# of ways a cow or calf can kill or injure itself

[gizmom]

I was reading the Raindance calf thread and saw where Ken warned a plaster about batteries, it got me to thinking about the numerous ways we can lose a cow or calf. Sometimes one just gets cancer and there is nothing you can do but put her out of her misery. Other times you wonder why in the heck you stay in the cattle business when sometimes it feels like they just look for ways to hurt themselves just to make us look stupid. I assure you if hay net falls off the gator and we don’t see it there will be a race between the calves to see who can eat it and stuff up its gut. I was at a Alabama BCIA meeting last year and herd from one of the attendees that one of his producers had called for help he had cow dropping dead all over. They went out, first thought was drinking green algae but upon further investigation found where a new building had been under construction and a burn pile was put in the pasture. Large quantities of treated lumber had been burned. Cows were licking the ground for the minerals unfortunately getting poisoned in the process. Of course bloat is another cow killer if not caught in time. Tetnas will kill one. Just to name a few. I’m sure all of you can share a way they have found to off themselves on your operation.



Always a pain trying to keep a patch on them for pinkeye, sometimes you have to get creative.



This is a piece of dead bone removed from a bred heifers leg she broke it at about three months old healed up and was fine still she got heavy bred then she abscessed hauled her to the vet and found that the let had mended but a piece of bone had died and was sticking out causing the leg to abscess



Gizmom

 

[wbvs58]

Generally I find my cows are pretty good when it comes to dying or hurting themselves, I have not had to bury many of them, they seem to step through wire on the ground without getting caught up. Horses on the other hand are very accident prone, broken wire just seems to jump out and grab them. I have lost a couple of cows, probably average one every 4/5 years. One that stands out in my memory was a young cow to bloat. It was a very good clover year and I moved the cows to a new paddock mid afternoon after working them through the yards. I also put a young yearling bull in with them. He was very keen and picked out this one cow to chase around as she was obviously in season, the next morning she was dead. I believed that by not letting her rest and take the time to belch and get rid of the gas she died of bloat.

I like that piece of bone story Gizmon, must have been a big surprise.

Ken

 

[JMJ Farms]

Always a pain trying to keep a patch on them for pinkeye, sometimes you have to get creative.
Gizmom

Now that’s a true Pink “eye patch”. :lol: Gonna have to try that just to give the neighbors something to talk about. That’s creativity at its finest :tiphat: