Crazy calving incidents

[annielinnhavenfarms]

Had a cow had triplets when I was young

 

[Travlr]

Had a cow that had the sack come out with the head and no feet... and on the way to the barn to get her in a headgate she walked into a pond and laid down, the sack and head under water. By the time she got to the barn the calf slipped back in and in the end, after a pretty easy time getting the front hooves out, we got a live calf...

 

[Ky hills]

The craziest calving event I've had was a cow with hydrops.
Something went wrong with the amniotic fluid and cow looked like she was extremely heavy with calf several months before calving.
I thought she was just fat and possibly having twins.
When it was time for her to calve she couldn't have the calf. Could tell it was a tremendous size calf inside. Had a vet out and he did a c section. Calf was dead and full of fluid and was huge. Vet said calf probably weighed well over 200 lbs.
the placenta was probably 100 lbs and had the consistency of a rubber ball.
Cow was dead the next morning morning too.

 

[Silver]

 

[coachg]

 

[Down in Dixie]

Neighbors cows I look after. Sold the cow not long after.

 

[farmerjan]

View attachment 58392View attachment 58393Is that a recent birth or is that the calf you wrote about some time back? Can't remember if it lived long enough to go out to pasture with the cow?

Is that a recent birth or is that the calf you wrote about awhile back? Can't remember if it lived ?

 

[Silver]

Is that a recent birth or is that the calf you wrote about awhile back? Can't remember if it lived ?

I wrote about it awhile back. I ended up putting it down. Turned out to have more issues than just being bald.

 

[annielinnhavenfarms]

That all crazy

 

[redcowsrule33]

Went to another farm to assist with a calving. Pulled out a very rotten calf. Reached back in and found another pair of feet. Live frisky heifer calf. Why she didn't die in the rotten stew that was her sibling…

 

[sunnyblueskies]

Happened just a few weeks ago. Heifer is calving out in the pasture, it's going alright, a bit slow maybe, but there is progress. She separated herself from the herd and chose a flat area which has a row/berm of dirt piled up, maybe 50 feet long and 2 or 3 feet up. The cows love to lay on it and that's where she chose to lay her egg.
Like I said, things were going alright. She took her time. Thought I'd leave her alone for a bit and went home. Hour later I go check on her............ don't know what the hell she did but the calf was half way out and she was laying on her side with her head under her facing backwards. She broke her neck and was dead.
How you do that on flat ground and some dirt piled up........ I'll never know. Beat myself up for it still. Shouldn't have gone home.

 

[coachg]

Happened just a few weeks ago. Heifer is calving out in the pasture, it's going alright, a bit slow maybe, but there is progress. She separated herself from the herd and chose a flat area which has a row/berm of dirt piled up, maybe 50 feet long and 2 or 3 feet up. The cows love to lay on it and that's where she chose to lay her egg.
Like I said, things were going alright. She took her time. Thought I'd leave her alone for a bit and went home. Hour later I go check on her............ don't know what the hell she did but the calf was half way out and she was laying on her side with her head under her facing backwards. She broke her neck and was dead.
How you do that on flat ground and some dirt piled up........ I'll never know. Beat myself up for it still. Shouldn't have gone home.

We calve 10-12 heifers every year . Have slowly built our herd from the original 25 to around 110 momma cows . Heifers have aged me more than my 3 kids ! I know some folks never have a minute's problem with them but it's the constant having to check on them and the stress of making sure they're ok . Had 11 this year , assisted with 2 , 2 haven't calved, 9 have , and the one morning I didn't go check them 1 lost her calf ?

 

[Katpau]

This calf was born in 2008. It was born alive on a Weekend. It couldn't rise and I thought it would pass pretty quick, but it did not. The poor cow stood over it patiently trying to get it up. I donated it to Oregon State University for their veterinary med students to examine. It was still alive when I arrived at the college on Monday. They commented that it took a double dose of the medication they used to put it down, before it finally passed.

