Cows, calves and veterinary: September 2008

Thursday, September 25, 2008

What you see if you sit down in the cow paddock

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Today's surprise

Number 67 (daughter of that grand matriarch, 63) had twin heifers.

Which is probably why she's the only skinny one left in the dry cow herd. *Two* big calves musta taken a lot of energy to grow.

Eighty-eight had a bull the previous day, and was treated for wobbles in the middle of the night having failed to either get less wobbly or superglued to the ground (treatment involves sticking a needle in a moving cow then maintaining the connection to the calcium bag - most cows stand still once they figure out what you're doing. If she doesn't, you got a lot of running to do to keep up with her...)
Spoke too soon about not having much milk fever this year. I haven't seen any since the start of calving, until this last week. Eighty-eight is the third within a week.

I've been editing images to AB calves, gunnera and an update on the sick cow mentioned here.

Monday, September 15, 2008

AB calves 2008

Ambition: Eight bulls, six heifers, including a set of M/F twins

Idol: Six bulls, eight heifers, including a set of M/F twins

Achet: Eight bulls, two heifers

Red Ribbon: Thirteen bulls, seven heifers, including a set of M/M twins

Orbin: Five bulls, four heifers

Noontime: Eight bulls, six heifers

Charisma: Six bulls, thirteen heifers

The calf on the left is sired by the Angus bull I was running on farm, the two on the right are LIC AB Angus.

Most of the Angus calves I've seen from natural matings have been this red colour, two have been black and about three brown/black streaks (the ones from crossbred cows). They're small and thrifty and sweet-natured - of course I'm taking photos because I don't know when I'll see calves like this again. They're not your typical black Angus.

The only one of the above bulls associated with any calving difficulty was Achet, whose calf caused 106's calving paralysis. All of his other calves, large though they were, were born easily.

I assisted one Red Ribbon calf who thought it was too cold outside (correct presentation, no size issues, no good reason discernible for the fact he had failed to appear after several hours of labour) and two second-born twins who were heading out backwards - in the first case the mother (81) was probably exhausted. The vet assisted a malpresented calf from a natural-mating to Jersey. Every other calf born to my herd this year jumped out on its own. Of the five dead calves this year all but two (106's and the vet-assisted one) drowned after birth in lying water or mud owing to the unusually wet calving season.

Many years it's been a different story, especially in herds I've managed that have used large bulls (Friesian) on yearling heifers. I've seen dystocia rates in those animals of 30 - 40% and this is a major cause of heifer wastage as some of those heifers won't get back in calf that year.

Check the records. If your yellow notebook has every assisted calving, dead calf, RFM etc noted next to the cow's calving details it only takes a glance to pick out the 'at-risk' cows - at risk for low fertility. From last year's book, how many of those cows are not in the herd this year?

When looking at the numbers of calves born by each dairy bull, note that equal quantities of straws were used for all except Achet. The actual calves born range from 9 (Orbin) to 20 (Red Ribbon). I can't conjecture that there's a large difference in fertility between bulls, because they weren't used randomly and hence the resulting number of calves could reflect a difference in fertility between groups of cows in my herd (evidently, cows with bad udders which are selected for mating to RR are the most fertile...)

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Calving paralysis

Edit 1/10: googling for calving paralysis in calves? Try "contracted tendons" calves Usually straightens up on its own eventually, or the vet can use splints to straighten the legs. Haven't seen a serious case for years.
/edit

Shortly, I'll summarise how each of the AB sires got on this year. Overall 50% of the calves were heifers, a much better rate than last year. The Brown Swiss calves again were nearly all bulls. There are several images still to be taken, a visual representation of bull performance (mind out of the gutter please!! - or was it only me who misunderstood that last...?) including last year's Angus who has now been given a name because it feels totally wrong to write 'Angus' in the sire space next to his calves. They're... interesting calves.

106 had an unusual calf. Unusually large, that is. She's a Friesian cow, mated to Brown Swiss. All of the Brown Swiss calves have been large - at a guess, ranging from 40 - 50 kg, usually several inches taller than any other of the baby calves in their pen. Until 106 had her calf, there were no calving difficulties with the BS crosses. She managed it on her own, during the night. When I got there in the morning she was tending a very dead, very large grey bull calf (most likely 60 kg plus - I never did lift him; I drove the tractor right up, slid him onto the tray, off again at his destination) and staggering about on a wonky leg.

