Second dead calf
 

I posted last week that one of my cows was early and the calf was dead. I just got back from town and have another dead calf this one is also early. Both cows had their babies on 3/3 last year and they did go out with the bull in early april. They have had minerals and vaccination for everything the vet recomends in this area (8way 5 way and worming liquid). The vet is going to call me as soon as she can and I hope she can figure it out. These are both share cows I only get 50% of the calf profits off them and they where new to the herd November 2011 all the other cows have been here since at least 2009 (other then the bull that came in October 2011 but he was checked out and is highland and not used on these cows)
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Sorry to hear about the calves. That is hard to take a loss like that. How many cows do you have to calve out all together and when are they supposed to be due? I would have this past calf sent in to the state to see what you are dealing with or if you have any more do that for sure. Hopefully it is just a fluke and won't happen again.

Listeriosis, could that be it? Feeding any silage.? Listeriosis passes to humans. Any pregnant females Need to stay away till it is ruled out.

Necropsy!!!

I have 21 mother cows no heifers this year they started calfing last year the end of Febuary and continued untill June. I have been feeding grass hay that I put up myself a few bales left from last year but mostly this years stuff. I have loose minerals out for them same ones I have used for three years. We share a community pasture in the summer with a few other people some of them are done calving already this year but they took the bull earlier last spring.

The vet doesn't want to do a necropsy untill we have at least one more dead calf. The other vet I called assured me I would have more and we can look into tests at that point. They both reviewed my vaccination records and said I should have been covered for this area.

This is a probably a dumb comment given that two vets looked, but the vaccinations weren't modified live, were they?

Different bull? Larger fetus, drowning in the birthing canal? Just a thought.

Do you have fescue grass? That can cause early birth and tough sac which can cause suffocation. Do the cows have milk?

Also are you feeding corn? Could it be a fungus?

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Just some thoughts to kick around and maybe ask your vet.

From a statistical point of view, it is unlikely to be coincidence that the only 2 to abort are the ones you brought in together, later than the others.

I guess if the others start aborting, then there's nothing different about the two you mentioned.

But assuming there is something different, I'd wonder if they brought a disease with them, or if they don't have as much immunity as the cattle you've had longer. How many vaccinations have they received from you? Any way to know the vaccination history before you got these two?

If it was me, I'd be collecting the aborted calves and refrigerating them and getting them in for testing right away. Here's some reading on the subject.

http://extension.usu.edu/files/publi...AH_Beef_36.pdf

DJ, good article, I'm bookmarking that one.

I wonder if others who share the community pasture have had problems? I'm surprised your vet(s) want to wait for more dead calves. This would really bother me!

The two that aborted came in a group of 10 from my mother in law I sold the one that was open when we got them. I personally vaccinated them when we recieved them and then again before I put them with our bull.
The 5 way was a modified live vaccine last spring they had been given a dead vaccine the fall before. We do not vaccinate in the fall here per the vets and local custom on the big ranches

We have a native grass mix that has been here forever, do not think it's a fescue. The cows do have milk I milked one the one last night
No corn is feed at all it's not easy to get here and expensive
We did feed protein tubs this last fall when the grass was starting to die in the pasture and we hadn't started with the hay.

Was Vibro/lepto part of the vaccination? Like I said before, if there were any more i'd send them in. Hopefully it will be nothing. We have quite a few more cows than that but one year we had 2 do that early also. The second one we sent in and it turned out nothing but it is a peace of mind. Best of luck to you.

We had a cow abort 6 or 7 month twins about 3 weeks ago,should have been due about the middle of March or so, the cow was a maiden brood cow and we figured she probably got butted while around the hay rings, the pasture she was in has about 30 cows and there are 6 large round bale hay rings that we currently feed them at. Don't know for sure what the problem was. But I see where your were not feeding hay so that should not have been your problem.

We had two live bull calfs today they are both tiny about 45 pound but they both have nursed and seem to be ok aside from being very small. One of the cows was the first one last year at the end of Febuary the other one was mid March. I didn't think they could have a baby 10 months after the last one but it looks like mine all want to this year.

opportunity, I may have missed it.....what breed of cow do you have? 45# is very light weight for a commercial cross or other large breed....sounds more like a Dexter calf. What part of the country are you located in?

The ones that lost their babies are 1300-1450 pound Angus cattle usually have ~80 pound babies. One is a lowline/jersey but she has had 70 pound babies for me in the past with the same bull hers is about 45 this year had it alive yesturday. Today we had our herford have a heifer calf it's also small but closer to 55-60 pounds her are usually closer to 90. I live in Montana. I have history on the cows and these babies are tiny for these cows. We used an Angus bull he was a two and a half year old this last summer and it was his second year in use. I havn't changed minerals or pastures. I think the first two calfs were small and I wasn't watching for them yet as we didn't start calfing till the end of Febuary last eyar most where in March.

Just checking in to see how your calving is going.We had our first calf a couple days ago so calving season has officially begun. Hoping things are looking up!

We have had 5 more live calfs all have been much muh smaller then expected and have needed help drying off and getting warm as well as standing to nurse the first time. 4 of these have been 30-35 days before last years calfs so not quite as bad as the 45-52 that the dead ones where. The other calf was super small about 40 pounds and he was 49 days before last years in that cow. She has always had her baby the same week for the last 6 years so it's odd it's also the smallest baby out of her even smaller then when I used the mini bull the first year. I have 12 more to go this year but should have a short break here soon as 10 of those are summer moms.

