Milk cow questions

[farmerjan]

If they had an attitude as a heifer, it is unlikely it would improve as a cow. I just shipped a 7 mo bred angus jersey guernsey cross that was a total idiot in the barn. She will make some farmer a decent "beef cow", but I was not going to deal with her "want to run over you in the barn/pen" idiotic attitude and her lack of cooperation to come in the catch pen. She was raised on my guernsey/jersey cross nurse cow and in the barn from a day old with another calf grafted on the cow.
Got another 1/2 angus -- 1/2 jersey-holstein(dam) heifer calf now; on my jer/hol nurse cow (her own calf), that is a jerk and the 2 ang/hol bull calves I grafted on her are easy going and will allow me to rub on them, yet I cannot get near the heifer ..... go figure. It is the 3rd lactation for this cow, and she has raised 5 her first lactation; 3 at first, then 2 put on her after weaning the first 3... then 4 the second lactation... 3 then weaned and an orphan put on her 2 days after we shipped her first three and she fed him 5 months as she did not breed back right away.... this time her own calf is a jerk. If this heifer does not get her attitude adjusted, she will get sold too.
I think hereford/dairy crosses tend to have better dispositions than angus x. But I have 2 jer/angus crosses that are as quiet and easy going as all get out also.

 

[Redgully]

If they had an attitude as a heifer, it is unlikely it would improve as a cow. I just shipped a 7 mo bred angus jersey guernsey cross that was a total idiot in the barn. She will make some farmer a decent "beef cow", but I was not going to deal with her "want to run over you in the barn/pen" idiotic attitude and her lack of cooperation to come in the catch pen. She was raised on my guernsey/jersey cross nurse cow and in the barn from a day old with another calf grafted on the cow.
Got another 1/2 angus -- 1/2 jersey-holstein(dam) heifer calf now; on my jer/hol nurse cow (her own calf), that is a jerk and the 2 ang/hol bull calves I grafted on her are easy going and will allow me to rub on them, yet I cannot get near the heifer ..... go figure. It is the 3rd lactation for this cow, and she has raised 5 her first lactation; 3 at first, then 2 put on her after weaning the first 3... then 4 the second lactation... 3 then weaned and an orphan put on her 2 days after we shipped her first three and she fed him 5 months as she did not breed back right away.... this time her own calf is a jerk. If this heifer does not get her attitude adjusted, she will get sold too.
I think hereford/dairy crosses tend to have better dispositions than angus x. But I have 2 jer/angus crosses that are as quiet and easy going as all get out also.

Its interesting, i have a red poll jersey cross hiefer I'm breaking at the moment. Completely fine with me but if kids come around she carries on like she has a bee in her bonnet. Has a few months to quit that or she'll be t bones.

 

[MurraysMutts]

Opal is very very leary of other humans. Around me she does
Until she gets spooked! And she is big enough now I can't hold her when she's spooked. We will be working on that this fall. Gonna tie her and socialize a bit.

She should calve early winter so I gotta stay on it!

 

[jasonya4ever]

What are some things I can do to prevent milk fever. With our goats we drench with calcium after they kid. Is there anything proactive that will help? Also I saw some different advice on milking. We plan on calf sharing. Do I milk on day one?

 

[50/50Farms]

What are some things I can do to prevent milk fever. With our goats we drench with calcium after they kid. Is there anything proactive that will help? Also I saw some different advice on milking. We plan on calf sharing. Do I milk on day one?

How many calves?

 

[Buck Randall]

What are some things I can do to prevent milk fever. With our goats we drench with calcium after they kid. Is there anything proactive that will help? Also I saw some different advice on milking. We plan on calf sharing. Do I milk on day one?

1. The single most important thing you can do is keep your cow in moderate body condition. Fat cows are extremely susceptible to milk fever, and they have a harder time getting up when it happens.

2. If you have a reasonably accurate idea of when she's due to calve and can feed her separately, feed Soychlor or X-Zelit for the 2-3 weeks before she freshens. They work in different ways, but both are quite effective.

