What do I look at to determine what happened?

[BryanM]

Last night I noticed a cow starting labor, so I put her in the calving pen. I have cameras in barn so I figured it would be a little while, by the time I got over to the house and brought up camera, maybe 15-20 min calve was born, but it was dead. I went over to check out the calf, the cow had it licked off, fairly clean, the calf eyes where open, gums and tongue where gray, it was fully formed looked good no signs of being stepped on. I am not sure what to look for, just would like to know or learn from.
I know the old saying, when you have livestock sometimes you have dead stock. And I have lost a couple calves before but I know what happened to them. And I know its always possible, but man does it make you feel like you have let your animals down.
I just would like to know what happened?

 

[Dsth]

sorry for the lose of your calf. if the cow was laying down in the same spot where the calf was born, you should be able to tell if it was born front first and position of legs. If the calf is on the smaller side, it may have been backwards and cord pinched off during the delivery. others may give you more insight to determine if calf was dead before birth. I have had calves born that had been dead in the uterus and fluid had a definite bad smell. have also had calves born that the water sack covered the nose and calf could not get air. the cow may have licked that off and gotten rid of the evidence. hope you get more useful info and find the cause.

 

[darcelina4]

I had a heifer Thursday standing there doing nothing at 5:30. I went to grocery shop and got back at 7:30 to find a dry dead calf that I am sure was stillborn. It looked like she pushed it out, cleaned it, ate the placenta, and went to eating hay. The calf was 3 weeks early. Only weighed 25 pounds. The heifer is a small framed jersey bred to a lbw red Angus. I was expecting a small calf but not that small and not for 3 weeks. Her udder was pretty under developed compared to what we were expecting. She had been horrid to milk despite being a show heifer, very halter broke and gentle. She is a kicking b. I now have her in my backyard with a big jersey that is nursing 4 calves that are 6 weeks. I am trying to move one of those calves over to this heifer. I've had bed luck with that red Angus bull's bull calves. I have 4 great heifers from him. We had a stillborn in December from a red amgus show heifer too. It was born on time but 43 pounds from a 1200 pound 2 year old heifer. Then during out extreme weather event in Feb a simangus had a calf in the snowstorm that we found at maybe an hour old. We took him in the house. We thought he would do ok but he died 3 nights later in the house getting treatment. We have only one live bull calf out of 4. He is out of a red poll heifer and he has been good from the get go. I don't get the stillborms???