Our regional cattle association has been conducting a calving survey due to the number of problems experienced by breeders in this area last year. Results will be analyzed by VA Tech.

I think you are experiencing something odd with your herd, certainly something out of the ordinary, and I would suggest you keep some very good records (breeding dates, birth weights, vaccination and health history of cows, sires, etc.) and get some assistance from a cattle association, extension agent, or something of that nature to see if there's a common thread anywhere with other cattle operations in your area.

Early calves, small week calves sounds a lot like lepto to me or maybe bangs. You could have had a virus or something go through the herd. Sounds like a good time to be talking with your vet.

What kind of protein tubs did you feed? I may get hammered for my opinion here but I think these protein tubs which are mostly molasses or corn syrup are the trojan horse of the industry. You might as well just feed your cattle pure sugar. Too much sugar in humans depletes the body of minerals, and I would assume the same thing happens in cattle. It may not be so bad if you could regulate the intake but some cows will stand there and lick it forever.JMHO

I may have missed it, but has anyone suggested vitamin A deficiency?? Commonly called "weak calf syndrom". Vit. A difficiency occurs when the cow was limited on green forage, such as was common in many drought areas last summer. If you still have 45 days or so before calving, you can supplement the cows with Vit A in their feed.

I'm really glad things are looking up for you although calving is hard enough the way it is without fighting weak babies. THis has to be hard on you. People here have thrown out some really good ideas for you to try/think about but I do believe you have a problem,this is not normal. We are on our 8th calf so far with calving,about 1/10th through and our calves thankfully are normal sized and vigorous and we had severe drought also. Lick tubs,vit.A will only help things out alot but I still think you are dealing with something like lepto that you should check to see if that was in the vaccination program. Just my thought. Hope the rest get bigger and better,keep us posted.

Do you have actual breeding dates on the cows or are you going by last years calving date? These calves could be full term and the cause of the low birth weight would be different!

I don't have breeding dates I turned the bull out with the cows in April. I have noticed only the Angus are early the highlands and milk cows should be having babies now to and they haven't yet. The milk cow was turned in the same day as all the others with the same bull and she is definately pregnant but looks about two weeks out.

This is the tub we used it might have been the problem

http://www.tractorsupply.com/tub-24-...6#product_tabs

it may or may not be the problem and there may be other things going on, but I got on the protein tub kick a couple of years ago. It was getting dry in late summer so I started setting some tubs out all thru the fall and winter till they started calving in late Febuary. These were $100 tubs from a well known feed company. i also started using the 27% protein tubs with urea, because that was the best bang for the buck! With the urea I started noticing that some of the cattle looked gaint or drawn in in the stomach area, not all but some of them, even though they looked great, slick hair coats, the extra protein made them look good. But I soon stopped using the tubs with urea and just used the 12% tubs.
I have 3 cattle herds and this one herd of 22 cows, one cow developed a severe case of pinkeye, she seemed to be licking on the tub all the time and it was one still with urea in it. I hadn't had any pinkeye in this group in years. Also this cow was the last one to calve, she was 6 or 7 years old and had a good calf every year. When I seen she was ready to calve I didn't think to much about it and went and checked on her the next day, there were two very small calves dead, she was no where around, when I finally found her in the woods, she was dead with a huge sac of after birth behind her, maybe she was trying to have a third calf I don't know. In another herd one cow had a calf dead that had to be pulled and she died a couple of weeks later....coincidence? maybe....to each his own, just food for thought. The more closer to nature I stay with my cattle the less problems I seem to have.

I was thinking leptospirosis, too. Do you have a raccoon problem there?

Deer can also be the cause of a lepto problem as well.

I just can't help feeling that if some testing had been done on one of the dead calves, you'd have some information by now. I think the lepto might be addressed by the vaccination program (you mentioned an 8-way and a 5-way but I imagine that you need to know which vaccines were used to be certain of the coverage). Clearly something is not right but without some tissue samples or blood or competent veterinary input (other than waiting on "at least one more dead calf"), you are three weeks into a problem with no answers.

I contacted the third vet that covers this area he does not think I have a problem.
We had a 9th calf today it was about 65-70 pounds it's mother seemed confused that she had a calf she didn't let it nurse for three hours and I have had to lock her in the barn to get the calf to nurse.
We do not have racoons in this area at least we have never seen or heard of one.
We have bears, wolfs, fox, bear, deer and elk in the area.
We vaccinate for Bangs it's a big thing when you are close to yellowstone national park.
I haven't really used the protein tubs before but my mother in law had used them on her cows in the past and wanted us to put them out. Mine should mostly be having babies in 2-3 months they have been later then hers in the past.
We looked back at the vacine the last time they got lepo was november 2011 we didn't have it in the one we used this last spring as the vets didn't think we needed it here they may all be wrong though.

That really surprises me on the lepto because with the deer population on the rise,lepto is just a normal shot that you automatically give them.

Lepto is making a come back here in Kansas. Deer is the main culprit. The vets are saying coons too but mainly deer. Dogs are starting to come in really sick from swimming in the ponds/rivers that are low due to drought.