All Just A Days Work

Knowing full well how uncooperative cows can be, we stopped by the barn when we got home and I did a quick check.  1:30 a.m.....no sign of any calves coming.  (and there was much rejoicing!)  As usual the alarm went off at 6:00 a.m. but we were glad it wasn't followed by any phone calls from the barn.  Since cows ideally need to be milked every 11-12 hours, and I had milked so early last night, I started milking again while Bruce fed.  The newest cow with twins, now known as #12 to save confusion, is eating like crazy but of course has a retained placenta even after 2 bottles of calcium.  Grrr.  Cow #28 still has a retained placenta and really stinks.  In the people world she would have a D&C done but in the cow world nature has to take its course and we give antibiotics to prevent a whole system infection.  Cow #55 continues to struggle and we will have the vet again on Monday.  A call this weekend would involve the routine call charge plus an emergency fee and then the surgery fee and who knows what being the weekend.  We are suspecting she has a DA that is flopping back and forth since she will eat for awhile and then not.....never totally quitting but never getting going.  Twins are just tough on cows.  These days the vets can do ultrasounds on cows.  Many dairies use this technology to identify twins and sex of calves.  Unless you intend to abort a set of twins the information is just information and since we raise all our calves the sex isn't vital information either.   For us, this information would let us know that 3 calvings will need 6 hutches but that's it. Currently all of our special needs cows add 1 hour to milking.  It will be nice when someone gets to the point of being milked into the tank.  It would be nicer if it happened soon, before the other 8 have their calves, but chances of that are pretty slim.  This too shall pass.....

Breakfast was followed by a recovery nap for both of us.  It was warm today,  nearly 40, so I burned a bunch of mineral sacks that had collected in the feed room.  Bruce had to go to Ed's and fix the silo unloader.  The cotter key that holds the bracket that holds the blower spout onto the torque arm : ) broke off while the unloader was running and proceeded to wrap the blower spout into a pretzel. He had to take it off, "blacksmith" it straight, and put it back on. A new cotter key and a couple " big " hammers and it was back in business. Jim calls this percussive maintenance.

As we started milking tonight the heifer that is due was starting to have her calf.  By the time Bruce got half done with our special needs cows the heifer calf was here but not really breathing.  He took a piece of straw and stuck it up its nose and, as expected, it tickles and makes them snort and shake their head and get more oxygen going.  They can go from limp to trying to stand in less than a half hour which always amazes me.  I have to say I appreciated that kind of timing tonight.  That's almost cooperation which was obviously a misjudgement on her part!  Now we officially have 4 special needs cows.  I am feeding 5 heifer calves and 7 bulls, 3 of which I can wean soon.  The newborn calves get a whole gallon of colostrum their first feeding.  This milk is full of antibodies that the mother passes to the calf through her first milk.  After that the bull calves continue to get milk, 2 quarts twice a day for the first week.  I increase it after that to get them growing, especially in cold weather.  With the staph aureus infection within the herd the heifer calves get the gallon of colostrum for their first feeding.  The 2nd feeding they get 2 quarts of colostrum milk.  The 3rd and 4th feeding I mix half milk and half milk replacer to give their systems a chance to adjust to the change and by the 5th feeding they are completely on milk replacer.  It is actually cheaper to feed the calves milk straight from the pipe line so that is why we feed our waste milk and eventually milk in general to the bull calves.  Since we don't pasteurize our milk we feed the heifers milk replacer as a disease management tool.