calf dead in heavy rain

[peanut]

I have a question concerning calves. I had a calf that was born Sunday night and was fine. I found it dead this morning so it was 2 days old. We had a very heavy rain last night. Can a young calf die from drowning during a heavy downpour. This is the second one I have lost during a heavy rain. One died at birth, and I always felt that it drowned. Is this possible?

 

[angie1]

I would not guess that it drowned, I would guess hypothermia. The one that died at birth, do you know it was born live and healthy?

 

[DavisBeefmasters]

With death occuring so quickly, it doesn't seem to be anything bacterial (not enough time for the bad bugs to develop into something)...

...I too would think along the lines of quick pneumonia or hypothermia, or some other internal issue (genetic, etc.) especially if the calf was born in sunny/warm weather and it suddenly snapped cold with rain

...did you observe the calf nursing prior? ears perky the day prior?

 

[pauline]

I lost a calf in heavy rain two years ago. She was 10 days old. The last time I saw her alive was when she ran around with her tail in the air on a sunny weekend. Then it was heavy rain pouring down all week. My husband told me that the calf was not looking good. But when I got home from work, it was already dark, cold and rain pouring down. Until Saturday morning, I went out to find her laying on the ground beyond help. I also guessed that the cause is pneumonia.

I regretted not checking on her earlier. But I left home for work at 6 a.m. and got home at 6 p.m. It was cold and dark and raining. I have learned my lesson.

What are the symptoms of pneumonia, and how to treat it?

 

[peanut]

It was 50 degrees here last night, but we had tornado watches, and we had wind gusts over 50 mph. I heard at the local dam reservoir they had gusts of 85 mph winds. We also had the heavy rain. The calf was fine at birth and was nursing Sunday and Monday both. It seemed healthy.

The other calf was born in June. I don't know if it died during birth or a short time after. There was another storm that day with a huge amount of rainfall. I thought maybe if a calf was being born that maybe it might be possible for a heavy rain to go up their nostrils and mouth and it could keep it from breathing. Thanks!!

 

[SCRUBS620]

50 degrees and raining is much harder on cattle (especially calves because of their smaller mass) than if it were 20 degrees and snowing. I heard something on TV that said people die in tropical waters from hypothermia. The water might be 80 or 90 degrees but it is still colder than the body so it sucks heat out. Eventually their bodies cant keep up with the heat loss. Hypothermia would be at the top of my list also.

 

[angie1]

Calves, like children, are much more vulnerable to hypothermia. The reason for this is the increased surface area to body volume ratio that causes the calf to cool down more rapidly, and means that the body enters the 3rd stage of profound hypothermia sooner. The reason 20 degrees and snowing is safer than 50 degrees and raining is because water pulls heat from the body 25 times faster than air. So, as was said ~ it is not common (especially maybe in Tn and other southern states), but it is very likely.

 

[peanut]

So how can I prevent this from happening. Should I keep the little calves in the barn when its raining? That seems almost impossible. I hate to lose these little ones.

 

[sodfarmer490]

well, i guess you could put some calf shelters out in their pasture, and bed them with straw. make them on runners, so you can tow or push them where you want and turn them away from prevailing winds. calves learn in a hurry, where to go for shelter. they work real well if they are put close to feeding area where cows hang out. face them toward sun................

 

[randiliana]

I would also go with hypothermia. Rain, especially a cold rain is much more deadly to calves than snow is. Rain soaks them to the skin, while snow will just coat them, and often it adds a layer of insulation. Once a calf is wet down to the skin, and if it keeps raining or if the wind picks up he loses heat a lot faster than he can make it. It is the same thing as a newborn calf born on a cold night or a windy night, there is no insulation of a dry coat to keep body heat from escaping. Once a calf is a couple weeks old they can usually weather the weather, as long as they are healthy.

 

[DavisBeefmasters]

So how can I prevent this from happening. Should I keep the little calves in the barn when its raining? That seems almost impossible. I hate to lose these little ones.

It's impossible to prevent 100% of the cases; however, we have begun giving the calves an intra-nasal vaccine within the first 24 hours of them being born (TSV-2) which has helped minimize the loss on cold weather snaps in the middle of a patch of nice sunny weather... really easy to give - you squirt it in the nose with a little "cannula" (a smooth ended plastic thingie you put on the end of the syringe so that it gets into the sinus cavity instead of the little bugger blowing it right back out on ya).

Again, it helps, but we still loose a little one every now and again.

 

[Double R Ranch]

I would also go with hypothermia. Healthy and doing well til a nasty wet storm hits. That would be my guess. I also agree with the shelter ideas in this case.
Let us know how it works out.
Double R

 

[Workinonit Farm]

I would also go with hypothermia.
Double R

My thoughts as well.

Where my cows are most of the time, for shelter, they have a very nice stand of cedars and pines. It seems to work well for them.

Where I work, all pastures are wide open, no trees, nothing. In the pastures where they are calving they have portable shelters. We modified a few hoop type structures covered with heavy-duty hay tarps open on one end. As was mentioned earlier, the calves figure out very quickly what those structures are for.

Katherine

 

[TheBullLady]

Is it possible the calf was laying up in a group of cows and got laid on? Had that happen year before last when we had crappy cold rainy weather. Found a calf dead next to the hay ring.