Gaucho calf processing

[Happytrails]

AF, that calf was spooked bad. Your fault not his. Try a slower approach. HT

[kato]

That happened in our pasture a couple of years ago, except the calf ran across the pasture, through a fence, down the dugout bank, swam across the dugout and ran up a hill, through another fence, and laid down at the edge of a hayfield to hide.

And the stupid part was that his mother had hidden him, and when we followed her to see where the calf was, he took one look at HER, and ran for his life! His own mother! He didn't even know we were there until we stalked him in the hay, caught him and brought him back to Mama. Then the light bulb came on in his head and he realized who she was.

Duhhh..... by fall he was a nice big strapping guy, so it all worked out in the end.

[grassfarmer]

Biggest thing with iodine is it prevents natures way of
drying off a navel. Sunshine, wind, outdoors heals
navels better than spraying with iodine which keeps
them soggy and raw.
We've all seen wild calves, I check and tag twice a day
and it's still sometimes a stretch to catch the odd
super fast one. If that kind of stupidity is an Angus
characteristic switch breeds.

[ALLFARMER]

Wifey says they don't do iodine in hospitals any
more on newborns like they used to.
I may have to agree with you on this one
grassfarmer. Man It was hard for me to say that!

Saw SMC in cattlemen magazine anyone else
catch that. Good lookin family, son's got a John
Deere shirt on all good. Cheers

[smcgrath76]

FWIW - we never iodine navels (not sure
we even have any in the cupboard
anymore). We have found the best
calving tool is an old/slow quiet horse,
but that is because our herd is handled
nearly entirely on horseback. In a quad
herd, a horse would raise a ruckus.
The cattlemen interview was fun, and
probably too flattering, although I am
proud of my kids. Billy bleeds green
and is under the full understanding that
he can buy whatever piece of new
equipment he wants as long as he has a
business plan to use it enough to make
the payments. (We pretty much all bleed
green here except for some of us the
paint is older and more faded)...

[gaucho]

To be quite honest I don't why we all make such a ruccas out of calving... given the right clean environment (calving area) and the right time of the year nature will look after it... we have 300 mature cows that get checked during calving once per week, they are 45 minutes from home. I check them more or less so I don't feel guilty.... I find the more you do with cattle the more we screw it up... A bunch of examples have already been shown previously in this thread. Yes we will check our heifers more often but does a commercial guy really need to tag and the vitamin and selenium shots to me are BS.. make sure your cows get good TM salt and calve on grass... its as simple as that.... take some lessons from the bison producers

[tweaker101]

Sort of makes sense Gaucho, I guess that my problem is me..LOL, I still do like my father did..we tag,ring and give'm their shot. The only thing I changed was when they were born, best move yet we went from Feb calving to last week in May...less problems all around. Maybe the next step is to get rid of the rodeo part..lol.

[SADIE]

Allfarmer

I would like to make a comment now. The iodine regime has sort of gone by the wayside. In vet practice it was an issue to the early calving purebred herds at one time. Those were the days of taking calving problems to vet clinics---those days of line-ups at clinics waiting for c-sec are long gone now. Navel ill we saw lots of navel ill and it appeared we saw more when one put iodine (especially) inside the navel cord (right at birth).

Vit E & SE-inject---also the needle at birth is much less needed now with feeding the pregnant cows better or at one time DYSTOSEL DS was given to the preg cow before calving.

In our commercial operation --which is still calving in March/April time of year---I am able to walk out---with a "Stick" in hand. Apply an animal ID tag to the calf, ring the bull calf.

In about 4-5 days pairs get "kicked out" to larger fields. Because of Mar/April calving and fluctuations of temp to highs and lows We use Somnustar Ph---(bacterial pnuemonia) prevention at this time.

Herds here on agriville that calve on grass late April/May/June---might not need that Somnustar product during that time.

Good luck up north Allfarmer

[blackjack]

Sadie...just wondering at what age do you give the calves the sumnustar/ph shot...thanks in advance

[blackjack]

sorry after rereading your post I saw the answer