Strange this year

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3waycross":fgkia982 said:
Well I will be this weeks guinea pig. One of my most reliable cows is springing now. However her bag is just "full" not strutted for sure. I was watching her this morning and what with her licking her side and acting kinda weird I believe she will go in the next 24 hours. She is far from tight uddered tho.
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Looked at her this morning and as described she was not strutted for sure. She calved at 3pm today heifer calf. I really wanted a bull out of her this time. I watched 4 of her grandsons sell for an avg of $3250 last friday.

Went to register the heifer tonight and looked at her 1/2 sister from last year. Last years calf was born on Feb 28th and this calf Feb 27th.

Kinda weird numbers here. I have these 2 cows that are 1/2 sisters. Both AI'd to the same bull same day. 758 calved 3 days early to the AI date and her 1/2 sister 769 calved 4days late. and I always thought the bull calves came later. Well not in this case. They have another 1/2 sister who I pasture bred cuz she calved late last year, the bull she was bred to has moved up a bunch of cows this year so I am hoping he did the same for her.
 
Well, here's a picture I took a few hours ago of my 1/2 GV heifer 5S (Mega)... According to my breeding dates she's due on the 28th of March, and I'm hoping I'm wrong

If the pic is too cropped on the right, here's the direct link
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v153/ ... G_5924.jpg

IMG_5924.jpg
 
So far first calf born was 62lb bull and the next morning was a 50lb heifer calf. 2nd calf for both cows and 20lbs+ lighter than last year so far. we were not in drought but lots of rain. Hubby thought hay might lack energy/sugar so we are giving dry molasses with their lick tubs. Seems to be upping the milk in these two, we'll see if it helps the rest.
Valerie
 
Got two 5yr olds bagging now and looks like they will really drag it out. Things have sure changed around here
 
3waycross":373qu2xm said:
Got two 5yr olds bagging now and looks like they will really drag it out. Things have sure changed around here
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We've got 3 that have been bagged since the weekend, yesterday one that hadn;t bagged popped out a calf. Today she's boiling with milk
 
Glad to be reading this post... just had a heifer give birth to a 74lb heifer yesterday with NO BAG. The only way we knew it was coming was her sloppy back end and hiked tail. After she calved STILL NO BAG. After taking a quart of colostrum from a bottle, the little heifer got under though and sucked all 4 teats... this morning not much different... I'm hoping at some point she shows me a respectible bag so I quit worrying about that calf!

Anyone else see calves coughing just a day or two after birth? This one is and I'm thinking about giving her a shot of Draxxin... would you say she's too young? or just do it? No one else around here is coughing... actually everyone looks really GREAT coming out of this mild winter.
 
Wisteria Farms":2s2a90pq said:
Glad to be reading this post... just had a heifer give birth to a 74lb heifer yesterday with NO BAG. The only way we knew it was coming was her sloppy back end and hiked tail. After she calved STILL NO BAG. After taking a quart of colostrum from a bottle, the little heifer got under though and sucked all 4 teats... this morning not much different... I'm hoping at some point she shows me a respectible bag so I quit worrying about that calf!

Anyone else see calves coughing just a day or two after birth? This one is and I'm thinking about giving her a shot of Draxxin... would you say she's too young? or just do it? No one else around here is coughing... actually everyone looks really GREAT coming out of this mild winter.
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Years ago we had a heifer do the same thing. We bottle fed the bull calf for 3 days and sllowed him to suck mom. When he started refusing the bottle, we noticed she had milk! Good luck with mom and calf.
Valerie
 
"Generally" a higher protein diet = higher milk production.
We had such a horrible breeding season last year, I'm just glad to be coming to the end of our calving. Got 5 left - clean up bull calves.
 
