First calf spring 2011

[regolith]

See what I mean about heifers:

that little fellow is just lucky he can breathe.

I did take photos as I was walking toward that heifer earlier, as well - so you can see exactly the position that calf landed in.

Had the horriblest milking. Worst one today, at least. The springers took close on an hour to stumble down the mud track to the milking shed, calves in tow (total count now of 10 born in the last 24 hours, 7 of those accompanied the group to the shed, one not yet born, two still with their dams alongside the dry cows - yes, the one I was expecting calved too, this afternoon). So I start wondering, why am I doing this, why don't I just run a springing mob and a colostrum mob and a milking mob like everyone else does and steal the calves every day and teach them to drink milk off rubber teats?
Started rowing them up and there's a bit of a hiccup in the row -a big Brown Swiss heifer who doesn't seem to know what is going on and has turned herself around and started pushing past the other cows and showing the whites of her eyes when I try to turn her round the right way, then the bigger cows pushed her up tight with her head facing the pit.
That's the one that was supposed to be a real late calver, the only heifer in the group that hasn't been coming to the shed twice a day with the springers. Every other heifer knows the routine and hardly fusses when the routine suddenly includes cupping up and milking. That's not the reason why I'm running a transition herd with the calves left on, instead of two separate herds, but it's a pretty big bonus. 362 spent what was supposed to be her first milking on observation - learning what happens at milking.
The other reason why this milking was the horriblest? Two of these new calvers are un-milkable. one is a big heifer with a lovely wide udder and the teats set at the outer corners - the only way the cups will stay on is if you stand and hold them on. She's not my breeding, she arrived in my herd inside her Mum two years ago and she's a good reminder of why I won't use Premier Sires. I've spend too many years holding cups on heifers and I thought I was over with it.
The other was a heifer I was milking in my bosses' herd last year. She had black mastitis and lost a quarter and I was ready to give up on her, but he thought she was worth the chance so I held the cups on her lopsided udder and hand-stripped what the cups couldn't get till she became milk-able. She's just had her second calf, a heifer, udder is as lopsided as it was back then and I put the cups on her, carried on to the next cow and half a minute later the cups fell off. I was about ready to turn her back into the dry mob at the end of milking, but I figured I'll give her a week. If she can't milk unattended by then I'll book her on a truck journey - the other might go with her, which would be a shame because she's a lovely loooking heifer.

 

[regolith]

It's not just heifers that can lose calves like that - sometimes it's just a luck thing. I know one time years ago I was in the paddock or the one next to where the cows are calving and saw a standing cow drop a calf that landed on its head, body folded on top - I ran, can't remember if I managed to save it or not.

 

[waihou]

Those photos are really good illustrations as to what heifers can do to you!

She thinks it is all over and is just sitting there relaxing! Poor calf didn't stand a chance. Yes I've seen a calf fold over after being dropped from a standing cow, and chances are they flop over on top of their heads and only the strongest can struggle to untangle themselves.

I'm pleased I don't milk our beefies, must be a real pain at this time of the year for Dairy farmers, especially if the weather is wet as well!
Your grass looks good, are you in the Waikato?

 

[regolith]

Manawatu. The springers are on the best grass, of course. A lot of it isn't good.

Milked the new calvers late today and will only do the milking herd tonight... my sweet disposition can only take so much! Beautiful day, for a change, even got my overalls dried on the washing line.

I can't help thinking though - 375 lost me a bobby calf worth maybe $10 and is still giving me her milk. If one of your heifers did that, that must be 3% of your annual income gone. Would you try to mother another calf on?

 

[waihou]

I can't help thinking though - 375 lost me a bobby calf worth maybe $10 and is still giving me her milk. If one of your heifers did that, that must be 3% of your annual income gone. Would you try to mother another calf on?

Quite right, we'll probably send her off the works as we can't carry her for another year with no return, the prices for beef are pretty good and no I can't really be fussed with mothering on a calf, probably only be able to find a dairy breed calf as it is early in the season for the beef cross ones!
The cow that lost her calf hasn't been handled, though being quiet enough I probably could get near her in the yards, just not worth the hassle, especially if she wouldn't take it and I had to hand rear it on powdered milk!

Another two ready for weighing and tagging this morning!
This is how I like things, cleaned up and fed when I find them!

Manawatu. The springers are on the best grass, of course. A lot of it isn't good.

We're almost neighbours! Just down the road in Horowhenua.

 

[regolith]

And there I thought the whole world was North of here...
That's a beautiful calf. Do they change colour like the Jerseys do or will he grow up fluffy pristine silver?
The bottom one I meant, the top picture has only just appeared. That dark dam is more like the Murray Greys I remember from a farm in Wales, first time I came across the breed and they were calving indoors on deep straw bedding.

