The calving process

In an ideal world, a cow will calve unassisted in a foot of straw, the calf will suck inside two hours on their own, cow and calf bonds up and the job is a good one. However, in the real world, it’s not as simple as this and sometimes intervention is needed. A question I often get asked is, when should you move a cow ready to calve. Ideally you should move to a calving area off slats once calving bones have dropped. Moving cows in the middle of calving isn’t as big an issue as moving a heifer. Moving a heifer mid-calving can really upset the calving process and the stress can sometimes stop the dilation process and lead to problems calving. Having cows on a clean straw bed for a few days prior to calving can help clean up cows and make hygiene conditions better at calving. It’s also good practice to have cows’ tails clipped prior to calving.

How long to leave before intervention

Time is important here but don’t be afraid to check. A cow should be looked at two hours after the first water bag appears. A heifer could be left a little longer. Sometimes farmers are reluctant to take a quick check to see if everything is coming OK. It’s all about progress. If the calf is presented correctly and the cow is making progress, then leave everything proceed naturally. Make sure you have two feet coming with the head in between its legs in a natural position.

If you have to intervene, make sure you have ample lubrication and gloves to prevent infections. Remember when using the calving jack that it’s not a pulling tool, it’s a leverage tool. It is important to lever with the contractions of the cow. Be very careful around the power that you have when using a calving jack, it’s the equivalent of six to seven people pulling in the one direction and real damage can be done if it’s in the wrong hands. Animals that have a difficult calving should get painkillers and antibiotics under veterinary supervision.

Unresponsive calf – What can I do?

The first thing to do is to stick something up the nose like a piece of straw to act as a stimulant. Pouring cold water into the ear can also help to bring the calf around. It’s important to position the calf in the recovery position with head in between the front legs and back legs underneath.

There are cardio stimulants that can be administered either under the tongue or by injection. Respirator pumps can also be used to help revive calves and fill lungs with oxygen. Hanging up can help but it’s important that the calf is hung momentarily for 10 seconds.

There will only be about 10ml of fluid that will come out of the lungs. The rest will come out of the stomach.

Colostrum intake

It’s preferable that the calf sucks within 25-30 minutes to get adequate biestings. In a natural calving, the calf will gorge themselves once on their feet and can consume a lot of colostrum during this period. If stomach tubing a calf, aim for 3 litres of colostrum and for larger calves maybe a little more. Be careful around beef heifers with honey-like colostrum as intakes can be very low if sucking naturally. If in doubt, supplement with thawed frozen colostrum from another cow or from a known Johne’s-clear source. Recent research has pointed to advantages in immunity where calves receive their own mothers’ colostrum as opposed to another source.

Weak, lethargic calves

These acidotic calves are generally a result of a hard calving or prolonged calving and tend to be large calves These calves generally tend to have thermo regulation issues where they can’t regulate their own temperature. Heat is important in this situation and we have seen some good results with using calf jackets with these calves. They frequently need to be tubed and vet intervention with bicarbonate drips to counteract acidosis is often needed.

Calf scour issues

It’s important to keep the calf on milk and keep fluid intake high. In many cases the first thing a farmer will go for is a scour tablet while the first thing that should go in is an oral electrolyte. It’s difficult for part-time farmers to get enough fluids into a calf. Two litres in the am and 2 litres in the pm isn’t enough and these calves should be receiving more fluids during the day. If scour is an issue on a farm, we recommend taking multiple samples for diagnosis to know what to treat. Isolation is important and sick calves can spread disease very quickly. One good tip is to have two stomach tubes, one marked for sick calves and the other for tubing colostrum.