any opinions welcome

Sire's Canadian reg. # 1332064 / Dam's US. registration # 1433367. Red Angus. Depending on which gestation chart you use the calf was born 2 to 4 days early. Pictures are of the front & back legs plus a shot of the whole calf.

Ii that a mass of tissue where the tail ought to be?  If so this is probably some type of neural tube defect... kind of like a meningiomyelocele... I don't know if there is a heritable disorder in RA with neural tube defects?

I'm so sorry - that's heartbreaking.

loveRedcows said:

I'm so sorry - that's heartbreaking.

Click to expand...

That's about all I was thinking.... Not familiar with red angus genetic defects. Did it have a tail?

No there is no mass where the tail should be. The tail if you look real closely is just laid up over it's back. The genetics so you don't have to look them up are Six Mile Sakic on a Packer x Dolly 2S cow. The calf was an ET. We had one other Flush mate born the same day which is doing fine.

Brent, by pedigree the calf appears to be clean of any known genetic defects in the Red Angus gene pool. Maybe just one of those freak things that happens. RCR

If it wasn't a neural defect I would say it looks like there was something wrong with the development/relaxation of his tendons/ligaments.  Could you tell if he was born alive?  Environmentally it could be a deficiency, a toxin, or an injury to the cow at an early stage of pregnancy.

That's extremely disappointing. Thanks for the pictures...from a purely educational point of view. Good luck determining the issue if that's possible. Did you send the calf or any samples of the calf to a lab anywhere?

Calf was born dead. Our local vet said that the Deer Wasting disease may have something to do with it, but didn't know for sure. We have had a dozen calves so far & no other troubles like this anyway. Thanks for all of your thoughts and insight.

Not sure where you are from, but do you happen to have any lupine (a weed) around your area.  About 10 years ago we had about 4 or 5 calves in row born with similar defects....curved legs, spine, etc.  Turned out that our cows got some silvery lupine while grazing some dryland.  It only affects the fetus if it is eaten, I believe, between day 30 and 90 of gestation.  Just a shot in the dark...other than that I don't really know.  Sucks though!!

To answer some of the questions, it did have a tail but only the skin for the tail. No bone at all within the skin.
Did save 4 ear punches but have not decided if I will send them in anywhere yet.
We live in Western Iowa and I did go look up Silvery Lupine last night. By the book it says that we don't have Lupine here, but NE. does. We have a wild flower that looks very similar to Lupine that I call Western Iron weed.