justintime
Well-known member
First off, let me say that I am not trying to. start an arguement on here, but hopefully we can see some good discussion on something I have been thinking about for the past few days
I had two cows calve in the last few days and I saw the same thing happen in both cases. These cows are not small framed, but they are both pretty low set to the ground. Lots of my visitors pick them out and seem to like them. Both of these cows would weigh 1500 lbs on an average day. They are tremendously deep, roomy cows and as one Scottish visitor commented" they are Kenworths on a Volswagon frame." They stay in great condition and only get hay and pasture to live on ( other than salt and mineral). Both these cows calved unassisted and their calves were up and looking to nurse in minutes after birth. They are not monster size as one was a bull calf weighing 82 lb and a heifer calf weighing 88 lbs. I should also mention that both these cows have very good udders. They are well attached with proper teat placement and teat size.
The first cow calved at 11 PM and my wife asked me if I was going to help the calf nurse before we went back to the house. I said," the calf is looking and I'm sure it will find the teat on it's own" Like it was really vigorously looking to nurse and I expected it was off to the races. When I went back to the barn in the morning, it was obvious the calf had not sucked yet. It was still looking and was sucking the side of the dam's flank. I was really wishing I had taken the time to help it when it was born as I like these babies to get colostrum ingested in 1-2 hours.
The second cow calved yesterday morning. She is the heaviest of the two cows and also is probably built a bit lower to the ground of the two cows. She calved in a few short minutes from when she started and like the first cow, her calf was standing and actually trying to hop around the pen shortly after birth. I did some chores around the barn and went back to see how it was doing a few times, and I could see this heifer calf was looking for breakfast. I decided to just leave them alone for awhile, and I would put feed out for the rest of the cows. When I came back it was almost two hours after birth, and this calf was doing the same thing the first calf had done... it was sucking in the dam's flank area. These Shorthortn cows are both very docile, so all I had to do was bend over and tip the teat and put the calf's head down to where the teat was. Both calves were off to the races. That wasn't real hard, but I did think that it would have been a different story with a few other cows.
This afternoon I drove by a large comjmercial herd of probably 400-500 black cows out grazing pastures. As I looked at them, I thought about on the two calves I had born and the nurisng issue I had with them. In my case it was a problem easily solved as I only had to bend over and help the baby find the teat. I wondered what would happen if this was in a large herd calving on grass? Seems to me that might be a real issue if all the cows were built like the two cows i just calved. It also seems to me that these deep low set females are becoming the high sellers and show winners. Is there a bigger problem coming down the road? I don't know. Just askin'
I had two cows calve in the last few days and I saw the same thing happen in both cases. These cows are not small framed, but they are both pretty low set to the ground. Lots of my visitors pick them out and seem to like them. Both of these cows would weigh 1500 lbs on an average day. They are tremendously deep, roomy cows and as one Scottish visitor commented" they are Kenworths on a Volswagon frame." They stay in great condition and only get hay and pasture to live on ( other than salt and mineral). Both these cows calved unassisted and their calves were up and looking to nurse in minutes after birth. They are not monster size as one was a bull calf weighing 82 lb and a heifer calf weighing 88 lbs. I should also mention that both these cows have very good udders. They are well attached with proper teat placement and teat size.
The first cow calved at 11 PM and my wife asked me if I was going to help the calf nurse before we went back to the house. I said," the calf is looking and I'm sure it will find the teat on it's own" Like it was really vigorously looking to nurse and I expected it was off to the races. When I went back to the barn in the morning, it was obvious the calf had not sucked yet. It was still looking and was sucking the side of the dam's flank. I was really wishing I had taken the time to help it when it was born as I like these babies to get colostrum ingested in 1-2 hours.
The second cow calved yesterday morning. She is the heaviest of the two cows and also is probably built a bit lower to the ground of the two cows. She calved in a few short minutes from when she started and like the first cow, her calf was standing and actually trying to hop around the pen shortly after birth. I did some chores around the barn and went back to see how it was doing a few times, and I could see this heifer calf was looking for breakfast. I decided to just leave them alone for awhile, and I would put feed out for the rest of the cows. When I came back it was almost two hours after birth, and this calf was doing the same thing the first calf had done... it was sucking in the dam's flank area. These Shorthortn cows are both very docile, so all I had to do was bend over and tip the teat and put the calf's head down to where the teat was. Both calves were off to the races. That wasn't real hard, but I did think that it would have been a different story with a few other cows.
This afternoon I drove by a large comjmercial herd of probably 400-500 black cows out grazing pastures. As I looked at them, I thought about on the two calves I had born and the nurisng issue I had with them. In my case it was a problem easily solved as I only had to bend over and help the baby find the teat. I wondered what would happen if this was in a large herd calving on grass? Seems to me that might be a real issue if all the cows were built like the two cows i just calved. It also seems to me that these deep low set females are becoming the high sellers and show winners. Is there a bigger problem coming down the road? I don't know. Just askin'
The calf just has to figure out where it's at, how many times have you all seen a calf get up and try nursing the front of the cow (that's what we need cows with udders on both ends and at different heights) - (sorry sarcasm) ;D. We've helped our fair share of calves to nurse (usually from poor tit quality or the calves are just kind of big and dumb). I would say get perfect teat quality and perfect udders and go from there (a lot of big cows with poor udders or 4 inch long teats are lower to the ground than those smaller cows) and there is a lot of cows out there with poor udder and teat quality and they are not all old cows some are heifers (more selection pressure needs to go on this). 
