Recent content by WMoo

Not quite sure what you're saying here but as far as we are concerned --- get some scientists funded asap to sort Sberg out for a start! The loss of 3 pedigree calves has been bad but a further 20 will be a disaster for us! Similarly, I know 2 people who died from COVID19 prior to the vaccine...

We have an answer to the mysterious rubbish calves -- Schmallenberg! Apparently if the bull is infected, he can transmit Schmallenberg in the semen and it can infect the calves born. One symptom of these calves is brain damage which can lead to an inability to suck...... Here is an extract...

We think it is something internal with these calves & are just praying it’s not genetic from this bull….

Thanks Berryhillbillie, someone else suggested this and we did try it on that last calf. Like you, not sure if we did it properly but made no difference. Calf has, thankfully, expired now so we don’t have to look at it any more…. Just wait til the next one arrives & hope it’s ok 👌

No, definitely not blind. Just really strange. We've had suckler cows for 40 years and pedigrees of various breeds and never seen calves like this. Thankfully that second one was stiff as a board this morning so I suppose technically it is now blind! Glad to see the back of it to be honest...

Thanks for the info. Still think these are different though - not big calves & not dozy or dopey at all. The current one was calved unassisted & was walking around the pen in a few minutes. Simply refuses to suck bottle, cow or anything… I’m confident the cows are not lacking anything - the...

Thanks for the info. We were wondering whether we should give it a go even the calf is a bit old & not dozy or anything. We’ll give it a go tomorrow morning anyway to see what happens.

Calves are weird!

That sounds different to these. We’ve had the usual ones which are hard to get to suck - rough udders, big dozy calves etc. We’ve even bred pedigree Belgian Blues for years & you’ll get every level of nonsense with these but never had anything like these 2 calves. Hard to describe them which is...

When you say that you’d this issue with a bull, was it every calf from him & what did you do with them?

They got an All Trace bolus & a Mag/ Selenium one. There is a lick bucket with them as well. No issues with cows rejecting calves or not letting them suck. It’s almost like the calves are brain damaged or something. The other one was tuned for over 3 weeks before it expired and not a sign of it...

It definitely won’t suck your fingers!

Thanks for the info. We did give them Vit E but no help so far. I don’t even think it is a deficiency as cows are bolussed & there are 3 cows calved in the last week - 2 calves absolutely fine with calves from different bulls. Same with the previous one - 3 or 4 other cows calved that week &...

Yeah, it & its, now dead, predecessor have had the steroid injection etc. Didn't help so it had to be fed with the tube again & we really can't keep doing that. The vet has tried everything & we have too but it will expire I would think. Biggest issue is the 25 cows which are in calf to this...

Has anyone seen a new born calf which will simply not suck the cow or bottle or anything???? We have loads of calves born and not a problem above the usual where it might take a day to train one to suck a cow with a low/rough udder etc. but this fec'r is different and just will not take...