Expected calf loss

[denoginnizer]

My goal was to lose 0 but I have lost one so far and was wondering out of thirty calves what would be an acceptable loss. What is the best way to dispose of a dead calf?

 

[Jake]

3 calves would be acceptable through the whole year for that number. bury them or use them as ditch filler along with crap and mud puttin them on the bottom.

 

[Medic24]

I dont really consider any losses acceptable, just inevetable. we used to bury them, but we found that the coyotes just dig them right back up, so now we bury them shallow along with leg hold traps, we have had some luck with that, so the death of a calf is not a total loss anyway.

 

[denoginnizer]

Thank you for the advice. The chose of the word acceptible was a bad choice but I suspected I was going to loose a few. The bank told me that a rookee like myself would be doing good to have a 90% survival rate on calves. They said that an experienced cattlemen would be around 94-96%.

 

[TXBobcat]

Found a dead calf out in the pasture last night - choked to death by a piece of 12ga smooth wire! :x The wire was wrapped around his neck, and tangled in some scrub brush around the area he was laying. It was a Longhorn cross, around 500lbs. He was banded and blackleg vaccinated on Nov 21, 2004 and looking good a day ago. He was destined for the frezer from the beginning, but by the time I found him yesterday evening, he was too bloated up to mess with. Still not sure where he picked up the wire, as I try to police the pastures for any objects they might get into. Hasn't been a good winter for us as we lost a heifer calf about a month ago to coyotes/dogs.

 

[Running Arrow Bill]

We consider "zero" calf losses acceptable. We've only lost one calf: was breech birth, stillborn: cow went to sale barn.

University research reported that purebred Longhorn Cattle have a 99.7% unassisted calving survival rate due to their genetics which ensure easy calving with low birthweight calves.

We have "policed" our pastures and smaller pens are routinely inspected for foreign objects. There are no harmful objects in our pastures. Hardware disease or getting entangled in wire or other things is a non-issue at our facility....

8)

 

[9 ER]

I asked basically the same question before and was told that there should be no losses. And if if there was, sell the momma.

 

[dun]

I asked basically the same question before and was told that there should be no losses. And if if there was, sell the momma.

I think if you look back on the calf death issues you'll notice there are other opinions then to blame the cow/heifer. We've lost 2 calves in the past 6 years. That's from the time we lost 2 little simmenthal heifers we had bought and penned close to the house dogs killed.
One was healthy in the evening, lazy the next morning but eating, really lazy that evening. The next morning he was up and eating and appeared fine if a little dull, 2 hours later he was dead and had some kind of black nasty stuff pouring out of his nose. We never figured that one out, the vets were stumped also. The other was a 90 lb heifer that died before we could get her pulled from a heifer. We kept the first cow because it sure wasn't caused by her and we had plenty of grass. The second one we kept because we couldn't find anything we liked near as well for anything we were willing to pay, and we had plenty of grass.
But, if a cow/heifer doesn't take her calf or kills it, she grows wheels.
Circumstances make a big difference.

dun

 

[TheBullLady]

I lost a calf two weeks ago in that nasty wet cold weather we had. A week old calf I found dead in a hay ring. Probably stepped on or smothered. When the weather is unpredictable and you have cows calving, stuff just happens! A lot of times there are some things you can't prevent.

It's been a long time since we lost any calves.. but 1 or 2 a year is probably "expected". If we don't lose any I am thankful!