Daniel Lee
New member
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2015
- Messages
- 4
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QUOTE FROM REGOLITH, ABOVE: "......Ideally late in-calf females shouldn't be run with calves who are likely to suckle on them. In practice, I usually find if the calf does start suckling the cow initiated it; as most will simply kick them off and move away when they try.
It would have been better to have separated your heifer earlier, but at this point there's no real point in worrying - it's too late to intervene with colostrum and it sounds like the calf is doing fine.
In future instances, if you have a cow who may have compromised colostrum the idea is to watch her calve, sneak in between them and bottle-feed the calf with good colostrum before it feeds off her. Now that is much easier said than done." END QUOTE
I appreciate the response to my "conundrum". After much thought and research, I believe "regolith's" response was the answer I had come to in my situation. In my small operation, I AI my few cows , and then run a clean-up bull. That means that --up to this point--I run the cows than didn't conceive with the AI-bred cows. As a result the calves produced from the AI can be 3 or 4 months old before the"clean-up" calves. That is what happened in my case. In the future, a springing cow will not be running with cows nursing 3-to-7 month-old calves. As to colostrum, my vet has preached its importance--and I agree. If a new-born calf has nursing problems, the owner has much time-consuming labor to rectify the situation.
Update on the new calf of #113: Last evening, he was nursing vigorously and his mom is producing milk. He will be a week old, tomorrow and seems to be thriving so far. But with the colostrum doubts, he is not out of the woods yet! (By the way, his mom is a 1974-pound daughter of Conneally Impression and a granddaughter of my old foundation Vermillion Dateline 7078 cow. The calf is out of an S A V Final Answer son. He could be a keeper if he thrives!)
It would have been better to have separated your heifer earlier, but at this point there's no real point in worrying - it's too late to intervene with colostrum and it sounds like the calf is doing fine.
In future instances, if you have a cow who may have compromised colostrum the idea is to watch her calve, sneak in between them and bottle-feed the calf with good colostrum before it feeds off her. Now that is much easier said than done." END QUOTE
I appreciate the response to my "conundrum". After much thought and research, I believe "regolith's" response was the answer I had come to in my situation. In my small operation, I AI my few cows , and then run a clean-up bull. That means that --up to this point--I run the cows than didn't conceive with the AI-bred cows. As a result the calves produced from the AI can be 3 or 4 months old before the"clean-up" calves. That is what happened in my case. In the future, a springing cow will not be running with cows nursing 3-to-7 month-old calves. As to colostrum, my vet has preached its importance--and I agree. If a new-born calf has nursing problems, the owner has much time-consuming labor to rectify the situation.
Update on the new calf of #113: Last evening, he was nursing vigorously and his mom is producing milk. He will be a week old, tomorrow and seems to be thriving so far. But with the colostrum doubts, he is not out of the woods yet! (By the way, his mom is a 1974-pound daughter of Conneally Impression and a granddaughter of my old foundation Vermillion Dateline 7078 cow. The calf is out of an S A V Final Answer son. He could be a keeper if he thrives!)
