Mysterious death

[pauline]

Well, this happened two years ago, but it has traumatized us since then.

A mother cow gave birth to a baby calf boy in winter two years ago. We put them in an enclosed pasture by themselves. The baby was healthy, nursing and walking around. He was two days old when that happened. It was a dark winter rainy night. The last time I saw him, he was standing by my side while I was drying him of the rain water with a towel. Then I went inside the house at about 5 p.m. Because it was such a cold dark winter night, we all closed our windows and started to settle in.

At about 9:00 p.m., my neighbor called us to say that they heard a baby calf crying and dying. We rushed out to the pasture and heard a loud wail from the baby calf. Then we found him gone out of the enclosed pasture through the hot wire guarding the small entrance to the pasture. By the time we found him in the neighboring field, he was laying on the ground shaking and crying loudly. We eventually transported him back to his mother and laid him down next to his mother. He had quieted down so we left thinking he's getting better and the mother would take care of him. The next morning, we found that he was dead right where we left him. The mother cow was sitting next to his dead body quietly.

What has happened? Why did the baby die? Was it because he was shocked by the hot wire? What should we have done to save him, or to prevent similar incident?

Since then every time I have a baby calf, I would stand in my yard listening for a few minutes from time to time during the evenings.

Pauline

 

[DavisBeefmasters]

At 2 days old, it's hard to believe any bacterial issue could have had enough time to take hold.

No telling without a necropsy, but who wants to throw money after 1 loss.

That's a bummer pauline, truly is, but I don't think you could of/should of/would of done anything different.

 

[TexasBred]

If it was rainy and cold the calf could have just died from the cold if his mom didn't lick him off or anything and he was too cold to get up and suck and get some warm milk into his body. Just one of those things that happens to all of us at some place along the trail.

 

[zippygirlchick]

maybe a coyote chased him or an animal of some sort. we have bad coyote problems here.

 

[bward]

Dollars to donuts the mother laid on him and ruptured something before he escaped the pen. I hate that death bawl. Once you hear it you never forget. I once had a calf like that only he was laying bawling and his mother was standing over him, looking at him with a big question mark on her face. I notice the calf looked slightly extra full so that he almost looked a bit bloated. I stuck a needle in his belly and withdrew a syringe of what looked like blood and waited for him to die which didn't take too long. After he expired, I cut him open and found the belly full of free blood and am guessing by my lack of true Doc knowledge that a major vein like a portal vein was ripped. One kidney was detached from its moorings so it was obviously a mothers loving hoof that did the accidental surgery. The stomach was full to the brim with coagulated milk. So sad.

Now the rest of the story.... I kept the cow thinking it was a freak accident. The following calving season I found her passing a lot of blood and in early labour. She was defintaly calving but there was some placental detachment going on. We got her in and had to wait on her as the calf was not through the opening cervix. Finally when a hoof was beginning to emerge and the head was through the cervix we decided to go for broke and pull it. As we did the whole placenta fell out right after the calf and the calf was not breathing. It was however still alive and we worked on him for quite a long time and we did get him to do a few weak breaths on his own but when he did a white foam came out of his mouth. On a vigor scale of 1 to 10 he was a 1 and quickly became a zero.

Now for the cruncher... We left the dead baby in with the cow and went to clean up and have a coffee break. When we went back out to let the cow go I was shocked to see her lovingly laying ON TOP of the dead calf. She was oblivious to the fact that she was crushing the guts out of him. :???: She earned a trailer ride and I learned a lesson.

 

[Cowdirt]

Then we found him gone out of the enclosed pasture through the hot wire guarding the small entrance to the pasture. Pauline

Pauline, I have some of my pastures divided with 2 strands of electric wires. During calving season, I turn the power off the lower strand. Newborns are allowed to stumble back and forth under the fence until they can manuever better. I've seen mom's and babies get isolated too often when the baby needs to be nursing. Just the way I do It. FWIW.

 

[dyates]

How hot is your fence? I've read not to use really hot ones with sheep or goats for fear of killing them. I don't see where a calf that young would be any different, especially in full contact with wet ground.

 

[pauline]

The hot wire was not very hot. We had the wire high enough so that babies can come and go if they know that they can come back. It was rainy and wintry, but not very cold here in Southern Oregon.

The one thing that stood out to me was that he was outside of the hot wire where the mother could not go to him. Who knows how long he had been laying on the ground wailing to get mother in the dark. And he was too young (2 days old) to know that he had got to go back to where he came from across the wire. Can calves die of shock, not shock from hot wire, but shock, being too scared, too frightened?? I saw on TV a man tried to catch a deer to fix his wound on his antler, and he told the viewers that it was risky because when being frightened, deer can stop their heart and die of shock. After being caught, the deer just fell to the ground died right before our eyes.

Does that also happen to frightened young calf babies?
We were grabbing him and hauling him to his mother, that probably had worsened the situation.

Thanks
Pauline