3. Supplement calcium AFTER she freshens. I don't recommend liquid drenches. Cows hate them, they can burn the cow's throat, and they don't have any lasting impact on her calcium levels. Slow release boluses like Bovikalc are much better. They do require a special balling gun, though.

 

[jasonya4ever]

How many calves?

Hopefully she just has 1 she is big and hasn't calved yet.

 

[Warren Allison]

2. If you have a reasonably accurate idea of when she's due to calve and can feed her separately, feed Soychlor or X-Zelit for the 2-3 weeks before she freshens. They work in different ways, but both are quite effective.

Question, Buck: Would it be beneficial, detrimental, or ineffective and a waste of money to feed both?

 

[50/50Farms]

Hopefully she just has 1 she is big and hasn't calved yet.

Unless she spits out a really hungry monster of a calf, you quite possibly could have to milk day one. My question was more to the tune of if you were putting more calves on her.

 

[Buck Randall]

Question, Buck: Would it be beneficial, detrimental, or ineffective and a waste of money to feed both?

It definitely wouldn't be beneficial. Both products work by different mechanisms to reduce the amount of calcium that the cow an absorb. I don't know how they would interact together, but I suspect they would have an additive effect, which would be a disaster. Feeding either for too long or too much is bad for cattle.

 

[TexasJerseyMilker]

I use those tubes of calcium paste before and after the birth. Seems like 4 or 5th lactation Jerseys frequently get milk fever and go down. You need the special 'caulking gun' to give these tubes because construction calking guns dont fit the tubes.

Milking on day 1- On day 1 and the next several days the cow will be producing colostrum which the calf must have enough of in the first 12 to 24 hours of life for it's immune system to work. I'm sure you must know this from rearing goat kids. Dairys milk out the colostrum and give it the calves with a bottle so they are sure they got enough. One of my calves Daphne hid in the field and when I found her she had not gotten enough colostrum. A pretty little heifer wilted and died in a week for no apparent reason like a cut flower.

You can buy powdered colostrum replacer at a good feed store it is a good idea to have some on hand. I have supplemented store bought colostrum to some newborn calves because while time is ticking away they instinctively search for teats up by the flanks where teats are supposed to be instead of down around the dairy cow's hocks.

The first few days or a week there will be a lot of udder edema with makes it difficult to milk until it goes down. Frequent milking and massaging with peppermint udder cream helps but the best thing is the udder bumping and sucking of a vigorous calf.

I share milked for 10 years and I'm done with it. The only benefit as I see it is that you don't have to be there for the second milking. Share milked cows hold up cream for the calf because the cream comes near the end of milking. They can turn milk off just like a faucet because they know the calf is on next. To get a good letdown you can let the calf suck one or two while you milk the other two. But when the calf gets big and strong they just shove your hand away and take it all, so much for share milking.

And Jerseys often make too much milk for one calf. People foster several calves on them, wean those calves and foster a couple more. Jerseys are very maternal so it is easier for them to accept extra calves. Then people sell all those calves.

This Jersey heifer I have now all her calves will all be bottle fed. I have gotten a milking machine. Not one of those toy ez milkers with no pulsation, a Surge belly pail. The belly pail has short milk lines and is easy to take in the house and clean with hot water. You can find the whole milking system used and rebuilt, vacuum pump and everything on Ebay for less than $900 including shipping. Some people share milk by tying up the calf near her, putting a plug in one of the inflations, milk three then let the calf have the one.

 

[wbvs58]

Buck didn't mention it, it may not be considered significant these days but trying not to strip all the milk out for a bit, maybe just leave the calf to it for several days until she is over the high risk period may help. What are your views on this Buck?

Ken

 

[Buck Randall]

Buck didn't mention it, it may not be considered significant these days but trying not to strip all the milk out for a bit, maybe just leave the calf to it for several days until she is over the high risk period may help. What are your views on this Buck?