I got another story about the way things work at NZ calving time.
I noticed a bobby calf with joint ill yesterday morning (I haven't been using iodine, thinking they were calving and living on clean pasture and could probably get away with not yet having unblocked the sprayer). So I sneaked him away at night time to the far end of the cowshed so his mum didn't see him drop, and left the body there to pick up the next day and put in the offal pit.
This morning I was bottle feeding a calf I'd put in the calfshed because it looked hungry and mum's teats were dusty, when a little truck and trailer pulled up, the trailer with what looked like a stack of timber, and I didn't realise what I was looking at till the driver got out, picked up my dead bobby calf and threw it on the trailer.
I was like "How on earth did you know that was there?" It was the slink truck of course. I'd no flag up, hadn't any idea who was doing the slink run and since there was an offal pit and I don't usually lose too many calves, hadn't bothered to find out yet.
He said he'd seen it from the road - so much for thinking the calf was out of sight - but I think they were coming in to see me anyway. He had a little pile of lambs as well as calves, lots of calves.

The bobby truck did the same thing yesterday. I'd arranged with the agent that I'd call them if I had calves, since I don't use every collection and I think I'm the only dairy on the road. They swung in to check anyway. My Rotorua farm, I'd have calves left behind even if the flag was there and fully visible but had fallen down.

 

[waihou]

Ha ha Regolith, the USA members of this site probably wonder what the heck you are talking about, what with slinks and bobby calves, but I do!

I know what you mean about unblocking the iodine spayer too-I must get round to it as well! I had to unscrew the top and pour it for todays calf-another 41kg silver bull.

Yes the silver ones go a sort of dirty white as they get older, like the cow in the bottom photo-but it comes up with a lovely gleam if you wash them for a show! Their skin is dark coloured so they never look white! The sire of these calves is silver so it is a bit of a luck of the draw what colour calf you get from the darker cows, but silver over silver-usually gives silver. The darker ones born charcoal grey get browner as they age.

 

[waihou]

This is todays bull, 41kgs, how about that for a beef cow udder?

and the same cow with her last bull calf, aged 5 months in January'10

she had a heifer in August last year, and now another bull, Governor Grey!

 

[regolith]

That's a nice pair.

I'm at 53 cows calved now. 21 of them are heifers.
The one with the wide teats is still top of the cull list - it takes three hands to milk her. One to hold the cups up. One at each front teat to try and stop the air slurping in.
Come to think of it, if I just gave up and hand-milked her I'd only need four hands and no stress. I think she'll go prime at the works but what a shame - what a waste of two years.

Season for stillbirths - unbelievable. There was a cow looking pretty uncomfortable this morning, flicking her tail and water spraying everywhere. So when we got to the milking shed I put her in the head bail and checked, just in case she was trying to push out a breech or something. Nope. Head and feet were there, still fairly far down, calf definitely alive, not too big. So I sent her back to the paddock to get on with the job.
It took her probably another three or four hours messing around. Finally I found her pulling the bag and placenta off a dead bull. I put it on the bike and she carried on eating the placenta and didn't even notice I'd run off with the calf.

 

[regolith]

One of the sharemilkers I worked for used Murray Grey bulls one year that were practically white. That was unexpected - years before I had a digital camera but I might have a photo somewhere of them fighting over a cow.

There's always something - I've got a weaner heifer with the milkers. Saw her today with 349, the mother of that grey-eyed calf. Apparently 349 missed her calf, thought the weaner would replace her very nicely thankyou... and you don't often see a calf that size sneaking a feed on a dairy farm.
Now the big question is how I'm going to stop that when I decide she's not allowed to drink milk any more.

 

[waihou]

Why don't you use the wide teated heifer to mother some calves on and sell her as a nurse cow with calves-or is that too much of a fiddle at this time of year?!

 

[regolith]

I think she'd take calves easily - I've seen random calves in the paddock just noticing those teats dribbling on by and grabbing a suck. It would be logical to put a couple of heifers on and let the lopsided 2nd calver rear her own heifer, then try her in the shed again when the calves are weaned and she's past her peak.
But yeah, its hassle - another 'herd' to manage and there isn't a lot of grass around. And I'm not sure how much milk she's giving. Her own calf is doing well, but she stops milking before my muscles start to seriously knot up from holding the cups on.
I've just been sitting on my hands all week, telling myself I'm not allowed to call the works buyer before Monday. The pair of them are causing me more stress than they're worth.

First assisted calving today, and it was a vet-assist. Found a 'down' heifer in the morning with the calf's right leg bent back at the knee and jammed in the pelvis... and if course, it was the same morning the tanker calls in at 7:30, the bobby truck turns up any time after eight and aside from stealing calves off cows, I needed to check those cows' SCC and draft them into the milking herd.
The vet, apparently, is the sort who thinks "a bit of cutting makes everything a lot easier". Off came the calf's head. Lifted the heifer with the hip lifters this evening and after ten minutes or so, wound them off her and she walked off and started grazing.

I was stupid enough to draft Corielle into the milkers today. Looked at my list as I was letting them go - why are you not on it? Well, duh, because that calf is barely 48 hours old. So now I have a cow to milk to the test bucket for the next two days. I just thought, you know, at least four or five days had gone by in that time.

 

[regolith]

Freezing wind here today and yesterday. Took some photos in the springer mob yesterday - checked them first thing and there were no new calves. Went back late morning and they were all at it - eight new calves born yesterday.
Annie, the cow in the middle of that trio with the feet hanging out, produced yet another good heifer. That's four in the last four years she's milked for me. Her first calf was a bull and I'm told she had a bull last year.

