Please excuse the long post, but I'm still trying to grasp what could've gone wrong. That being said, we have about 25 head of Reg. black Angus in our operation. This past December we bought 3 bred females at a private treaty sale (2 heifers and 1 three year old.) All preg checked to calve mid march to mid april. We have them separate from the rest of the herd (in with our 2 replacement heifers) as it was too snowy to get the trailer to that location.
One heifer had a large calf (60+ lbs) early in feb. that was either stillborn or did not make it through the night (was not expecting them to calve yet so had last checked them while doing chores around 4:30 p.m. found calf next morning.) We had to pull a 110 lb calf from the 2nd heifer the 27th of march that didn't live but a few hours (birthing stress I assume, as he was having trouble breathing and very lethargic after pulling, we could not get him up to nurse or anything) The last one was still born fully developed at 35 lbs Sunday Mar 30th. The heifers were bred to a negative BW bull while the 3 yr old was bred to a slightly higher bull. None of the cattle show any outward signs of illness or otherwise. But have no real baseline as there are no other pregnant/calving cows at this location. All the rest of our heard are calving on schedule with no complications to speak of.
The only differences are location and a small grain ration that the problem cows are recieving that the others are not.
Any insights would be helpful. Is this simply terrible luck, or should I be looking for some other environmental/breeding factor with these animals.
Thanks
Dave
One heifer had a large calf (60+ lbs) early in feb. that was either stillborn or did not make it through the night (was not expecting them to calve yet so had last checked them while doing chores around 4:30 p.m. found calf next morning.) We had to pull a 110 lb calf from the 2nd heifer the 27th of march that didn't live but a few hours (birthing stress I assume, as he was having trouble breathing and very lethargic after pulling, we could not get him up to nurse or anything) The last one was still born fully developed at 35 lbs Sunday Mar 30th. The heifers were bred to a negative BW bull while the 3 yr old was bred to a slightly higher bull. None of the cattle show any outward signs of illness or otherwise. But have no real baseline as there are no other pregnant/calving cows at this location. All the rest of our heard are calving on schedule with no complications to speak of.
The only differences are location and a small grain ration that the problem cows are recieving that the others are not.
Any insights would be helpful. Is this simply terrible luck, or should I be looking for some other environmental/breeding factor with these animals.
Thanks
Dave