Some days...

[Cattle Rack Rancher]

I wonder if I'm cut out for this whole cattle raising thing. Came home tonight to find two new calves and one prolapsed cow. I'm having a good run after just about getting run over by my killer cow yesterday. Phoned the vet and he came out and got everything tucked back where its supposed to be while I stood over him holding my axe in case my psycho cow decided to charge again. Those vets can work really fast when they are motivated. :lol: Anyway, here's my question. I lost a calf off another cow about three weeks ago. It was a six week old calf at that time. That cow seems keen to mother this calf off of the prolapsed cow. So, I'm wondering as a back up plan if the prolapsed cow doesn't pull through, would this cow that lost her calf three weeks ago still have any milk?

 

[Beefy]

probably not but if she wants to bad enough she may. i had an old cow whos calf was pulling her down so i weaned it for 3 months and when they got back together she started milking again. :shock: so anythings possible. you will need to supplement until she starts milking more, if she does.

 

[Cattle Rack Rancher]

Well, it was a bit of a process, but it seems to be working. The prolapsed cow didn't quite make the cut, I'm afraid and by the time I got home from work the next evening she had actually managed to prolapse again right through the vets' stitching, so I had to put her down. Grafting the calf onto the calf onto other cow has taken a bit of time. I started by drawing the cow into the head gate every morning and every night with a pail of oats. She was a bit nasty at first and kicked at the calf when he tried to suck, but she got used to feeding the calf while she was eating her oats after awhile. Then I would top the calf up with a bottle. So, I did that for a week. Then I started feeding the oats in the front corner of the shed so she had to stand against the wall and I put the calf on her and again she would feed the calf until the oats were gone. Then she would push the calf away and I would top him up with a bottle. Finally, yesterday, I went out and she was feeding the calf without having the oats. So, now, she is still getting the oats and I'm slowly weaning the calf off of the bottle. I actually think she's got enough milk to take care of him, but I'm just being a little cautious before I release them back with the rest of the herd. Anyway, I've answered the question that I needed to know.

 

[peg4x4]

Question-- Why are you keeping a cow you have to stand off with an ax?

 

[Cattle Rack Rancher]

Question-- Why are you keeping a cow you have to stand off with an ax?

She's only like that for a couple of weeks after calving. The rest of the year she is pretty docile. She's calmed right back down now. I've had ones before that would actually stalk you when you went out in the pasture for pretty much the whole summer. All of those have gone down the road. My memory seems to be short because in the fall when I'm doing my shipping, that cow is always quiet. In fact last year, she wasn't even mean at all after calving.

 

[ENNOT]

We have a couple cows that are stalkers, but are figuring out that if they do it too much the dogs get turned on them and sometimes hang off of the cheek or nose. I would can them if they were mine, but that's what happens when you run cattle with someone else(relative).