the bigger calves actually are so deficient, they need more.
I use BoSe (same thing just different concentration) They recommend 2.5 - 3 /per 100# (or close to that). We give 4 cc per 100# right away at birth. If I have a "dumb sucker", I give it 1 cc each day after that. White muscle disease (selenium deficiency) affects large muscles - the tongue is a large muscle. They just can't make it work.

hey jeanne,

where do you get BoSe? is it something you have to get from a vet?

thanks


jt
 
jt":udzyweat said:
Jeanne - Simme Valley":udzyweat said:
Something to think about is Selenium deficiency. I realize you said you gave a MuSe shot, but sometimes the bigger calves actually are so deficient, they need more.
I use BoSe (same thing just different concentration) They recommend 2.5 - 3 /per 100# (or close to that). We give 4 cc per 100# right away at birth. If I have a "dumb sucker", I give it 1 cc each day after that. White muscle disease (selenium deficiency) affects large muscles - the tongue is a large muscle. They just can't make it work.

hey jeanne,

where do you get BoSe? is it something you have to get from a vet?

thanks
Yes, BoSe & MuSe are prescription drugs.


jt
 
Our first calf of the season (Hobbyist, only have 7 ,pettable, cows due to calve)was born Monday evening. He was dumb as a box of rocks and wouldn't suck, could barely stand though he was strong. So I did a search and this series of posts came up. He was a second calf out of a Reg. Hereford cow. He weighed 98#, was easily born within 15 min. of water breaking. His sire is BR MOLER ET. I followed the advice given and this am, he was finally nursing by himself. Great info!! Thanks to all those who previously posted their wisdom! It was a relief to learn that others have had this same experience. That is the only cow that was bred to Moler, hope the other calves are more vigorous!!!!!!!
 
More than a year from the original post, here's another. Had a heifer calve yesterday. When I got home for lunch, the water bag was starting. Grabbed a sandwich and watched from the house. Got a few glimpses of a foot, then she turned away. Went to get dressed to go out, and by the time I got outside I thought I was seeing two feet and a nose. It was just two feet :shock: Big feet :shock: As Tapeworm suggested earlier in the thread, we got the straps on those feet, checked for a head, and got it the heck out of there. MuSe and tagged before the cow got up and I had to hold him down to do the tag. He was up and looking for milk in 15 minutes. Our only 90lb plus calf this season. He's big and a bull but not dumb.
 
We had a huge calf a week ago - wrote in because he looked "funny" - short neck, big knee joints, big head. Even though one of you told me to shoot him, I got a bottle of colostrum into him right away and bottle fed him for the past week to keep him alive. Last night, for the first time, he actually ran in the pen. I haven't seen him look "with it" until then - him being one week old. He still looks "dumb", but at least he looks like he is going to make it - and even dumb cows taste good.
 

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