ulcers in baby calves

[littledoggie]

We had a problem with this a few years back. There seemed to be a link between a clostridial infection and heavy milking moms. The vet told us that there could be a genetic link as well. We identified one cow in particular that had a couple of deaths in her baby calves and a couple of deaths due to bloating in her calves once in the feedlot. We got rid of her line and haven't had a problem with this since (in baby calves, anyway). The bull could also carry this defective gene.

[gaucho]

Sorry but I don't know why these things take so much debate... Calve on stockpiled grass, at the end of April / 1st part of may so that you have 75% calves born by the May long weekend and so the calves have enough age on them to deal with thew milk that GF talks about... get then out and keep them out of the shit and corrals and guess what most things can be prevented... at least that's what happens around our neck of the woods

[ALLFARMER]

I said a couple years ago we would never calve in
the corrals again. Calving on grass and running
around with the quad tagging calves is the way for
us to calve. The very late spring has forced us to
calve again in the virtual hell that is corral calving.
Daily running the bale shredder around bedding.
Cows trying to steal calves. Standing crappy
water. Cows not mothering up good. Freezing
calves.

In my view my biggest mistake was trying to time
calving to close to spring.

[kato]

We calve in corrals, and have no complaints. The trick is to have big enough corrals that there is not a crowding issue. We have three big pens with three big sheds. No cows allowed in the sheds. By this time of year there is enough straw that there are dry places to sleep, and the cows stay clean. It doesn't matter really what kind of weather gets thrown at us, because we're set up to handle it. Our problems start when we let them out and a freaky late spring storm comes along. Which is why they haven't been let out yet. We're getting a freaky storm today.

It works for us. And it will work better for us this fall, when we have calves big enough to sell without putting any grain into them.

And to get back to the topic of the thread, we don't have ulcer issues either. I still think giving the calves something to fill their bellies is a major part of prevention.