Ken

It does help with milk fever, but it increases the risk of mastitis and lowers the cow's production ability for the rest of the lactation. It's an old fashioned practice that has mostly gone by the wayside for better management techniques.

 

[50/50Farms]

It does help with milk fever, but it increases the risk of mastitis and lowers the cow's production ability for the rest of the lactation. It's an old fashioned practice that has mostly gone by the wayside for better management techniques.

This was why I said they might have to milk even from day one. Even though it's packed with the good stuff, it can't stay if it ain't being drank. You don't gotta drink it or throw it away, you can just set it aside for the calf.

 

[TexasJerseyMilker]

Speaking of colostrum replacers, there are colostrum replacers then there are colostrum replacers. You see these bags of powders for 'all species' (goats, colts, lambs, calves).

Here is some advice from an experienced calf raiser- This was in 2021-
" Here's some observations I've made in the last year and a half of raising bottle calves (700 of them)
You get what you pay for. A $50 bag of milk replacer will not perform the same as a $75 bag of milk replacer, even if they are both all-milk and the same fatrotein. That $50 bag is probably the same stuff people were using 30 years ago and the $75 bag has lots of research and development behind it (LOL all the way for me!)"

"Not all colostrum replacer are created equal. Some are actually made out of serum -from blood taken at the slaughter house! Check your labels and comparison shop if you can. Many of the real colostrum comes from Saskatoon Colostrum (SCCL) but even they aren't all the same. We run blood total proteins and the calves fed one bag of LOL colostrum (made by SCCL) still had as low of total proteins as if they had been fed nothing. Calves fed Calf's Choice colostrum (also by SCCL) had beautiful total proteins even though they have the same amount of IGG in each bag, the LOL has a lot less fat."

https://www.valleyvet.com/ct_detail.html?pgguid=20569623-0B86-4CDC-BBB9-B336CDA44845

(Extra colostrum milked from the cow can be put in the freezer for later use. Some kind of colostrum is best to have on hand because some idiot newborn calves just can't figure out where the teat is in the first 12 hours)

"More is better when it comes to colostrum. When calves are fed one feeding of colostrum their total proteins are "adequate" but when fed a second feeding of lower quality (typically second milking or heifer colostrum) their total proteins are phenomenal. Those calves bounce back from challenges like scours or pneumonia like nothing happened. We aim to feed 10% of body weight of good colostrum within 2 hours of birth and then I give another 5% 4-18 hours later (before I leave work if they are morning calves, soon as I thaw it in the morning for afternoon and overnight calves) "

"Mystery sick calf at less than a week old? Check the naval first. Five days of Penicillin or 2-doses of nuflor 3 days apart.
Naval infections can spread to the joints, we know that... but what about their eyeballs?! Yep. Seen it twice. Last one was really icky looking. Took a while to clear up, I did 5 days of excenel and then a dose of LA200 because he was blind as a bat and his eyes were WHITE. He's fine now though, never skipped a beat."

"Scours? Calves lose fluids faster than they are able to willingly consume, lactated ringers has a super long shelf life and SQ fluids, unpleasant as it looks is about the only way to keep up with the loss once their eyes are sunken. IV is all but impossible once they are that far gone, and pretty darn hard on a good day anyway. When they are that bad, it takes 3L SQ and double the normal amount of fluids they get so milk + electrolytes or tubed electrolytes. Not unusual for me to tube 1 1/2 gallons of electrolytes in a down calf and add 3L ringers on top of that if they are down with scours. Has to be enough to correct the dehydration AND prevent it from recurring."

Most people don't have access to IV fluids to give sub Q. What the vet told me was to just go right now get 6 bags of Re-Sorb at the feed store, thats what they had there, follow instructions and tube or bottle 2 quarts twice a day for 2 days with the 2 milk feedings 6 hours after the Re-sorb feeds. Then 2 more days of 1 feeding of Re-sob and the two of milk. The calf stood up, wanted to suck and was well in a few days when she would have died. I am just telling this because its good to be prepared. You only have a few hours to turn around a dying dehydrated calf.