New born calf dead

[saltbranch]

I have a little angus cow, very gentle that has a growth about the size of a cantelope between front legs plus she was on the verge of calving. So we put her in the "camp" area by herself, where she could be watched by my father when he came to feed/put cubes out. The goal was to monitor the growth and birthing. This morning he saw her walking the fence line from the country road with calf in tow. He came back later in the afternoon to feed. He saw the cow standing near same fence line and then some buzzards fly off. The calf was dead and according to his helper it appears to have been killed by another animal. Possibly dogs, coyotes or bobcat?. I am going to be setting up game cams in the area to see what is coming through on a regular basis my next trip to the property.
After thinking about this today, I think I made a short sighted decision to put her in area by herself with no other cattle in with her? The area is roughly 4-5 acre's with some thick brush for cover. Perhaps if I put some older cows in with her, the out come might have been different. Thoughts on this?

 

[Caustic Burno]

Are you sure it didn't die of lepto and critters found Lubbys.

 

[callmefence]

Are you sure it didn't die of lepto and critters found Lubbys.

Or maybe the 100 heat into cold rain and right back hot again.

 

[Son of Butch]

After thinking about this today, I think I made a short sighted decision to put her in area by herself with no other cattle in with her? The area is roughly 4-5 acre's with some thick brush for cover. Perhaps if I put some older cows in with her, the out come might have been different. Thoughts on this?

Don't beat yourself up 2nd guessing. I believe the outcome would have been the same alone or with additional cows.

 

[Rafter S]

The calf was dead and according to his helper it appears to have been killed by another animal. Possibly dogs, coyotes or bobcat?

...or black-headed Mexican buzzards. Anyway, like Butch said, don't beat yourself up. If you have cattle you're going to lose some. Years ago I had a Holtstein heifer springing. I checked her when I got home from church, and she was up grazing, with apparently nothing going on. Several hours later I found her stretched out on her side with the calf halfway out, and both of them dead. The point being that you can't watch them 24/7, and even if you did you'd still lose some.

 

[pdfangus]

Once upon a time when I was another mans cowboy we put bulls in with a hundred heifers and bred em to start calving about March 1.

And they did....

should point out that in our area march can be cold but it is usually not too bad and cold snaps don't last that long....

That year March 4th we had a doozy of a blizzard.....lasted a couple of days and piled up the snow. Stayed cold and it didn't melt.

I was fighting calving heifers for days on end and trying to get the calves to shelter...

I don't recall how many we lost but I found some in snow drifts two weeks later when the snow melted....