This is fairly typical of calving paralysis - she in fact has very little control over that right rear leg and can only walk with considerable difficulty. The movement in her leg when she did walk was simply scary to watch - the separate parts of the leg all seemed to roll and wobble independently of the joint above or below.
Sometimes I've seen calving paralysis expressed as no more than a knuckled-over foot, or a general weakness in the hind legs. Or a leg might swing forward and out, making it almost impossible for the cow to rise or walk - in the worst instances calving paralysis can be a cause of downer cow. Time and rest return the cow to full mobility, and treatment with anti-inflammatory in the initial stages appear to help.

We tried to rest 106. She had to walk home for her first miking, was then left with some other cows in the closest paddock to the dairy shed and by next milking I found her halfway down the farm again, trying to get back to where she left her calf. She ended up on alternate days with the colostrum mob (halfway down the farm and left behind for the evening milking) and in the paddock next to the shed, as she was more settled with the other cows, but definitely not fit for the walk. The enormous quantities of milk she was giving finally decided it - she had to stay next to the shed and be milked twice daily (on once daily the row waited while the cups were washed and the yard hosed down before she was finally milked out), and be denied any and all opportunities to drag her reluctant limb down the farm race.
It took about a fortnight before she recovered enough to join the milking herd.

148 had calving paralysis last year, from delivering a Friesian-cross bull calf. it wouldn't have been much of an issue, except that the races were smoothly slippery following heavy rain and while she could get about well enough on the paddock, she couldn't walk home without falling over every few yards.
She got a ride home on the back of the tractor and was dropped off in the paddock next to the shed with her calf, where she went down with milk fever a few days later (pasture samples have since shown that paddock to be unsafe for transition cows, owing to excessively high potassium) but quickly recovered. She also had an extended stay in the colostrum herd, and joined the milking herd about ten days after calving.

In 148's case I blamed the bull, who was supposedly easy calving but had thrown several over-sized calves by that stage. But the bull is only half the story. Last year I mated 148 to Jersey. She's eleven years old now, and won't be cross-bred again. Partly because of her history of large calves - but also the older cows are at much higher risk of post-calving complications, and it seems an easy calving is the best chance they have of giving yet enother good lactation. And another, and another...
This year 148 calved after a rainy night, in company with about ten other cows. I arrived in the morning to find a muddy break, a cast heifer who ultimately needed vet assitance to calve, and more calves than you could count - a third of the calving herd had delivered overnight, including a set of twins, and only about two calves were anywhere near their mothers. 148's was one of those. He was a very large, very pale Jersey bull.

Googling 'calving paralysis' brings up a couple of useful looking pdf files, the first of which has failed to appear in the time I've been typing, so you just have to put up with my explanation assisted by R W Blowey. The symptoms are as shown above. The cause is nerve damage, from prolonged pressure during calving. It's the primary reason, in my opinion, for assisting a cow who is progressing slowly calving a large calf that is normally presented (an abnormal presentation presumably would be assisted as soon as identified). All of the severe cases of calving paralysis I've seen have occured in a cow that hadn't been seen for several hours and had delivered a dead calf on her own - the calf usually oversized and presumably dead because of the long delivery.
If you want to show off the fancy words you learned from a vet at some stage, you can tell the next vet your cow has 'obdurator paralysis' because that is the name of the nerve often damaged by a tight calving. Further explanation by R W Blowey (A Veterinary Book for Dairy Farmers, otherwise known as 'the green bible') however suggests that what I more commonly see is peroneal nerve damage, which causes the knuckling over of the fetlock.
Rest and time eventually returns the cow to her normal gait, but in the meantime her biggest risk is slipping over and injuring herself on a hard slippery surface (which is why 148 was *not* made to walk home - rather do whatever it takes to get her safely transported on the back of the tractor than risk a broken pelvis). In Britain where the cows aren't commonly outside in winter, we used rope or shackles on cows with calving paralysis to prevent them from 'doing the splits' with the possibility of causing injuries that don't heal.

Gunnera

You know the expanse of gunnera shown on the STDC pest plant information page?

That's ours.

I was sent a copy of it today, following inspection and approval on the reduction of happily thriving swamp gunnera. I knew it was bad but...
Honestly, I can barely remember it looking like that.

