momma kicking calf

[angus9259]

It's her calf. Only cow in the calving pen. She knows it's hers too. Took down a gate to get back at it in the barn when I first separated them. She still bawls and bawls and bawls when they're separated till they get back together. Then she loves it, talks to it, licks it . . . . and kicks the crap out of it when it tried to nurse!!

That said, momma just let her go through a full nursing without kicking. Ran her in the chute real quick to get the calf on her then let them both out. She stood the rest of the time without the chute. Hopefully we're close to the end of this ordeal....

 

[angus9259]

Well, here we are a year later . . . . anyone wanna guess what momma did this year?

 

[M5farm]

that question leads me to believe she kicked her calf

 

[skyhightree1]

that question leads me to believe she kicked her calf

If that is true... She should be growing wheels prices are too high to keep a problematic cow like that. I may do what I gotta do to get the calf up to a good weight of about 300 if you got time for that or ship her now and bottle feed.

 

[MO_cows]

Since she was 10 yrs old before it happened, I'm gonna guess it was just temporary insanity or some discomfort that was not detected, so she is nursing this year's calf.

We had a heifer with twins do that "Sybil" act. She loved on and licked them both, but she kicked at the smaller one when it tried to nurse from the side. But that little 55 lb calf was vigorous and smarter than it looked, it figured out the first day to nurse from behind whenever sister nursed.

 

[angus9259]

well, after having to pull her calf this year because it was coming backwards, I thought for sure she'd reject it, but she took to it just fine. it was a fluke. she's still on the salebarn list, but with weaned heifer prices being what they are right now, I'm gonna hold each old girl as long as I can.