My beginners luck has run out!

In hind site, it would have been fairer to have put that calf down at the start. I learned a lesson with a litter of puppies twenty years ago that I didn't ad hear to. I had a female fox hound that had a litter of pups. She had 8 but would push four of them to the side of the whelping box and nurse the other four. My wife and I kept moving them back and letting them nurse. After some time, we realized these four all had birth defects. They had the ears like a normal dog but did not have ear holes that lead to the ear canal. We had to put them down. She knew something was wrong.

My point is sometimes the mother knows best and maybe we as humans should learn from them instead of "interfering". I don't know, just reflecting I guess.

Feels like you did the right thing to try to support the first-time calving - no one regularly has the answer to why a calf doesn't make it. I don't know of anyone who would put a calf down before doing what you did. Culled at the right time too - keeping a heifer around hoping for a different outcome is hard to afford.

Sometime first time mom's are clueless (I hate to admit it but I was). They eventually catch on as yours did. I suspect she would have behaved the same way no matter what condition the calf. I think you did the right thing.

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Living Large Down on the Farm.

You just never know.

Last year we had a first time heifer that rejected her calf - this calf had some physical deformities, and was blind. We gave the calf away to someone who wanted a bottle calf project. This year we had a first time heifer that was not letting the calf nurse so I put them into a corral and helped the calf get started. By the third nursing with my assistance both Mama and calf had things figured out, and have been great ever since. We had three other calves between these two with no problems. Earlier this year a friend of ours had a cow not allowing the calf to nurse and it took them a week putting the Mama in a stanchion several times a day before the calf was allowed to nurse without help.

I think it's always worth making the effort. Sometimes just a little bit of help makes all the difference.