Premie maybe

[bird dog]

I have a 10 YO Black Sim cow that has been in my herd since she was a calf. She had her 9th calf sometime today. I checked the cow yesterday and while I new she was close her bag had not filled out as before. This evening I found her with a calf that was alive but was still covered with sac that had dried to where it looked like a plastic bag.

It appeared as if the cow had not gotten up but she did with some urging but had not passed her afterbirth until she got up and stood around a few minutes. The calf seemed healthy and could wobble walk. While the cow was standing there she was still out of it enough to where I could squeeze on the soft teats. I couldn't get anything out but I'm not a milk maid..

So my question is, has this cows milked just not dropped and will since she has given birth or is there something else going on?
She normally has a medium to large udder. I gave the calf some colostrum replacement this evening.

Ideas?
Thanks

 

[Bright Raven]

Good on the colostrum replacer and not supplement. Hope is was a good quality. Some are low on antibody rating. I use a replacer that has 200 grams of globulin protein (IgG).

Why the dam has not come into milk would be speculation on my part. I had a 30 day premature calf but the dam had plenty of milk. She may come into milk. At this point, you are going to have to perform as a surrogate mother. After giving colostrum replacer, you will need to provide a milk supplement until things improve.

 

[farmerjan]

Are you sure about the breeding/due date? Could be the calf was a little premature, and that is why she didn't have any udder. With our cows, the older ones seem to get an udder nearly overnight where the heifers seem to get a little bag a few weeks ahead. Also, if she continues to be a little "slow" acting, she could be borderline with milk fever. Sometimes happens in older cows and is somewhat common in dairy cattle, and sometimes they get a good udder and sometimes not. Just one of those things that you have to deal with in older cows sometimes.
I would give the calf 2 feedings of the colostrum Replacer, 12 hours apart, then bottle feed if the cow seems to be slow to come to her milk. If she has a good enough disposition pen her in a barn or lot and leave the calf with her as well as supplementing it with a bottle 2x a day. If it tries to suck, it will stimulate her milk production. If it seems to not want the bottle and the cow develops more udder then you should be good. You will be able to tell pretty easily if the calf is coming to you for the bottle or if it is getting enough from the cow.

 

[bird dog]

I have no idea on the breeding date. She is in a distant pasture with around 60 other cows, all bred natural service. It will be a pain to take care of the calf but nothing that I haven't done before. My guess or hope I might say is that the calf is early but I don't believe I have seen a situation where the bag looks empty enough to where you would not expect a calf for at least a week.
We will see what tomorrow brings and then decide what to do.
Thanks for the suggestions.

 

[Nesikep]

Try and find out if the teat is just empty, or if it's plugged solid.. if you run her into the chute, giving her a shot of oxytocin will make her let down the milk, she ought to have some at least and see if that helps.. When you grab a handful of teat and squeeze, let up on the pressure with your thumb, if there's milk, you should feel it deflate and you know you're dealing with a plug... good warm water and some rags will help.. or just get the calf nursing on it

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

Is the cow thinner than normal? Maybe she has a twin still in her - or spit out a twin somewhere else and you haven't found it (dead or alive?). Twins can really take a lot out of an older cow.
Also, maybe she's "aged out". I've never had one do that, but that's possible. Just too old to produce, especially if she is low body condition.

 

[bird dog]

Well it went from bad to worse. There was spmething else going on. The cow was down this morning and had a very large prolapse. She won't or can't get up. She has large cancer lesions all over the prolapse. Her eyes are sunk back in her head. In other words, she was dying so I euthanized her.

Bummer huh? At least the bull calf is healthy and readily took a bottle. I am going to try and graft him on to another cow later today.

Jeanne, the cow was in good shape with a body score of at least 6. She showed no sign of anything being wrong with her. It appears she gave everything she had left to get a healthy calf onto the ground.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

Sorry to hear that. The way you described the cow, it sounded like she had something wrong.

 

[Lucky_P]

Those weren't 'cancer' lesions. The cow had prolapsed her uterus... what you were seeing were the maternal caruncles; normal structures.
I'm guessing it looked something like this:
http://www.kashvet.org/oasis/wp-content ... 008705.jpg

 

[bird dog]

Yes Lucky that is what they looked like. Matter of fact the whole picture looked similar to the situation. Thanks for posting that. I hope I don't see it again. I wrote the post this morning when I came home to get a firearm. She was dead when I got back out there.

She was an old cow but I never thought much about that as she had really never had any problems. She still had some teeth and I still own her mother.

 

[TCRanch]

Oh, wow, I'm sorry! At least the calf seems to be doing well. And I understand never wanting to see it again. I had a uterine prolapse in the middle of the night, first calf heifer. My vet is a rock star, was here within 30 minutes and she's now bred with her 4th calf.

 

[farmerjan]

Sorry to hear about the cow. Sometimes there is no real rhyme or reason for them getting in that predicament. She did put her all into getting that calf on the ground so for that you can be thankful. It happens, it's sad, and you go on. As you said, at least he took the bottle well, and if you can get him grafted on another cow, then it's as good as it is gonna be. We had a cow with a month old calf just come up dead one morning and no idea why. Still had some fair to decent teeth so not one of the "grandma cows". There were 2 calves that were going back and forth on this cow and the other momma, so we watched and it was stealing so we just let her keep the 2. They did all right, weaned off 75-100 lbs less than the others in the group but no extra work. We did grain her a bit for about a month to keep her production up til the calves were eating a bit more and they did okay. Hope you can get the cow to take this guy.