Cattle taking care of their needs.

Help Support CattleToday:

What do you folks that get so far below zero do for water for your cattle? It's been -5 to -10 a few days here this week, and some of ours and some other people's automatic waterer pipes froze up. Never had that happen before. I couldn't imagine temps near -50.
 
Metal stock tank with a heater in it. Have a water line buried 8 foot deep out to the barn and have a frost free hydrant there, then a short length of hose to the tank which I drain after every use.
 
Cattle didn't develop their instincts in the last decade while we were building barns for them. Their instincts were developed thousands of years ago when their biggest concern was attack by predators.

Given that, if you were a cow, would you want to go into a trap called a barn, with little chance of escape? The more docile might go for it. But most will be more worried about predators than the cold. A building with more openings and chance of escape might get used more.

As others mentioned, cows do better in cold than heat, as long as they have food. Their rumen is like a steaming compost pile and produces a lot of heat. Can be used to heat buildings:

http://www.farmshow.com/view_articles.php?a_id=908
"Del Lussenden, a Surge dairy equipment dealer in Owen, Wis., has come up with a new "cow power" system that captures body heat given off by dairy cows to heat farm homes and other buildings. In the summer, the system reverses itself to act as an air conditioner. "One cow gives off 4,400 btu's per hour. Our Dairy-Aire system recovers 2,500 btu's. A 60-cow herd will easily heat and cool the average 1,500 to 2,000 sq. ft. home,"

Again, cattle have more problem with heat:

http://vetmed.iastate.edu/vdpam/extensi ... eef-cattle

Compared to other animals cattle cannot dissipate their heat load very effectively. Cattle do not sweat effectively and rely on respiration to cool themselves. A compounding factor on top of climatic conditions is the fermentation process within the rumen generates additional heat that cattle need to dissipate. Since cattle do not dissipate heat effectively they accumulate a heat load during the day and dissipate heat at night when it is cooler. During extreme weather conditions with insufficient environmental cooling at night cattle will accumulate heat that they cannot disperse.
 
It doesn't get cold enough in KY to bother them once it's below freezing. It does get cold enough when it's 33 and raining. Is your barn enclosed or three sides? If they need it they will go in usually. Mine only have windbreaks but running these old last chance cows we need 2 or 3 sided shelters scattered around for them when we have these days and days of 30°rain endlessly.
Years ago on my grandaddys herd they would be out all the time but had a three sided shed they could get in and also were feed a free choice feed with salt as a limiter. They came and went to eat but when the right temp of rain hit every single cow was in there.
When you notice those poor cold cows with ice handing or snow piled up do you not wonder why it's not melted? It's because they are insulated by their hide and hair.
 
jedstivers":2sgcnclf said:
It doesn't get cold enough in KY to bother them once it's below freezing. It does get cold enough when it's 33 and raining. Is your barn enclosed or three sides? If they need it they will go in usually. Mine only have windbreaks but running these old last chance cows we need 2 or 3 sided shelters scattered around for them when we have these days and days of 30°rain endlessly.
Years ago on my grandaddys herd they would be out all the time but had a three sided shed they could get in and also were feed a free choice feed with salt as a limiter. They came and went to eat but when the right temp of rain hit every single cow was in there.
When you notice those poor cold cows with ice handing or snow piled up do you not wonder why it's not melted? It's because they are insulated by their hide and hair.

My barn is enclosed with the door open away from the wind.
 
Mine normally don't have a barn available. We are in rolling hills, wooded draws, etc. If we have a significant weather change coming, I'll look for the forecasted wind and put the bales in the protected area with that wind. Otherwise, they'll stand at the feeder for as long as they want then move to the protected area for a while. Usually after a lasting snow or ice, I'll unroll a bale in an area protected by prevailing winds. The only time I put anything up in the barn is if it's sick/crippled/likely to calf in the worst weather. I'm holding a pair/newborn now until the snow crust melts and the calf can get around better, then he's outside.
 
Jogeephus":3adukfr9 said:
Had one limping bad the other week. Favoring her left rear leg. Have had a lot of rain. I noticed it for about two weeks but she seemed to be doing alright other than that. She's not limping anymore. Wonder what was wrong with her. :???:

Sounds a lot like rot foot to me. Good shes over it. When our cows get that we usually chase them a little and make them run and it breaks it up and they get better within 24 hours or so. Our mentor told us to mix a little extra iodine in with our mineral and that should help stop that. It took about 3 or 4 months but once all of them got what they needed into their system we have very rarely had any problems with it even with this bad weather thats been going on these last few weeks. We had one old cow that I promise you once we got her over rot foot in one hoof she got it in another. She went through all four legs TWICE before she finally got over it completely. We haven't had a problem with her since and she still raised a huge calf and had her next calf on time. Makes me feel bad because I was yelling sell her lol but my dad kept her anyways and it worked out.
 
Big Cheese":vzljrlnk said:
Jogeephus":vzljrlnk said:
Had one limping bad the other week. Favoring her left rear leg. Have had a lot of rain. I noticed it for about two weeks but she seemed to be doing alright other than that. She's not limping anymore. Wonder what was wrong with her. :???:

Sounds a lot like rot foot to me. Good shes over it. When our cows get that we usually chase them a little and make them run and it breaks it up and they get better within 24 hours or so. Our mentor told us to mix a little extra iodine in with our mineral and that should help stop that. It took about 3 or 4 months but once all of them got what they needed into their system we have very rarely had any problems with it even with this bad weather thats been going on these last few weeks. We had one old cow that I promise you once we got her over rot foot in one hoof she got it in another. She went through all four legs TWICE before she finally got over it completely. We haven't had a problem with her since and she still raised a huge calf and had her next calf on time. Makes me feel bad because I was yelling sell her lol but my dad kept her anyways and it worked out.


Wow this is a questionable post, good fodder for peta folks. Run cows around with hoof rot?? And zinc is what helps the most not iodine. It's in the soil and immunity is not built up to it. It will strike again when conditions get right. Get some LA 200/300 or draxxin and treat them. It's extremely painful to them.
 
I promise you the conditions are right right now our pastures look like swamps because of this weather and none of our cattle have it. So something is giving our cows an immunity from it. I say its the iodine because once we started adding that to our mineral it started going away. We had a lot of problems with it before we started adding that in. You can disagree with me all you want that's fine but i'm just telling you what turned it around for us. Not trying to tell anyone what to do. This site is all about sharing opinions.
 
Big Cheese":2bg8d4xl said:
I promise you the conditions are right right now our pastures look like swamps because of this weather and none of our cattle have it. So something is giving our cows an immunity from it. I say its the iodine because once we started adding that to our mineral it started going away. We had a lot of problems with it before we started adding that in. You can disagree with me all you want that's fine but i'm just telling you what turned it around for us. Not trying to tell anyone what to do. This site is all about sharing opinions.


Just make sure you are not sharing shytty husbandry practices. Wet falls are worse for us.
 
Big Cheese":5xyid5xg said:
I promise you the conditions are right right now our pastures look like swamps because of this weather and none of our cattle have it. So something is giving our cows an immunity from it. I say its the iodine because once we started adding that to our mineral it started going away. We had a lot of problems with it before we started adding that in. You can disagree with me all you want that's fine but i'm just telling you what turned it around for us. Not trying to tell anyone what to do. This site is all about sharing opinions.

Is foot rot the raw, infected condition they get between the toes?

Will foot rot "blow-out"? or is it a surface only infection?

Can it get "in the joint"?
 
I started this thread with the concern about the cold weather, and i must say, I did feel more comfortable with cows taking care of themselves after reading everyone's posts. Since, I have spoken to a few local people, and they tell me they are losing calves due to the cold weather.

One guy, who has around 60 head, said he had lost 9 calves due to the cold. A lady that i work with said they had lost "several" during the cold weather. I didn't ask specific questions, but they insisted that it was cold related. They certainly believe it gets cold enough in KY to harm cattle.
 

Latest posts

Top