Cull or Not to Cull

[USAxBrad]

Okay well got the cow caught, moved to maternity pen, putting baby powder on the calf since couldn't find the carcass of the cow's calf. Also putting molasses on the calf as well. So here goes nothing see how it turns out.

 

[farmerjan]

If the calf has been on a nurse cow that is great because he knows what a cow is for. If you have to, put her in the chute and make sure that the calf gets a good full belly of her milk. It may take a couple of feedings for the cows milk to process through the calf's system. His manure needs to smell right to her. Most all cows will smell not just the calf's nose and body, but their rear end and if it doesn't smell right they can be a pain to convince it is their calf. Also, by making sure the calf is getting milk it will hopefully get her to come into her milk better. If worse comes to worse, a shot of 1-2 cc of oxytocin will help with the milk let down and help her system to come into her milk. 48 hours shouldn't be a problem with her to come into her milk. Good luck....

 

[USAxBrad]

Still put her in the chute this morning to let the calf eat off of all 4 sides but came out to this early this morning.




Still was nudging the calf off every 10 to 20 seconds and then walk forward a bit but making progress.

 

[FlyingLSimmentals]

You're doing well, good job! Does she always have a big calf? A 116 lb. heifer calf is pretty hefty. Guess I'm asking is she carrying the hefty birth weight or was it the bull or both? She'll probably do well with the new bull and having a calf to feed this go around, definitely will help.

 

[RanchMan90]

Still put her in the chute this morning to let the calf eat off of all 4 sides but came out to this early this morning.




Still was nudging the calf off every 10 to 20 seconds and then walk forward a bit but making progress.

Good job. I love it when a plan comes together.

 

[dun]

Concerning large calves: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=106884&p=1383875&hilit=lincoln+red#p1383875
Sometimes you can just never tell

 

[farmerjan]

Great to see that she is tolerating the calf already. First and second step to accepting it. The great thing is by getting the calf off a nurse cow it already knew what to do. When I have my dairy nurse cows, and get calves established on them, those are the first calves I would pull to put on a beef cow since they get the idea that they have to go after the cow. Hopefully she will be good to go within a week with the calf and then you will never know it wasn't hers.....well except for the color LOL...So glad for you.

 

[USAxBrad]

You're doing well, good job! Does she always have a big calf? A 116 lb. heifer calf is pretty hefty. Guess I'm asking is she carrying the hefty birth weight or was it the bull or both? She'll probably do well with the new bull and having a calf to feed this go around, definitely will help.

She's a larger cow, and the Charlouis Bull threw several 100lb calves. Biggest was a 110lb Bull calf before this heifer. With that said that Bull is not in my herd, I had bought them early this year as 3n1's, so hopefully my bull won't have the issues with BW as that Charlouis. I am hoping these cows don't continue to throw that large of calves but then again all of them handled those calves. My avg weight was 98lbs for the Bulls and 86lbs for the heifers.

As for the pair now they are progressing right along. The calf did get some scoury feces, went ahead and treated her with some excede this morning. Will see how she responds but seemed alert and was up eating when I walked in. Cow is starting to be a touch more protective as well. Thanks again for everyone's help on this. Help me decide what I think was the right decision in the end.

 

[JSCATTLE]

If you put her with the bull you should be able to move her up a few weeks and only be about a month behind the herd next year ..

 

[farmerjan]

Glad to know she is acting a bit more protective so she is deciding that this is her baby. Since she was a bought cow, I think you really did the right thing to give her another chance. And glad that the other cows are doing okay for you

 

[angus9259]

I bought a big simmi cow last year. She had huge twins. Pulled a dead bull first then a heifer came later that lived but had contracted tendons and I had to help it nurse. This year's calf was out of my own registered angus bull I use on on my heifers due to his calving ease. She threw another 100+ lb bull calf that also had contracted tendons and some dummy calf due to the hard birth. She's going to the burger pile this spring when I wean.

 

[js1234]

I'd send her, and I wouldn't put a seasons worth of inputs into her first. The only job a cow has is to breed, calve and bring a live calf to the weaning pens, every year. Cows that don't do that, every year, have not held up their end of the bargain and need to look for employment elsewhere.

 

[USAxBrad]

Cow/calf still doing good but the cow is holding her tail out a lot and just found about a hand size of bloody mucus in her stall? It's been almost 10 days since she lost the 116lb calf, do you think she might have some retained placenta or she is still just cleaning herself out?

