would like to vent about a cow I have

crofteress

Member
Livestock Farmer
Put them out last week, 3 days later she has a big sore bag been lying in a sandy basin ,has a stupid looking udder so 2 back teats lying in the sand had the start of mastitis , hadn't fed her calve for probably a day, so took them all back in spent the last 5 days putting her in the crush and tying her leg to let him feed 4 times a day, gave metacam and allymycin got her udder completely lovely and slathering it in sudocreme too, she was letting him drink fine at home in the shed , so put them back out on grass today and I've just been up she's not let him feed today, he was scared of her before as he got a doing off her so he gives in easy and gets by by poaching of the others. Just wanted to vent as this cow is the only cow I don't actually like and she would bash someone else calve if they look at her, I would happily give her away today if anyone wants her, she always has the best calve though. Edited to add she is not sore she's just walking away quite the thing.The other thing that annoys me is why do somewell known breeders that consign the odd heifer to society sales keep the good ones at home and sell the ones they know fine had mothers with udders that are less than good, poor docility etc , happened to me a few times now, they feel they need to support the sale but send the ones of the mothers that are not top performing for the breed

Edited to add again, just looked through the binocs, she is playing the game after all.

Thanks for letting me vent
 
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DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
I have a cow at the moment with two huge rear teats. Calf is coming up to a week old and hasn't sucked them yet. He's getting all he needs from the front. It's happened like this in the past and come good, but this one is really pushing it. Drives me nuts at times. I just think, it's so simple, why can't you just do it? Tempting to intervene but often wish I hadn't.

Agree that people seem to sell on animals with bad bags or other problems when they should be fattened and culled. I learned this the hard way.

Livestock industry generally more than happy to fob of naive new starters with rubbish IME.
 

czechmate

Member
Mixed Farmer
I would take either of the above today. We have a batch of 15, due to second calve inside. Due to start any time. First thing I see this morning, one of the best, lovely docile, good mum last time etc - stone dead. Bloody cows.
Just to add, doc, have one outside at the mo, calf about two weeks old now, still just on one teat...
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
I would take either of the above today. We have a batch of 15, due to second calve inside. Due to start any time. First thing I see this morning, one of the best, lovely docile, good mum last time etc - stone dead. Bloody cows.
Just to add, doc, have one outside at the mo, calf about two weeks old now, still just on one teat...

My sympathy. It's very frustrating. The first calf born this year had gone round all four teats during the first 24 hours. Nice neat bag. The next one was a bit slow , maybe a week getting to the back teats. This latest one looks like it will take forever. Maybe I'm over feeding now the grass has come good and the calves are not hungry enough to bother with the other teats. I wonder if back quarters dry up individually if not milked out for a while or do they stay active if the front ones are being milked?

Maybe I should just not worry about it, but it looks all wrong. I think we have too much clover and too much milk probably.
 

crofteress

Member
Livestock Farmer
czechmate I am very sorry about your good cow, a bad day , very bad
Drwazzock its a frustrating thing , they do seem to get round to them eventually but it is annoying and doesnt look right like you say. The cows with the correct teat placement and nice teats not cone teats dont get these problems.
I have another cow with 3 great teats and one cone teat, shes very quiet so i always stick it in the calves mouth the first week or so
I sold a heifer calve off the cow i have with the best udder and most functional no nonsense cow, her only heifer in 5. Todays annoyance made me look her up on cts and find the mans phone number and im getting her back and getting rid of this one as cull in the autumn
I read on the irish farming forum that they can stay unsucked for a month anyway then milk away again
 
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multi power

Member
Location
pembrokeshire
As far as pedigree sales of cow with poor udder, why anybody would want to buy from such sales is beyond me, i would be wanting to buy straight off farm and see the rest of the herd, mother in particular
 

crofteress

Member
Livestock Farmer
You can vist for a preview but still go to the ringside if the man selling wants to stick to supporting the sale. If I had time I would do that , not always easy to get away
 

Sussex Martin

Member
Location
Burham Kent
Where's that @Sussex Martin when you need him, he'll know what to do. :rolleyes:
I'm not going to say what you expect as these cows have a different problem than Posy(?).
The problem is that you are calving too late, my cows were too milky to calve in April, I decided to calve in January and yes I know you do have to have suitable sheds to do so but it makes sense to me. Calve early when cows are on silage/hay and not overly milky, turn out in April when calves are old enough to take advantage of the flush of milk. At the autumn sale your calves will look so much better than other entries as they will be a couple of months older.
If they are just bad cows then BANG!
 

czechmate

Member
Mixed Farmer
I would not keep a cow I didn't like, I think intuition has a lot to so with selecting stock.

@czechmate what a terrible thing to happen. So sorry.


Thank you. It wasn't the best start to the day. Somewhat perturbing, why a healthy 4 year old just died for no apparent reason.
A strange kind of coincidence today though? (Not all our animals are rubbish by the way). We had a heifer calf in October 14 and a big dead calf. She had another chance, a big dead calf in October 15. Ok, let's fatten her I say, no wife wants to give her another chance (we Arn't really a charity), I think we saw her bulling, can't recall it was a long time ago but come February I thought this animal was hopeless. Anyway, today she had a live calf, standing and sucking within half an hour. Been a long wait for this one and some conciliation for the earlier loss.
 

Rebecca

Member
I was talking about this with my cousin yesterday and he said that apparently the bulls genetics has a lot to do with the udder in his daughters? Dunno if that's right or not.
 

crofteress

Member
Livestock Farmer
you can look at the figures with lim bulls and with luing cows the bulls mother gets scored on her udder so helps take the guesswork out of it. At least ive seen my bulls mothers udder! thanks choochter and a lovely udder it was too, just need some daughters off him from my best cows !
 

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