Tips for a Smooth Calving Season
Farmer Tyler knows calving like the back of his hand. He currently runs a small beef cow herd in Northern California. Let’s tap into the hard-earned wisdom he’s gained over the years.
You should have everything on hand when they hit the ground so you can do what you need to do. Ask yourself:
It’s nice to have the right tools, and know where they are, so you don’t have to improvise (like using baling twine to pull a calf if necessary).
The first, and most important thing, is a way to restrain the cows so that the animal is safe and the operator is safe, especially if you are doing it by yourself; people on the homestead level can overlook this. It's dangerous if you have a calf that needs to be pulled or a calf that needs nursing assistance and you can’t restrain the cow. Even cattle that are initially treated as pets change a lot when they have a calf; they turn back into animals even if they are puppy dogs to begin with. Working out on a farm or ranch, it could be hours before someone starts to wonder where you are. The cost is often a big hurdle for people not wanting to buy a chute, head gate, or an alleyway. However, tying a halter to post is sometimes not enough when dealing with a new mama cow (a fence post to a cow, is like a toothpick to you.)
Another important tool you need is some way to pull a calf if needed. Most people use a dedicated calf puller, block and tackle, or a come-along and calving chains. Pulling calves is tough to advise for people who haven’t done it before or don’t have a livestock background, they think they need to help more than they really need to. It's kind of human nature to think that nothing will happen without our help; we like to think we are very essential to our animals' well-being.
When we are getting close to calving, around 2 weeks before, I will go and check once a day. After we have the first calf, I will go out around twice a day until we are done or getting down to the last 2 or 3 calves. I’ve noticed that some calves come early; twins seem to always come in the first week or 2 (I’ve never had a late set of twins.) I check first thing in the morning and then again when I have a couple hours of daylight left.
I am always looking at udder condition and development; “making bag” is one of the first things that gives it away that a cow is getting close. I will also look at their “exit route”; it will start to loosen up a little bit. When you are about 24 hours away, things start to look different (It takes a little time to start to know what you are looking for).
Some cows hide all those signs, you check her in the morning and she has a calf in the afternoon and you never even knew she was getting close. I look for any cows that are especially weary of me or not staying with the herd. When the whole herd is not paying attention to me or my truck, except for 1 cow who is staring me down with ears perked up…that tells me she is starting to get close. She is starting to get that instinctual desire to watch out for predators or any sort of threat that may hurt her or the calf.
It’s almost different in every situation, but I try to be as hands off as possible. Usually they don’t need your help. It depends on the age group: if it is an older cow, or a first calf heifer, you are going to be looking at those 2 differently. I usually won’t help until it is really obvious there is a problem. With heifers, if you see them go an hour without visual progress you should probably go and help. Note what time it is, and let it go an hour and then come back and check on them. If I see a heifer start labor, and an hour later I check on her and she is lying down and pushing I will probably let her keep working on it. But if I come back and see her standing up, sniffing other calves, messing around, then I probably will get her in to pull it. A lot of times with heifers, they know what they're doing but they wait too long and you can lose the calf. Sometimes you pull a calf and you go “oh yeah, there’s no way that cow would have got that calf out on her own.” Sometimes you pull the calf and it just about falls out; they just needed to lay down and push, that was the problem. New people want to intervene really quickly, but moving them around unnecessarily can cause a problem. If things are going good, just stay away from them. If you walk out there, they are going to stand up and run away from you, and forget where their calf is. I watch them with binoculars so they don’t know I’m looking at them.
For your own wellbeing, having a plan of what you would do in different situations is helpful, but also knowing that every situation might call for something tailored to it. At least give yourself a general idea of what to do if a cow is in trouble; a roadmap for what you are going to do if things go bad. You just have to kind of accept that it is stressful, if it was easy everyone would do it. The stress is what makes it more rewarding at the end, in a weird way. Letting nature kind of work itself out, it is less stressful for you and your animals. Being a good steward over your cows doesn’t mean you have to involve yourself in every process, every step. Letting the cow and nature perform is best. If you coddle your animals, you are selecting for animals that need to be coddled. We are going to help them if they absolutely need it, but over the years you select and you end up with a herd that is pretty self-sufficient. For larger herds, being overly involved is not very realistic. To not stress out your animals, I try to be as hands off as possible.
The way that you posture yourself when you are around them is important, especially a new mother. You don’t want a dominant appearance. Humans and livestock have a predator and prey relationship (a lot of people don’t like to hear that), but there are some things you can do to mitigate that. Try your best to not make direct eye contact or square your shoulders up to them. Keep a shoulder to them and do not face them head on. You may notice that even when you are in a corral full of animals, if you are standing up straight, beating on your chest, they are all going to move away from you; they are not going to like it. If you slink around and not act that way, they pick up on that. We communicate with words, they communicate with body language. If you want to send a message to them, you have to keep that in mind. Talking to them doesn’t necessarily relax them, it is probably better to be quiet. Since that is how we, as humans, comfort each other, that’s how we think we are going to comfort them, but it’s probably not the way to do it.
I will act within the first 24 hours. I don’t go in right away unless it is really obvious, for example like selenium deficiency and buckled over front feet and it can’t get around, or a set of twins. I want to have confidence in a calf in the first 24 hours, and that means see it nurse. If I see it nurse in the first 24 hours that’s all I need to see. If I don’t see it, or I don’t see a quarter of the bag polished or shiny I know I need to get more involved. It is usually heifers that need extra help; if I go back in a few hours and I see the heifer on the other side of the field and the calf is by itself, those are the kinds of things that worry me. That first nursing is the big thing I am looking for, or if the calf is really lethargic, those are the things that are going to get me to do something. Put them in the chute, isolate them, get them to nurse. The sooner they get colostrum in them, the better their rumen develops.
For first-time homesteaders, welcoming the first calf can be an exciting and nerve-wracking experience. Everyone has to start from somewhere, so let’s learn from some friends of ours in Missouri about their first calving experience.
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