 

[Travlr]

This calf was born in 2008. It was born alive on a Weekend. It couldn't rise and I thought it would pass pretty quick, but it did not. The poor cow stood over it patiently trying to get it up. I donated it to Oregon State University for their veterinary med students to examine. It was still alive when I arrived at the college on Monday. They commented that it took a double dose of the medication they used to put it down, before it finally passed.

View attachment 58597

Did you keep the cow? Bull? Did they say it was a known issue they had a name for?

 

[Katpau]

Did you keep the cow? Bull? Did they say it was a known issue they had a name for?

I reported it to American Angus. I sent pictures and the veterinary report but never heard anything back. There was some suggestions that it could have been due to a toxin, such as Lupin. I kept her until she was 13 years old in 2017. I don't normally keep one that doesn't raise a calf, but I kind of thought a defect like this would be identified, and I wanted the cow here for DNA analysis if it did. I did do a DNA profile on her that included all identified defects and nothing showed up. I understand that AAA stores the DNA, so if something ever does show up, we will still be able to test. She never had another calf that wasn't normal, but I did not keep any descendants from either her or the bull. I do have a few cows that descend from her Dam. Everything would be quite a few generations removed by now. I have never seen another with any defects from any of those animals.

 

[Travlr]

I reported it to American Angus. I sent pictures and the veterinary report but never heard anything back. There was some suggestions that it could have been due to a toxin, such as Lupin. I kept her until she was 13 years old in 2017. I don't normally keep one that doesn't raise a calf, but I kind of thought a defect like this would be identified, and I wanted the cow here for DNA analysis if it did. I did do a DNA profile on her that included all identified defects and nothing showed up. I understand that AAA stores the DNA, so if something ever does show up, we will still be able to test. She never had another calf that wasn't normal, but I did not keep any descendants from either her or the bull. I do have a few cows that descend from her Dam. Everything would be quite a few generations removed by now. I have never seen another with any defects from any of those animals.

I could also be a spontaneous mutation. If that's the case the cow or her descendants wouldn't be a problem. But it would have been interesting if the Angus association had been communicative. That was some pretty odd **it.

 

[Rafter S]

The oddest one I can think of was a few years ago when I went to check my cattle at one of my rent pastures, and two of them were missing. I found them at the edge of a patch of woods, not over 50 feet apart, each with a new calf.

 

[Katpau]

This is not a single calving incident, but something I always found strange. We have a few sets of twins most years but I would estimate our average twin ratio to be maybe 2.5 to 5 %. In 2011 we kept 6 replacement heifers. One did not settle and was culled. All 5 of the others went on to have twins at some point, including one that twinned twice. These cows were mostly from different dam lines and were sired by 3 different bulls, so I would not expect genetics to have played a large part. I have always wondered why that year class would have produced such a high number of twins.

 

[liberty jersey]

Dad bought a bunch of heavy bred heifers supposed to be bred to a low birthweight bull in the end we only had two have calves born naturally and the rest but one went mad after the c-section the one who didn't though has gorgeous babies but will try to get a horse or person when it's young also not a crazy calving story but a crazy lambing story so about three months ago me and my mom were doing morning chores and saw one of our ewes was struggling to have her baby so we brought her up and started feeling around and only had one leg so after I got in there I found the other leg we already knew it was dead by the smell but the head was twisted around so we couldn't get it at that point the skin was starting to tear on the legs after trying to get the head turned around I just said I am done with this and started pulling kinda got the shoulders out before a whole leg are shoulder ripped off but I was finally able to get to head turned around and the baby out but I am just glad the arm held on that long or else it would have been worse

 

[lithuanian farmer]

Had stillborn triplets once.
Once had found a freshly calved heifer with a calf in water. There were quite alot of water after heavy rain then. Found the calf with her head and a back above the water. Luckily she was alive.
Once had left a cow to calve for almost half an hour and found her dead with the calf still inside of her. A ten year old cow, but was in perfect health, or atleast we thought so.