calves dead after being worked

[denoginnizer]

Anyone ever loose calves after they have been worked? I help work several of my friends cattle. Seems like every year someone will loose a couple calves the day after working. I usaully attributed to heat stess/blood loss. Just wondering if anyone else had experienced this?

 

[Bez>]

Anyone ever loose calves after they have been worked? I help work several of my friends cattle. Seems like every year someone will loose a couple calves the day after working. I usaully attributed to heat stess/blood loss. Just wondering if anyone else had experienced this?

I figure stress as well - never had it happen to me - but I have seen it happen.

It also happens when folks do intra muscular in the neck and do it too low - feeding the drug into a vein / artery. Cattle Annie lost a few that way one year.

Bez>

 

[Boss Cowman]

???Never. We have worked calves on days over 95 and have never lost one. Dehorned and knife cut. And this is hundreds of calves a year. I take that back, we lost a grass steer after dehorning as he went and layed under an old cultivater and I think he kept bumping or rubbing his head and bled out.

 

[msscamp]

Anyone ever loose calves after they have been worked? I help work several of my friends cattle. Seems like every year someone will loose a couple calves the day after working. I usaully attributed to heat stess/blood loss. Just wondering if anyone else had experienced this?

We've lost an occasional older calf over the years as a result of bleeding to death following knife castrating, but that's it. We've never lost a calf due to dehorning, vaccinating, or heat stress.

 

[novatech]

Anyone ever loose calves after they have been worked? I help work several of my friends cattle. Seems like every year someone will loose a couple calves the day after working. I usaully attributed to heat stess/blood loss. Just wondering if anyone else had experienced this?

No offense, but I think your friends are doing something wrong.

I don,t have many now but when I was a kid we worked over a hundred auction barn calves a day, 3 days a week. I don't recall ever loseing one due to working. Bleeding should be stopped before they are ever turned out.
When nut cutting, we never used a straight cut but scraped the vein into. If they still bled we used a pair of vise grips and crushed the vein. The vet uses a drill with a pair of hemostats attached and spinns them off. That will make you pucker when you watch. On horns we burned bleeders with a hot iron.

 

[AngusLimoX]

That will make you pucker when you watch.

Puckering just imagining! :lol:

There actually is a guy around here who is known to lose more than what would be expected. He would lose 2 or 3 out of 200.

Known to be very rough with the calves and poor dehorning technique. Also very quick with the sledge handle and too good a technique! :lol:

Declined the invite to help there the last few years.

 

[rkm]

Need to watch for alergic reaction to vaccine.

 

[mtncows]

Could also be caused by air in a syringe entering an artery.That's why I fill my own needle.

 

[cattleluvr18]

thats why we band unstead of cut. and when dehorning we always use a hot iron just to make sure all the tisssue dies and dont have ta worry bout a nub coming back.

 

[I luv herfrds]

Have not had that problem, but here is an interesting tale.
A person we know had a sudden problem of calves dying at branding one spring. As soon as they had the iron laid to them they died. The problem? An electric branding iron and wet calves.

 

[Stepper]

denoginnizer,

How big weight wise are these calfs that your looseing after you work them ? And when you work them what all are you doing to them ?

 

[3MR]

Have not had that problem, but here is an interesting tale.
A person we know had a sudden problem of calves dying at branding one spring. As soon as they had the iron laid to them they died. The problem? An electric branding iron and wet calves.

Theres got to be more to this story than that.....

Was the branding iron malfunctioning.

 

[I luv herfrds]

That's what he figured. They quit branding and waited for the calves to dry off and no more died.

 

[sjr725]

For as long as I can remember we've never lost a one right after working them? We knife cut, and still have to dehorn some, brand and vaccinate all at one sitting no problem - we use a mastrator (sp?) to crush cords/vein so very little bleeding - we hot iron burn the horn buds off the little ones so no bleeding - they go right from the calf table back to momma - so the get the "comfort food" right after, that helps with the stress. I agree - there is something not right about your neighbors practices!