Long labor w/happy out come *Pics

Last night one of our cows went into labor so we stayed with her and at 9:45pm her water broke. So after that I was expecting a calf in about an hour. Well after a couple of hours of hard pushing and no progress I knew we were in trouble. I could not find help until morning. The vet arrived at around 9:30 this morning and by this time she was in a great deal of stress and was having a hard time standing up. By this time I figured the calf was dead and was just worried about saving the cow. The vet checked her and said her calf was butt first. After we finally got the calf out after a hard pull to everyones suprise the calf was born alive!!!! We have a healthy bull calf and the cow is doing real good considering everything she has been through. The vet said its not often he sees a cow with a difficult breech birth have a live active calf. So we will be calling him Lucky. So today was a GREAT day!!! This was our first live breech baby. Here's a couple of pics.

Good deal!  It's never easy getting one out backwards alive. 

Glad to hear, always nice to have a photo with a story.  (thumbsup)

SKF said:

Last night one of our cows went into labor so we stayed with her and at 9:45pm her water broke. So after that I was expecting a calf in about an hour. Well after a couple of hours of hard pushing and no progress I knew we were in trouble. I could not find help until morning. The vet arrived at around 9:30 this morning and by this time she was in a great deal of stress and was having a hard time standing up. By this time I figured the calf was dead and was just worried about saving the cow. The vet checked her and said her calf was butt first. After we finally got the calf out after a hard pull to everyones suprise the calf was born alive!!!! We have a healthy bull calf and the cow is doing real good considering everything she has been through. The vet said its not often he sees a cow with a difficult breech birth have a live active calf. So we will be calling him Lucky. So today was a GREAT day!!! This was our first live breech baby. Here's a couple of pics.

Click to expand...

I'm WAAAY happy for you and what a whopper and cute calf!  Congratulations!  A happy ending is always the best outcome!  I want to ask a question and I want to be very clear that I'm not criticizing you or your management nor your decision to wait it out for help.  And, this is sort of a question to the Planet in general with your experience as the impetus for the question:  Why would you let her go 12 hours?  Now, I realize you couldn't get help, but do you, and others on the Planet, have a calf puller/comealong and/or at least obstetrical chains?  Would you try to get this calf out yourselves or would you wait it out knowing that the outcome might not be so good?  Personally, I'd have had my arm in there to see what was going on.  Again, I'm so glad this turned out well for you and the cow/calf!

very happy to hear it all worked out for ya! we had a tuff caving season this year, lots of hours sitting in barn waiting. always great to see a happy ending. and what a cool lookin calf, like momma too. CONGRATS

Congrats!  Had a backwards calf last May.  Neighbor called me when I got home at 5pm and said the cow had been pushing since noon but wasn't sure if she should worry.  Took me about an hour and a half to get mom to the barn & calf out assuming the entire time the calf was dead.  He didn't show any life when we got him out, so I quickly moved the cow away before she could mourn over a dead calf.  About 30 seconds later my brother said "Should that calf be moving?"  I was totally shocked.  It's such a great feeling to have everything turn out positive.

I think more calves are born backwords than you would think. In the last four years I have seen about 10 calves come backwords without help, but have pulled some to.

[  Now, I realize you couldn't get help, but do you, and others on the Planet, have a calf puller/comealong and/or at least obstetrical chains?  Would you try to get this calf out yourselves or would you wait it out knowing that the outcome might not be so good?  Personally, I'd have had my arm in there to see what was going on.  Again, I'm so glad this turned out well for you and the cow/calf!
[/quote]

We have chains and handlesbut have not invested in a puller yet. We only calve out 5 or 6 a year so. TSC store 10 minutes away has a couple on the shelf so if we get in a real bind we can have ine here in 30 minuyes. i also would agree that i would put my arm in her to see if I could tell what was hapening.

SKF; glad to see it turned out well for you!!

DLZ

If you dont have a calf puller you can make a cheap one pretty easy if you know how to weld. Jus got and take some chanel iron and make the peice for the butt, and then go and take a peice of pipe and weld it on the end, and then when you need just take your comealongs and hook one end to your chains and the other to the end of the pipe. Its pretty easy if you know what a calf puller looks like.



Btw i like the calfs color!

glad everything went ok

Glad to hear the good news. We had a backwards one this year that lived as well. Maybe we should go buy Lotto tickets since we are soooo lucky, or not ?!/!/!??

Glad to see everything turned out well! Very cute calf!

WOW! That sounds exactly like out calving this year... Congrats on a beautiful calf!!

Ours was her water broke at 545 that morning and at about 230pm with nothing happening we decided to check her and found that she was backwards. At this point we had decided that calf was dead and we just wanted to save mom. She was a first heifer calf and didnt want this to be a bad experience. We finally got the calf out and after about 10 minutes she was breathing. We werent able to get mom let her nurse due to her being so tired to nurse so we milked out colostrum and got that into baby and figured we would let nature take over. Unfortunately after 24 hrs mom still hadnt passed any afterbirth so the vet came and we had that taken care of. But i think that after all the meds we had to put into mom to help her survive she isnt producing very much milk at all. So we have a bottle baby who nurses a  little off of mom.


Glad to hear everything worked out.

Congrats on your new baby!
I'm always amazed at the stories on here and how much trouble some of you have at getting a vet to come out!!  Wow am I blessed!  I can't remember EVER not being able to find a vet to come in a calving or foaling emergency.  Not come until 9 the next morning??? I'd have been a not so nice person.  I realize vets are entitled to a life too, but why become a vet if you aren't going to be available for emergencies?  I wouldn't have gotten a wink of sleep knowing a cow or calf could die because I was too "busy" to go on a call.   
As far as pulling calves goes, in my opinion, if you don't know what you're doing, don't do it.  But on the other hand, make it your objective to learn all you can about pulling calves.  Try to be around some knowledgeable people when they are doing it.  Ask questions.  I have to stress be around knowledgeable people.. there are correct ways to put the OB chains on, ways to pull etc...  Putting chains on the calves legs and hooking up to the tractor is the way to do it.  Not a big fan of the come along method either, it's so much better to be able to move the direction of pull with the contractions.  A good calf puller isn't that expensive, and having one and the knowledge to use it, is the best thing you can do for yourself if you're going to raise cattle.  My advice would be to buy a good puller that "walks" the calves legs out.  When you're trying to get those big shoulders out, it only pulls one leg at a time... makes it much easier. 
I'm gonna call my vet tomorrow and say thanks for always coming when I need you!