After A Hard Pull - Calving Ease and Vigor

“You Don’t Get Results By Focusing On Results, Rather By Focusing On The Habits And Behaviours That Produce Them”

Calving ease and calf vigor are highly correlated to colostrum intake

I’ve had a few runs lately of tough calvings.

Big calves. Hard pulls.The kind where everyone’s tired when it’s done. Including the cow and calf!

What I’ve been doing afterwards

Nothing complicated — just a couple things I’ve found worth doing right after that I wanted to share with you.

1. NSAIDs for both the cow and the calfThey’ve both been through a lot.Taking the edge off seems to help the cow get up and mother quicker — and the calf feel a bit more like nursing more quickly.

Meloxicam is a great choice (i.e., Metacam, Oral Meloxicam).

(Stay away from Banamine/Flunazine at this time as it has been linked to retained placentas)

2. Check the suckle reflex around 10-15 minutesI’ll put a couple fingers in the calf’s mouth after I’m done cleaning u and see if it wants to latch and suckle.

Why I pay attention to that

There’s some good work from Dr. Elizabeth Homerosky looking at calf VIGOR.

Two things stand out early on:

• How hard the calf was pulled

• How strong the suckle reflex is

The harder the pull, the less likely that calf is to get up and nurse on its own.

Her work on real-world Canadian Western Ranches showed that with a hard pull and a calf that didn’t have a suckle reflex, there was a 97% chance it wasn’t going to get the colostrum it needed by 4 hours of life.

I’ll say that again…

There is a 97% chance the calf will not get the colostrum it needs on its own if it was hard pull and the suckle reflex was absent or weak when checked at 10-15 minutes after calving.

So, if I’ve got a hard pull and a weak suckle reflex — that’s a calf I pay more attention to early on because realistically only 3% of those calves are not going to need intervention by tubing the calf colostrum within the first 6 hours of life.

That’s not something I want to bet on.

If you try one thing

Next time you have a tough calving:

Treat the painCheck that calf wants to suckle

If it doesn’t, don’t be shy to make sure colostrum gets in early.  

Don’t leave it to chance.

Nothing groundbreaking.

Just something I’ve been doing more of lately.

Again, as promised.

Less Noise. Better Decisions.

– Jon

Jon Waito, DVM

Miller Veterinary Service