Quick delivery

[Dave]

This morning I was shuttling hay up from the stack yard. We had fed the cows over towards the road so they were busy eating out of the way. On my second trip all the cows were over there eating. Unloaded the hay, that just takes a couple minutes. Head back for load #3 and there is one cow 2/3 of the way to the river. As I get closer I see she has a brand new calf. And I do mean brand new. Ten minutes ago she was 100 yards north of there eating. She must have been in labor for 1 minute and 45 seconds. They should all be this fast.
The calf will join the other 40 or so calves in the field. Lots of calves laying in the sun along the feed row. It is a beautiful spring day.

 

[farmerjan]

Are these your one and dones? Too bad, that is a great trait to breed for!!!!!

 

[ksmit454]

That's the best!! Had one last year do the same sort of thing. Knew she was close to calving and about 10 minutes later checked again and she was already up cleaning her calf off.

 

[Dave]

Are these your one and dones? Too bad, that is a great trait to breed for!!!!!

Yep, there is 82 out there now plus a neighbors cow who seems to like it here. We are right close to half done calving.

 

[TCRanch]

My first heifer to calve this year started acting like she was in the early stage of labor, pacing around & swishing her tail, at 2:15. Left the barn and fed the rest of the herd, put out bales, came back to check at 3:00 and she was mooing like crazy, licking off her giant heifer calf. Wish all my heifers were that easy!!

 

[Dave]

This morning it was slow delivery. While we were feeding there was a cow at the far end of the field. So we pulled down there. She had a hind leg back and couldn't get enough lift to get up. So I run down to B's place to borrow his hip lift. As I put it in the pickup B says he has had good luck IVing them, he gathers his stuff and comes along. While doing the IV he says before we leave we should stick an arm in her and see if anything is going on. Sure enough there is a calf right there. B says it is either backwards or upside down. Turns out it was presented right but the head was back. A few minutes later we had a live calf out on the ground. In a couple minutes she stood up. She went to mothering the calf so we drove off calling it a victory.
The story doesn't end there. The wife and I went to church when we came home the calf was standing down be where it was born and the cow was 200 yards away laying down. I ran down there on the quad and picked up the calf. I took it to the cow. I watched them for a good 10 minutes. They both loved on each other but the cow couldn't stand up. I went to the house and mixed up a bottle of powdered colostrum. Figured the cow was questionable but I better work on the calf. Zoomed back down on the quad. The cow was standing and the calf was sucking away. So much for $15 worth of powdered colostrum. Went back several hours later. The cow was laying down. Got to about 20 feet away and she stood right up. Cows? Oh well, all is well that ends well. 4 new calves in the last 2 days.

 

[Dsth]

I am often amazed at how fast some cows can go from not doing anything to having a calf nursing in a short time frame. Since I calf in the Iowa winter, the weather is sometimes not very good. try to check on them every 3 hours at night and every 2 during bad weather. they can all calf inside but some decide to calf outside for some reason. have had several surprises in a short amount of time; some good and some not so good.