Now that my season is reasonably over, I can comment a little bit

Most cows didn't bag up as much as usual, with the exception of my one heifer who's bag had to be kept away from sharp objects. What I did notice is that hardly one cow calved on her due date (the heifer was one of them), they were either early or late (usually only by 2-3 days), never on time... Also, cows which habitually calved early would calf late, and vice versa. A couple of cows who like to gestate around 295 days were calving around 285, and some that often calved at 280 were calving at 291. The twins were from a cow who usually carries longer, and they were at 278 days, a little early, but with twins I could guess that's common. All in all, my average gestation time has remained steady at 288 days. I'm also seeing a bunch of cows dangerously close to prolapsing this year... I'll mark them for shipping, maybe keep them one more year if they look like they can do it alright
 
This has been an odd year here too. Bigger than normal calves, cows giving up sooner, not tight bags. Nutrtition has been hard on the cows these past few years. Supplementing as much as we can but i think with everything this past year, and then the mild winter and keeping a good body condition, the summer heat in the earliest of spring, an older herd...
Pnemonia has been an issue in the cows...due to the moldy pastures and then the dusty hay maybe, and all the mold in the air, possibly. Treated two this year. Have not treated for pnemonia in years. Tough to kill too.
Have not seen this kind of calf loss in 10 years. Stupid things too. Calf sack, head back, and too big.
Calves are nice and strong, healthy. Navel ill has been at an all time low thankfully. Thankfull none of the deaths were due to diseases, thankfull the cows lived for another day.
Not the only one around these parts going through these types of problems.
Gone through about 6- 100 ml bottles of nuflor on a herd of 55...all cows with cow problems with the exception of 3 calves for possible navel ill (born in the soup, a little swollen navel and just did not want to take a chance), and a new battery on the thermometer.
 
I had one calf with a swollen navel, kept an eye on it, it's receding now with no intervention on my part and he never seemed down at all. We lost 2 calves this year and both were kinda stupid, One was butt first with hind legs forward, after a lot of wrangling I got it out, dead unfortunately, don't know what happened there, then 2 mornings later a 2nd calver was about 2 weeks early and had a dead calf, nothing apparent wrong with it, possibly the sack, but it had been licked off. I had a couple calves that had virtually no sucking instinct at birth and had to fight them to get them their colostrum, They were standing well, just didn't want to suck. All in all, we should have 21 calves on a herd of 22 cows, which isn't as bad as some stories I've heard.
 
This year I have cows giving birth big heifer calves (around 80lbs) and small bull calves (around 60lbs) which is odd thing for me since we used same bull in two summer seasons. Last year's crop was normal, big bull calves and small heifer calves. Funny thing is this year's heifers giving birth bull calves with no problems compared to last year's heifers had trouble to give birth to big bull calves and had to pull them out of the heifers. Even this year our big cows throw small bull calves too. But I am glad that I have no problems with calves at this moment as there are more cows that hasn't drop a calf yet.
 
My big docile monster cow (1900 lbs) just gave me a 115 lb heifer calf this afternoon... really lively and vigorous. She was making the sucking face well before she found the teats, and once she got them she didn't let go until each one was dry, then went off to try and jump and play.
 
Thought I'd dig this thead up from the grave... I remembered it, and I thought it was from last year... oops, it was 2 years ago

How are people's cattle behaving this year? I find some are bagging up WAY in advance and I get sick of checking on them, and others are calving with hardly any bag... Typical BW's are down a little bit, with the exeption of 1 bull calf born yesterday at 130 lbs, they've all been right around 90 lbs.
 
3waycross":3ggvjww8 said:
Got two 5yr olds bagging now and looks like they will really drag it out. Things have sure changed around here
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One of them drug it out till April 5th. Put her and the other one with my GV bull and he moved them up 47 days this year.
 
I just have some that gestate forever... I'm still in the first cycle until about Apr 3rd, and have a bunch right at the beginning of it I think
 
dun":1726obkq said:
We've only had 2 calves so far this year but I noticed that they aren;t bagging up tight before calving. The vet mentioned yesterday that he's seeing the same thing. Kind of throws one of the usual indicators of impending delivery out the window!
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Yeah dun, That's funny I have noticed the same thing this year. B&G
 

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