The "She has no milk!" mystery

willow_girl · #1 04/14/12, 08:29 AM

One of the best, if not THE best, cow in our herd freshened last week.

She has no milk.

In each of Beauty's first two milkings, she barely gave enough colostrum to fill a bottle.

Now, here's the "mystery" part. Boss found a calf in the dry cow area. He thought it was hers because he says he saw a bit of dried-up afterbirth hanging from her vulva. OK, that's usually a telltale sign, right?

But I looked at her last night. In addition to having NO udder edema, her belly still looks big.

Also, boss mentioned she had calved almost a month early ... he assumed she was settled by a previous breeding. We had dried her off about a month early as she was WAY out and her milk had dropped off to almost nothing.

Boss listened to my concerns .. he ran her up in a stall and attempted to bump a calf. Didn't find one.

That was two nights ago. Last night, he brought another fresh cow in. She was very flighty thing as a heifer, so much so that I call her Fraidy.

No one has been able to find Fraidy's calf, although she clearly had one (blood on her hocks, and filled the bucket her first milking -- good girl!)

Boss had mentioned that the calf he thought was Beauty's was very wild and hard to catch. It had slipped under the fence and wandered off.

I can't help but suspect it was actually Fraidy's calf.

I know I'm probably wrong ... but I hate to think we're gonna lose Beauty. She really is a gorgeous cow, and was a top-notch producer her first 2 lactations.

I don't think I like mysteries.

dosthouhavemilk · #2 04/14/12, 09:16 AM

Sure does sound like the first one hasn't calved and the calf belongs to the first freshener.
If she is still a month out, and a big bodied Holstein (right?) I could see bumping not being a definite. Even some of our larger bodied Jerseys I have a hard time bumping. I continue to do so until I find a calf before we dry them off.
Any chance someone could palpate her?

**gone-a-milkin** · #3 04/14/12, 09:19 AM

Oh, I dont like those kind of mysteries either.

We have a mystery calf running with the herd right now too.
Well lastnight I saw him, but not this morning. Farmer Boss hasn't seen him yet.
Maybe it is a figment of my imagination?

He is red so that means the mama is likely one of the ff heifers from out in the woods.
Except that those ones are all pretty young. None of them look fresh.

The 2 baby-stealing matron cows have him firmly stolen too.
They are sharing him, sort of disfunctional co-parenting. LOL.

It is time to pull all those little heifers up and go over them again, I guess.
And of course it has been raining. That goes w/o saying. Blech.

MARYDVM · #4 04/14/12, 09:26 AM

Someone could put a sleeve on and do a rectal exam. You don't have to be a vet to be able feel an 8 month calf in utero.

myersfarm · #5 04/14/12, 11:49 AM

agree the calf should be right there

Quote:

Originally Posted by MARYDVM

Someone could put a sleeve on and do a rectal exam. You don't have to be a vet to be able feel an 8 month calf in utero.

springvalley · #6 04/14/12, 05:45 PM

I had one of those a couple years ago, thought one cow had the calf. Started milking her then two days later she had a calf, needless to say I was milking the wrong cow. I went back and looked and found the real mother, couldn`t bump a calf in her, she was sure ready to be milked after two days of not being milked. And I just hate when we get several calves in one day. > thanks Marc

**gone-a-milkin** · #7 04/14/12, 06:37 PM

Oh! I solved my mystery just now.
That red calf is a twin from the red cow who came fresh on my day off!
Almost positive now. She had twins the last 2 times and it explains why he is red like her.
He was nursing on her after I forced his adoptive mamas through the barn.

SilverFlame819 · #8 04/14/12, 06:42 PM

That is how I ended up with my Hereford bottle calf. Cattle drive went by, then we found a newborn lying in the ditch after they left. Called the owners of the drive up, told them they'd had a surprise on the way, and to come pick it up. They insisted that they'd left with a certain number of calves, and arrived with a certain number of calves, and would not believe that someone gave birth on the way. They argued and argued. Nobody else around our places has Herefords, and none of those non-Herefords next door were loose that day, nor had they been loose AND had a wet newborn Hereford in our ditch that afternoon, but he was adamant that he wasn't driving to our place to pick up a newborn calf that wasn't his, so we kept it.

That cow probably stole someone else's calf later, or he was stumped to find later in the season that one of his cows didn't calve, and probably sold her, thinking she had a problem. *lol* Mix-ups are easy when there are a bunch of mothers-to-be running together.

I say glove up and go in, or have the vet drop by for an ultrasound. What could it hurt?