I should scan it in - I know someone who might be rather intrigued by the 'before' image. He might want to come and get what's left and take it home for his garden (if it'll get through customs).

edited to add images Spot the gunnera. Any-one want to guess how tall that stuff is? (hint, if I get through the swamp to that patch it'll be way over my head. The offical species description is 1.5 - 2 metres - I reckon that's a gross understatement)

Here's a little one. I stuck my 20cm pasture ruler next to the seedhead (which only looks like brocolli in someone's hallucination) so you can see how little this one is.

The plants die down in cold weather, but new leaves emerge in spring - late July - and grow at some unmeasurable speed into overhead umbrellas.
I spent my first season on this farm finding out what killed it by spraying the plants I passed while working on other weeds. No to Tordon Max, no to Round-up. But Thistrol Plus knocked over even the biggest plants in two days.

electrolyte for calves

New health issue? Google it. My vet book so far has told me my cow might have BVD, Salmonella, Johne's, E. Coli mastitis (why didn't I check her udder this evening while not milking her?) or copper deficiency.

Google first unearthed a fascinating biosecurity document, then a rephrase landed me deep among calf scours with never a mention of adult bovine scour. I liked this:

From the Dairy Exporter archives
Schouten said 95 percent of diarrhoeic calves could be cured by therapeutic levels of oral electrolytes, without additional alkalinising agents or intravenous fluids. Calves with mild to moderate diarrhoea should continue to be milk fed and additional electrolytes given to provide a total fluid intake of six to eight litres/day. Electrolytes should be separated from the milk feeds, being given ideally two to four hours apart. A calfeteria filled with electrolytes in the pen all day and especially overnight ensured a good intake, greatly increased the speed of recovery and reduced the mortality rate. Clean water should also be provided as necessary.
With moderate to severe diarrhoea feeding should be:
Day One - Electrolytes in the morning with milk at lunchtime and electrolytes later in the day and available all night long.
Day Two - Milk in the morning, electrolytes at lunchtime, milk later in the day and electrolytes all night long.
Day Three - As for day two or back to milk.
Schouten said home brew electrolytes were often inadequate, as they might not have enough of the vital salt and energy ingredients. Farmers should stick to commercially available, clinically proven products.

...and have only two things to add. Ad lib electrolytes is wonderful for a pen of calves scouring/threatening to scour/recovering from scour but it is essential to ensure that those calves most in need are actually getting the stuff. And yes, that may mean bottle or tube feeding any weak calves in the pen - seeing them standing at the feeder mouthing a teat is not enough.
And naturally, a comment on home brew. often inadequate, as they might not have enough of the vital salt and energy ingredients The only reason why that might be the case is because the 'home brewers' don't have an adequate recipe or have failed to make it up correctly. You know where most 'home brewers' get their electrolyte recipes? From the farmer next door.
I go to the vets, get the biggest box of electrolyte powder they've got (3 kg) for my little mob of calves and it's gone in 24 hours if there are several scouring calves. So I go straight back to the home brew, at a fraction of the cost and without mucking about with piddly little scoops and trying to find homes for the empty boxes.
Offering electrolytes at the first sign of a problem, and offering them ad lib, ought to be regular practice. But if farmers are going to use commercial preparations to do it, they need to be available in 20 kg sacks. And it kind of helps if they are no more expensive than the milk they're replacing.

edit, 25 September: This is the cow for whose benefit I was looking up scours.

She'd been calved a day, milked once and apparently all was normal, before I went to get her for the evening milking and found her lying 'flattened' (miserable cow/milk fever pose) and reluctant to rise, apparently dizzy and with scour like water. Sunken eyes (see 2nd image) - often a result of dehydration. I decided she didn't have milk fever. In the morning she was worse (though the scour was on the mend).
I checked that she didn't have a retained placenta (she didn't, and although I didn't think to check for it at the time, that also eliminated the possibility of a left-behind twin). My inexpert diagnosis was low-grade peritonitis, the sort that eczema cows get, not the acute peritonitis that kills them in 48 hours (because she wasn't dead) and she was started on a course of White Magic
Then I sat back and watched her recover.

I took this photo today, ten days after the previous photos.

Sunday, September 07, 2008

Severe pug damage

Calves contemplate an area that on the 27th of July was ankle deep mud.

Er... it's the mud I'm trying to photograph

That's better.

'Bout the only thing this stuff is good for is making shadows on. Great shadow work. Better if the calves would stay still for two seconds at a time.