 

[farmerjan]

Could be either. We would give a shot of Lut to help her clean out better and get her system jump started. Does she smell? Usually any infection will have a bad odor or if she hasn't cleaned it will start to smell. The Lut will take care of that, but it may take a couple of shots. Ask the vet, they ought to tell you over the phone.

 

[djinwa]

A few comments from someone with not enough cows to have any credibility.

First, weaning a 710 pound calf does not impress me unless I know how much the cow ate to do it. Big calves out of small cows is better, though size is not perfectly correlated with feed intake.

Seems to be alot of gamblers on the board. And most gamblers I've known aren't very good at math and the laws of probability. They seem to remember the times they won more than the times they lost.

If she has a 50% chance of having the same thing happen, then you need to figure in that cost of keeping her.

I understood that serious producers look for reasons to cull, not excuses to keep cows. If you keep finding excuses, you will often be wrong, and the cow was the problem, and will have that problem again, or pass it on to offspring. If you keep excusing problems, you end up with more of them.

And of course, buying cows at the salebarn, you have to wonder why a younger cow is there. Perhaps someone took the advice given here and sold their problem to the next sucker.

I have a brother who wanted to buy open cows at the barn and rebreed them for fall calving and sell those that didn't take. His vet said it sounded good. I suggested that first, he would immediately be selecting for infertility. Second, if there isn't much profit in cows to begin with, seems there would be even less with cows you're feeding without getting a calf.

Which is funny because he's very against gambling at casinos, but fine with it otherwise.

 

[angus9259]

I understood that serious producers look for reasons to cull, not excuses to keep cows.

I wish I would have adhered to this more strictly over the last 20 years....

 

[USAxBrad]

A few comments from someone with not enough cows to have any credibility.

First, weaning a 710 pound calf does not impress me unless I know how much the cow ate to do it. Big calves out of small cows is better, though size is not perfectly correlated with feed intake.

Seems to be alot of gamblers on the board. And most gamblers I've known aren't very good at math and the laws of probability. They seem to remember the times they won more than the times they lost.

If she has a 50% chance of having the same thing happen, then you need to figure in that cost of keeping her.

I understood that serious producers look for reasons to cull, not excuses to keep cows. If you keep finding excuses, you will often be wrong, and the cow was the problem, and will have that problem again, or pass it on to offspring. If you keep excusing problems, you end up with more of them.

And of course, buying cows at the salebarn, you have to wonder why a younger cow is there. Perhaps someone took the advice given here and sold their problem to the next sucker.

I have a brother who wanted to buy open cows at the barn and rebreed them for fall calving and sell those that didn't take. His vet said it sounded good. I suggested that first, he would immediately be selecting for infertility. Second, if there isn't much profit in cows to begin with, seems there would be even less with cows you're feeding without getting a calf.

Which is funny because he's very against gambling at casinos, but fine with it otherwise.

So your saying you would cull any of your cows that have just 1 bad birth? You don't give them a 2nd shot? I appreciate your feed back. As I am just starting out I don't want to keep having problems down the road so I do want to start fine tuning my herd but that won't come until the next round when my bull as bred the cows and I can have a better idea. None of my cows were bought from a sale barn, both lots, black spring calvers and red fall calvers, reds were bought off of farms from knowledgeable and experienced producers and took someone of the same caliber to look at them before I bought them. The reds aren't as nice as my blacks but the deal was good on them for 3n1s and liked the way the calves looked out of the Charolais. Anyway I have successfully grafted on the calf and will try to get her bred, my guess a bred cow with a calf on her side will bring better money than an open cow with no calf at the sale barn if I decide to Cull her which I haven't decided yet, will wait till spring. I also recieved the experience of grafting on a calf. Still learning and very open minded. This board helps in many different ways and am thankful for that. It's easier to ask for advice on here instead of always having to call more experienced cattlemen and women who are probably tired of seeing my name pop up on their caller ID.

 

[angus9259]

So your saying you would cull any of your cows that have just 1 bad birth? You don't give them a 2nd shot?

I typically would give her a second shot. And most of the time I regret doing it.

 

[True Grit Farms]

So your saying you would cull any of your cows that have just 1 bad birth? You don't give them a 2nd shot?

I typically would give her a second shot. And most of the time I regret doing it.

Angus, that's how it seems to always work out for me also.

 

[elkwc]

I make each decision separately based on what I know about the cow and her family. I have gave several a second chance and it usually pays off. Like I stated before I would give this cow another chance. Good cows at a reasonable price are hard too find.