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eastern sd | Started having calves about a week ago and weather is terrible, -30 windchill for 3 days now and deep snow. been locking cows up in pen with good windbreak at night so I can watch them. I check every 2 hours I dont have much for facilities but I have a shed that can hold 1 pair and I can throw them in the pickup if i need to warm them up. Often times a cow will have a calf in the night and it will be in a good spot and the cow will be doing everything right and I feel like if I try to grab that calf and warm it up I will do more harm then good, usually the other cows that have calves have them right where they should be and I cant grab the calf without stirring them all up. I'd say 3/4 of the time the calf ends up being fine. If I do grab it and warm it up/give colostrum or whatever its about 50/50 that it survives. To be clear I always grab calves that are in obvious trouble, I guess the question is is it worth it to intervene in situation like this where the calf looks ok and potential to do harm exists? | |
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when do you intervene in bad weather
