Cow dilema

[grassfarmer]

I must have one of the world's unluckiest cows - either that or she has some strange Canadian disease i'm unaware of.
Bought a bunch of good bred cows in spring 2001, #541 lost her calf due to rolling into a dip at calving and paralyzing her hips temporarily. We twinned another calf on and she made a great job of it.

2002 rolls around and she aborted a set of twins in a spell of -40C weather a month before calving, Oh well I thought, she was just trying too hard to compensate for last year. Twinned on another calf - she's getting good at that job.

2003 rolls around and she had a rather small calf which we lost in a scour outbreak. Twinned another calf.

2004 - Finally the break we are looking for - a normal year and she reared a great replacement heifer calf with no trouble.

2005 - calved 3 weeks ago with no trouble until tonight when I find the calf dying, badly bloated. Later I cut it open to find a tight wad of old grass jammed in the entrance to the stomach.

So do I keep her or do I cull her? She has perfect temperment,feet and udder always rebreeds fast, rears a good calf and never needs help to calf or to suckle. But she has not reared her own calf in 4 out of 5 years calving.
Would you folks cull her if she was in your herd or is she just unlucky?

[cowman]

grassfarmer, I guess the only calamity that you could say she was responsible for is slipping the set of twins. Put a calf on her if you can find one and make your decision in the fall, thats what I would do.

[kato]

Sounds unlucky to me. She is raising calves that would otherwise not likely do as well, so she is 'employed' as they say. She is probably only worth a couple of hundred dollars, and if she can make a potential poor twin into a big shiny top ender, what the heck.

In normal times, many would sell her, but these are not normal times.

An open cow, well, that's a different story. They don't get second chances at our place.

[RUSTYRUSTY]

Ever heard of survival of the fitest, Off with her head

[RUSTYRUSTY]

rustyrusty, grassfarmer sounds like a cattleman that uses common sense and compassion as some of his criteria !!!
I have been feeling a bit poorly the past few days, so hopefully your sentiments don't extend to humans !!!!!

Just kidding.

[farmers_son]

I think she is a bad cow, not unlucky. You say she never needs help to calve but probably did the first year. I get the impression there may be some kind of immune problem involved. Possibly poor quality colustrum. The calves you put on her got colustrum first somewhere else? If they did and then did well on your cow when her own calves die I would consider colustrum. Cows vary on quality of first milk. Just an idea, not that I would really know.

I don't believe I have ever had a cow kept long enough to develop such a long resume of problems. Personally, lately I have been keeping anything that would get in calf rather than sell a cow for far too little money but I do not see this cows "luck" improving in the future. If you keep her and she has a live calf next year, possibly the calf might do better if it gets colustrum from somewhere else.

[grassfarmer]

farmers_son she may be a bad cow rather than an unlucky one - that's what I'm trying to convince myself.
I don't think colostrum is relevant though - only the year she lost a calf to scour would I consider that a possible contributary factor.

[whiteface]

How does her replacement heifer look? Do you want to try and raise a couple more of those even though your cow is a little extra work. Maybe her daughter is a good cow with a little more "luck" than her mom. We all need more of those kind. I pick a lot of my cows based on their ability to raise top replacement females. If she has a daughter that I like, the cows status goes way up, even if she does require a teeny bit more work. Good luck with your decision, grassfarmer, they're not always easy. Have a good night all.

[cattleman2]

Basically if the cow doesn't raise a calf for the fall, her head should be off. I don't know if she is raising a calf (someone elses though) if that thoery takes place. My thinking is that she really has only raised 1 live calf for you in 5 years...time to go.

[grassfarmer]

Whiteface, she turned in a cracker of a heifer calf last year - look wise. Wait till next year and i'll tell you how she performs.

Cattleman, I suppose that's the policy decision everyone has to make. My policy is I don't keep a cow that doesn't rear a calf - this cow has reared a calf every year - and reared them well.
I know some outfits that will not assist - no suckling, no milking out and no twinning on where every cow that doesn't rear a calf is gone. Even if a heifer loses a calf to a coyote or bear they are gone. I can see this being sound in that you will have a virtually no trouble herd if you breed your own replacements. Some of these same herds using turning in a calf as their only selection criterea. So you get cows that can survive in that herd yet turn in a very poor calf each year - should you be keeping their calves as replacements?
At the moment I have a large proportion of bought in older crossbred cows bred to a terminal sire. One or two of these may need the cow handled - for example I have one that has her teats sealed shut every year so that no newborn calf could open them. I get her in the chute squeeze them open and turn her back out where she rears a great calf. She isn't rearing replacement stock so I don't mind this 20 minute (tops) job once a year given that I have virtually no other work to do at calving time as we calf on grass and aren't fighting nature.
What selection/culling criterea do you all use on your herds?

[kato]

For us there are several unforgiveable crimes a cow can commit. One is coming home open. The other is agressive behaviour. Some may forgive this, or even like it, but since I once had a really bad wreck, it's become "grounds for dismissal". Won't put up with it. Life is too short for that nonsense.

A cow that won't mother it's calf will go too. We have one old girl that has become so protective of her calf that she actually walked on it! She's going down the road.

If a cow loses a calf to circumstances which are not her fault, we'll cut her some slack, especially if she'll take a twin. We always have some of those to share around.

Replacement heifers are only kept from trouble free cows who do a good job on their calves. We will not keep a heifer off a mean cow, no matter how pretty she is, or how well she performs. We've found that the disposition seems to travel down the family. If we don't like the mother, we don't keep the heifer. Over time you end up with a whole herd of cows you enjoy working with.

[SASH]

Things being as they are right now, culling is a tougher call than usual. In a normal year, before BSE, usually two cull cows would buy you one good replacement. Now, I would say that it takes close to half a dozen cull cows to buy a good replacement. Any cow that's open during preg check has to go although I have been known to be a little forgiving lately on first calf heifers if they raised a real good calf the first year. Possibly with this cow you are talking about, it could just be poor luck. I think if it was me, she'd probably stay only because of the cost difference in replacements. As soon as the market gets a little better she'd be headed to cull.