Madsaw · #9 04/14/12, 07:37 PM

Willow
Have the boss bumper her again. Have him go very low almost from underneath her. Had some carry really low at times. Even at8 months thet been hard to find one day. Easy the next
Bob

AverageJo · #10 04/14/12, 08:34 PM

Personally, I wouldn't have anyone long-arm a cow if she's 8 months along. We did that once and our cow went into labor the day after. Gave birth about a month early. That calf wasn't fully baked. Heifer that had no teeth and no sucking instincts at all. Ended up tubing her 2 or 3 times a day until she finally accepted the bottle. She couldn't stand either, so we had to lift her and have her practice using those gangling legs of hers. A couple of times we were about to give up on her but our daughter wouldn't let us. LOL. Well, that wee one just gave birth to her own heifer calf!! So I guess it all worked out OK, but I won't risk it again. Bump her, sure. Get out a stethoscope and see if you can hear another heartbeat. Ultrasound. Bring the calf next to her and see if she'll accept it. If she doesn't, chances are it's not hers.

willow_girl · #11 04/15/12, 10:18 AM

Well, I go back to work tomorrow. I guess I'll see what's up then.

MARYDVM · #12 04/15/12, 11:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AverageJo

Personally, I wouldn't have anyone long-arm a cow if she's 8 months along. We did that once and our cow went into labor the day after. Gave birth about a month early. That calf wasn't fully baked. Heifer that had no teeth and no sucking instincts at all. Ended up tubing her 2 or 3 times a day until she finally accepted the bottle. She couldn't stand either, so we had to lift her and have her practice using those gangling legs of hers. A couple of times we were about to give up on her but our daughter wouldn't let us. LOL. Well, that wee one just gave birth to her own heifer calf!! So I guess it all worked out OK, but I won't risk it again. Bump her, sure. Get out a stethoscope and see if you can hear another heartbeat. Ultrasound. Bring the calf next to her and see if she'll accept it. If she doesn't, chances are it's not hers.

Once when I was preg checking a herd, I came down the line of cows to check one and she had a string of mucous hanging out of her with a 2 inch fetus in it. If I had come through just 5 minutes sooner I would have been blamed for that aborted fetus. Sometimes calves are lost spontaneously.
There is nothing that will harm a normal 8 month pregnancy in doing a quick rectal exam.

FMO3 · #13 04/15/12, 11:49 PM

I would just put a sleeve on and run your arm up her. We preg check all cows before they are dried off, our dry period is only 45 days also. Yes, we do loose some calves for being born early, but you are going to anyways. We have done this practice for years. At calving in roughly 200 head a month, if it was a bigger deal we would have seen it sooner.

No reason to poke around in there, just run arm straight in and use your finger tips to feel around. Takes a few seconds, that way you know what you are dealing with.

myersfarm · #14 04/15/12, 11:52 PM

running your arm in there .....you do know which hole you use right.....NOT the one with the calf in it

willow_girl · #15 04/16/12, 11:56 PM

OK, it appears the mystery is solved.

Over the weekend, Beauty aborted a stillborn calf. Boss said it wasn't full-term and was partly decomposed (ewwwww!) which I guess explains the "afterbirth" (probably sloughed tissue) he saw hanging out of her.

It appears the skittish calf was Fraidy's, just as I suspected. Like mother, like daughter ...

I think I know what happened. About a month before we dried her off, Beauty came into the parlor with a severely bruised right rear quarter. She passed only blood and clots for several weeks. We had to strip her out by hand a lot, which was a real (insert bad word here) as her udder is 'tight' and hard to milk by hand. But we kept after it, and although she did develop mastitis, it was a mild case and cleared up with treatment. But then the quarter pretty much stopped producing, so we quit milking it. Her milk fell off in general, and she was over 400 DIM at this point, so the boss dried her off a couple of weeks early.

I think Beauty got into an altercation with another cow, who rammed in her in the side hard enough to damage her quarter AND kill her calf. I think the toxicity produced by carrying the dead calf probably caused her milk to fall off so precipitously.

If there's any good news in this sad tale, it's that I dry-treated the affected quarter when I dried her off, and it seems to be milking normally now.

She wasn't making any less milk today than she did Friday, but I can't really say she made more. Hmmm.

Boss said he'd thought about putting her on the truck today, but decided to give it a week to see if she comes around. I reminded him of what an outstanding cow she's been up until now.

I'm hoping that now that she has the dead calf out of her system, she'll improve.

Ya'll keep a good thought for Beauty, OK? She's a good girl and certainly didn't deserve to have any of this happen to her.

Tad · #16 04/18/12, 12:50 PM

Give her a PG shot to dump at 5 DIM, that will help clear the "yuck" out and maybe she will come around. If she is a good cow give her a little bit she might come back after she gets all the rotten stuff out of her system.

willow_girl · #17 07/17/12, 09:27 AM

Well, her production never picked up much even though she looked fine and healthy ... boss put her on the truck Monday.

He has been culling lo-pro and open cows on account of the drought.

I am so sad.

DamnearaFarm · #18 07/17/12, 01:34 PM

Well..----. I'm sorry.

allenslabs · #19 07/17/12, 08:06 PM

That stinks. Hate to lose the ones you like.

scholtefamily · #20 07/17/12, 09:53 PM

sorry to hear that, Willow girl.