Sometimes if you lift a calf to its feet it insists it's asleep and takes a moment or so to put some weight on those feet and walk off. Now here's a new discovery, if you lift a calf that's decided it's actually asleep onto the bike it just stays there, perfectly balanced. The calf on the back is 375's, you've already seen two photos of that particular dead calf.

Corielle. Her bull calf is the dark grey - make a decent heifer bull, no? The other calf is out of a good cow but she was mated to a bull with a really bad proof - I thought when I saw that calf that 88 must have been mated to a yak to not be on my list of 'keep if it's a bull'. Calf's gone now anyway, no second-guessing that decision.

 

[hillsdown]

Your girls have some nice tight udders Rego

 

[waihou]

Looks nice and dry underfoot, even if it is cold. I can handle winter when it's just cold and dry! Same down here today too-but the sun is shining too, to melt the frost.
Are you half way through calving yet?

What do you look for when you decide you want to keep a bull for heifers?
Are you looking for small frames, from an easy calving cow, or for something from a cow with good figures in case you want to keep any of the heifer's calves? I understand if you are heading the organic way it is probably better to breed your own than buy in. Were the Angus bulls you used from low birth EBV figures herds?

 

[regolith]

It was dry
Got caught out in hail/rain last night - the place was flooded in minutes.

Not halfway, but I'm sure the heifers are halfway done - they started due on the 23rd. The cows came back from lease with calving start dates ranging from 12/7 to August. About 1/3, 70-some cows calved out of 189.

The only Angus bulls I bought from an actual stud were the ones I got late in 2009 after the other three went lame. Because my sharemilking contract was terminated, I never saw any of those calves. Three years I've had a stock agent find me an Angus bull/bulls and I could say that was three disastrous years, more or less. The other year I got two Jersey bulls and I'm leasing two Jersey bulls this year, planning to have three yearlings on farm and buy an Angus 2 yr next year.
I wanted Jersey bulls from good cows mated to good sires, basically. That gives me easy calving and a relatively lower risk if I decide to keep heifers from those matings. As it turns out, with the way my cows have been mated I have almost no good Jerseys in calf to good Jersey bulls - so I had Gerda and Annie on my list, knowing the calf would be xbred or Friesian & I couldn't use him over heifers. Corielle is another compromise - she's first cross, her calf would be 3/4 Jersey and in this case although the colour's wrong, I think he's got Jersey bone structure and shape and will be safe for heifers. Corielle is out of a fantastic Jersey cow I had, and by Ambition, who has never given me any calving problems.
Gerda's calf I think will transmit better production, and maternal calving ease - that cow could spit out anything - but will be at least average Friesian calving difficulty if not more. I'll find out when I DNA test him who the sire is, if it's Franco as I suspect he's got high calving difficulty from his sire as well. His birth weight is ok - haven't weighed him, but I doubt he'd be anything over 40 kg.

I have two very good Jersey cows that I'm reluctant to consider keeping bulls from (they were both crossed to Friesian last year anyway) because they're semi-recorded - I have no known sire for them. If all I wanted was a decent milk cow I wouldn't care, but I like to think that this herd is going places and that accurate and full pedigrees will be important.
I like the idea of Angus - but you can see what sort of herd I've got. It's not very often I see an Angusx calf good enough to sell. There's Angus semen in the bank for spring, and a bit of Simmental.

 

[regolith]

Indexes are a bonus. But they're not part of the criteria for keeping a bull here. I personally think the BW index is a waste of time and some of the dairy sires being marketed (which of course are high-indexing) are a big step backwards. But if you're selling cattle, you need those figures...
I do look at the bull proofs fairly closely because although experience has shown they're not that accurate, when my cows come back in calf to bulls who transmit seriously bad udders, I do want to know that.

 

[regolith]

Buried a good mate today:

Jes (Jessamy) Dec 2005 - 9 August 2011.
He got into some bad habits last year. Like darting at the front wheels of cars. Apparently I didn't manage to un-train him fast enough.

For any New Zealanders reading - Fedfarmers have just e-mailed a severe weather warning for the coming weekend - snow, gales.

 

[alisonb]

Sorry about your loss Rego.
Hope that weather is not as severe as they say, your cows about half way done with calving?

 

[waihou]

Yes, the forecast looks bad down south and the weather forecaster on the TV mentioned it will be severe for newborn lambs.
Let's hope it has fizzled out by the time it gets up to the North Island. Sorry to hear about the loss of a best mate.

Do dairy sires have any figures for easy calving or low birth weight amongst their indexes, or is it all based on production?

Do you use Simmental over your cows, just the low producers-do you check the beef bulls BW figures?
If you keep one of your own bred bulls for the heifers I assume you are looking for mainly Jersey blood then. I can see if you keep a bull out of your best cows then the calves will be worth keping rather than putting on the bobby truck. What are bobbies worth this year?

There should be plenty of good Angus bulls around with low birth weight EBV's and there should be an outlet for Angus bred calves, but the white faced ones always seem to be the sought after ones for some reason!!