This morning

Saturday, September 06, 2008

waiting for milking

53 has a brand new bull, son of Red Ribbon.

I see Minda 08 has a new tool - when I clicked on her number to check that mating her herd ranking was featured alongside her BW/PW/LW. 53 is ranked 49 on BW, 4 and 5 respectively on production and lactation worth. Just rub it in, LIC - that's a real pretty calf out there...
mmm, looking at some of the other cows it's not clear what ranking refers to. It's evidently not her absolute position in the herd, because the numbers go way higher than I have cows. more decisions - go to sleep, or find the Minda 08 manual and find out what these numbers mean?

Bloat balloons

When I've created space on the camera, I'll take photos of clover! The little leaves are growing like weeds - well, all weeds seem to be thriving right now, but clover is outcompeting the buttercup and chickweed and thistles and having a good go at taking on the grass.

Edit: There ya go
Interestingly, the leaves in the lower photo have evidently been nibbled by something non-bovine.

I have a very clear answer to the question, 'does bloat oil actually do anything?' Evening milking tonight. On the left side of the fence, we have cows, a few of which show signs of mild bloat. On the right side of the fence we have balloons. Friesian balloon, Jersey balloon, crossbred balloon - take your pick.
Is it time to start panicking?

Apparently not. The balloons were content with the world. I touched a few swollen abdomens as they turned past me in the race (having raced towards the milking herd, they were now coming back to their 'official' paddock) and they were tight as drums.

Since adding bloat oil to the drench, I'd twice in a week had to dump it and start the mix again because it had become too thick to use. Naturally I blamed the bloat oil, even though I've mixed it in the drench in previous years - but not at such high rates. So two days ago a couple of Peta dispensers were delivered, with the added bonus that trough treatment should allow me to cease bringing the dry cows in for drenching every morning and attempting to persuade the five yearlings with the milkers that they really *do* want to lift their heads up for the drench gun.
The dry cows were started on trough treatment immediately; the milkers had another day on full rate bloat oil with the drench before I mixed a new batch.

So this morning, decision-making. They would still get bloat oil in the drench, I decided, firstly because I was still seeing mild bloat even with drenching, secondly because they were not yet accustomed to bloat oil flavoured water and in the time it took for the concentration to come up in the trough and the cows to get used to drinking it, they'd be at risk. So 3 ml a cow times three days in the drench, 5 ml a cow in the trough dispenser for twelve hours.
The paddock they were coming out of looked a little rougher than it ought - bonus, the cows were wellfed, the dry cows are right across the way and I don't think the breaks I set up yesterday were big enough; turf them in here to clean up the clumps and they can go back to their too-small break later. Move the dispenser to the (clean) trough? No, I decided, they'd get the correct rate in their own trough later, they wouldn't be here long.
I could see both herds throughout the day, checking from a distance that they remained comfortable.
When I went to get the dry cows and put them back in their paddock, I found balloons.

I checked them after milking, then a couple of hours later (just now). The bloat has gone down, and I thought that would be it for the night, but 53 who was threatening to calve is now very much underway. Accompanied by grinding teeth (sometimes a sign of milk fever). So another hour or so and it'll be back out to check on her.
The AB calves are finished (the last two were bulls) and there are 46 heifer calves this year - close on 50% of all the AB calves born. We hit a lull about a week ago, corresponding to the time the bull went out. So far I've seen two of his calves, except one of them has horns, and a possible AB sire. Looking at the two calves together, however, I'm convinced they are siblings. Angus bulls that throw calves with horns are usually not pure Angus - and as far as I could tell the bull did look pure.
According to my records, if all the cows that were AB while the bull was running with them held to the AB rather than the bull, then the bull achieved a 33% conception rate to his matings (some of those cows didn't have access to the bull, as I was runing two herds).
Two cows have apparently held to dairy AB from the last few high BW straws, while running with the bull. 53 is one of those.
The next couple of months will tell the full story.

And hopefully I won't be able to find balloons to take photos of. Just clover.

'nother edit: It's not quite a balloon, primarily because there's so little space in a yearling abdomen that the swelling makes a distinct 'hump'. Get a bit of mature body depth and she'll probably start to look like a balloon. This girl has been coming in with bloat every morning, recently. I took this photo just after milking, a couple of hours after letting the yearlings through onto today's paddock. Didn't see any bloat among the cows.