Haven't been on for some time now but wanted to run this by everybody. I just got in from checking my cows as they are calving. To my surprise I had a dead cow. She calved this past Sunday, Mama and baby just fine last night. Cow laying on her side with lots of dried blood on ground behind her. What do y'all think? Hemorage maybe? Another cow was letting the calf nurse. Thoughts please. Thanks
Dead Cow
- Thread starter wtrapp
- Start date
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Anonymous
Uterine hemmorage
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Anonymous
Couldn't tell ya. Did you see her calving start to finish? Did the calf jump right up and get to sucking. Did the mother get right to cleaning her off.
Sometimes no matter what goes right one thing goes wrong that sets it all back.
Sometimes no matter what goes right one thing goes wrong that sets it all back.
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Anonymous
Could go either way. Sounds like just one of those things that happen from time to time.
If I'm wrong I'm sure someone will chime in.
If I'm wrong I'm sure someone will chime in.
Workinonit Farm
Well-known member
Uterine hemmorage was my first thought, was there a lot of blood? Was she a heavy milker? The next thought was milk fever. How was she positioned? My 3rd thought was 'cast' where she layed down, legs "uphill" back/spine downhill and got stuck. And in the last 2 scenarios the blood coming from behind would have just been 'oozing' post calving.
Katherine
Katherine
bward
Well-known member
Another possibilty which is rather remote.... if she was late in cleaning and ended up choking to death by eating the cleanings.
SSGenetics
Well-known member
bward":1owhyvm6 said:
Thats pretty far out there, but anything is possible I guess.
Sounds like uterine hemmorage...
pdfangus
Well-known member
SSGenetics":1hy8vjcl said:
not so far out there.....
several years ago while checking calving cows right on the edge of dark we saw a cow drop her calf and jump up and start cleaning. we noted her number and the date and went on about the field. on the way back out I happended to glance in her direction and saw her go down while choking on some afterbirth. We sped over there and the cow was in spasms choking....I had a heck of a time getting my arm in her mouth and finally reached in nearly to my shoulder. never did reach the afterbirth but soemthing caused her to heave violently enough that she threw me to the ground and expelled the afterbirth.
a minute or two she came around and went back to licking the calf. Had we not been there....we would have found a dead cow and wondered.....what happened.
It could have been a thousand things. The only way to know is to do a postmortem exam.
we developed the habit of disposing of all the afterbirth we found.
true story....hand to god. My witness who was with me is up there too now.
bigbull338
Well-known member
there could be any # of reasons why a cow would drop dead shortly after calving.we had a cow calve on a wed an she was fine.checked the cows sat an found her calf wondering around.an went an found her dead in a branch.we figure she had a heart attack.we have cow now with a possable case of milk fever now.so we are going to give her a shot an treat her for milk fever.
Well, the calf of the "dead cow" has been adopted by a 3 year old Black 50/50 Balancer. This cow had her calf 2 days before the dead cow calf and both calves are doing fine. This has made me think twice about the Gelb/balancer as they are noted for their maternal instincts and here's proof. May be in the market for a couple more Balancer or Gelbvieh
