cow down after hard delivery....any hope for her??

[kaykay]

Friday at 5 pm we found a first time heifer down with a hiplocked dead calf, we got the calf out but the heifer has not been able to get up. Saturday morning at 8:30 we gave her a steroid shot that we got from vet, so far she has not seemed to improve, except she is eating grain good. We have lifted her several times a day, one back leg goes out to the side. Is their any hope for her?? How many days before we give up hope?

 

[Running Arrow Bill]

Keep your Vet's phone number handy. Vet probably should take a look at her in person.

First calf heifers should be bred to bulls that sire low birthweight calves.

 

[ollie]

Never let the sun set on a down cow or a fight with your wife.

 

[kaykay]

this was SUPPOSE to be a bull that would throw 65 lb calves, had to pull another 120 lb one tonight from 3 yr old cow, 4 out of 5 have been over 100 lbs. We got rid of this bull but still seeing the damage he done. He was a Simmental, the ranch we got him from replaced him with one that they had used.
Guess we will call vet back, just wondered from others experiences, or any advice to offer.

 

[ollie]

Heavy weights for the fall in the south. Why would you say he should throw 65 pound calves.

 

[kaykay]

we were told by the ranch that sold him to us that he would throw about 65 lbs. He had a calving ease of -5.7, but this was not explained or did we know it at time of sale. We had a 130 lb heifer in may that we had to pull, mother never would accept the calf. The bull weighed 98 at his birth too.

 

[ollie]

98 pound bw is too high to reasonably expect 65 pound calves.

 

[kaykay]

we found that out too late and the hard way. We listened to what they told us and bred our cows to him, found out later he was 98 at his birth and then learned what the EPD numbers meant. We are going thru just what we didnt want to.....BIG calves. The ranch we got him from didnt even want him back in trade, told us to get him out of our pasture and get rid of him!!!!

 

[CattleAnnie]

Nice people, eh? Some folks will do anything to make a buck, even if others suffer from the results of their greed.

I wish I could offer some better advice about the heifer, but I haven't had much luck with cows that stay down after a hard delivery. Hauled water and feed for two weeks in twenty below weather out to the pasture two years ago hoping that a second calver would eventually get up. Finally ended up shooting her. Oh, her appetite was grand, and she could move her limbs, but I almost think she'd convinced herself that she couldn't get up and therefore never really gave it much of an effort. Same story with a couple of others. Seems that if they can't get up within a day, they just aren't going to. Not that it doesn't happen for other people occasionally, just not here.

Agree that your best bet is to get a hold of your vet and ask him/her what the recommended course of action would be.

Take care and good luck with the rest of calving.

 

[Bez]

Do they ever get up? Yup.

But not always.

Ollie gave you the best advice.

Regards

Bez

 

[greatgerts]

Does the cow have bloat? We had a first calf heifer get bloated when she birthed her first...Never accepted it, and she was only down for a few hours. Luckilly, got her taken care of, lost the calf, then the cow grew wheels.

 

[dun]

I've seen them down for several weeks and get up on their own. Get her up or at the minimum roll her to her ottherside at least twice a day. Keep the feed and water where she can get it. If the heifer is worth the trouble, keep working with her till she gets up. Unless the pelvis is broken, as the nerve damage decreases whe will get up. If the nerve damage is very severe the vet should be able to determine it and make recommendations. If you don't want to go through the problems of getting her up/rolling her just shoot her now.

dun

 

[jgn]

We had a cow go down after calving. Put her in the barn and kept her fed for 2 weeks. Used a tractor and harness and raised her every day for two weeks, on the 15th day we raised her and she stood up out of the harness on her own, she was fine after that. Don't give up.

 

[kaykay]

We had to shoot the heifer this morning, she was laid flat out, couldnt even raise her head off ground or sit up, eyes rolling back. She seemed so full of life when we left her last night, eating and drinking good too. We felt she had suffered long enough. We didnt give up hope till we saw her this way. Also her back end was staying open, didnt look good at all. I really thought after she didnt show any improvement after 24 hrs of the steroid shot that she was not gonna get any better.
Thanks to all who replied .

 

[txshowmom]

SOrry it didn't work out for you guys but this condition is not always terminal. Dun had good advice:

I've seen them down for several weeks and get up on their own. Get her up or at the minimum roll her to her ottherside at least twice a day. Keep the feed and water where she can get it. If the heifer is worth the trouble, keep working with her till she gets up. Unless the pelvis is broken, as the nerve damage decreases whe will get up. If the nerve damage is very severe the vet should be able to determine it and make recommendations. If you don't want to go through the problems of getting her up/rolling her just shoot her now.

We too have had calves down for several weeks. Its a lot of trouble but you have to hall feed and water to them. We don't getr ours up but we try to roll them over. Hope the rest of your calves come out okay.

 

[kaykay]

this was not a calve down, it was the cow. What we saw this morning was not a pretty site at all, she was dying. It just seemed she took a turn for the worse so quick. She never closed up after the birth either. She was sitting up and eating and drinking water until this morning, there was no way she could have eaten, could not even raise head or sit up. The calf died when she was trying to have it, got hiplocked and was dried and dead when we found it. Her right leg would go out to the side when we stood her up . Its such a hard thing to deal with.

 

[rgv4]

We had a Simmental bull that broke in to a group of heifers, out of 10 that he bred, only 2 had calves without problems, out of the other 8, we put one heifer down, pulled all the calves and only ended up saving 1 calf. Needless to say the Simmental bull and all the heifers went to the salebarn. Don't use a Simmental bull on any kind of commercial cow that is Brahman cross.

We had a cow that was having a calf, the calf hung in it's hips. The cow was walking around with the calf hanging out bawling and walking on it's front feet. We ended up pulling the calf and it died in the process, the cow got down in her back end. I fed and watered her and I made her get up two to three times a day for about two weeks, to this day she is one of the best producing cows in the herd.

Sometimes I think cows are like people, they just have to want to get up.

 

[kaykay]

I think we could have saved both cow and calf had we gotton there earlier, BUT when you have to work you cant be there 24/7. We have saved all the ones that we have pulled so far, even the 120 lb one we pulled last night....we just have to be there at the right time. The one that was hiplocked that we pulled in may had to be bottle fed, the mom would not take it, it also has a slight limp.

 

[SPRINGER FARMS MURRAY GRE]

Sorry to hear of your troubles.Get yourself a good murray grey bull to avoid those problems.

 

[Campground Cattle]

this was not a calve down, it was the cow. What we saw this morning was not a pretty site at all, she was dying. It just seemed she took a turn for the worse so quick. She never closed up after the birth either. She was sitting up and eating and drinking water until this morning, there was no way she could have eaten, could not even raise head or sit up. The calf died when she was trying to have it, got hiplocked and was dried and dead when we found it. Her right leg would go out to the side when we stood her up . Its such a hard thing to deal with.

Innoculate with a 44 get a good low birth weight bull.