On the 23rd October, we had the experience of going through our first calving at Marville’s Farm.

We had become a little concerned into the health of Spirit who we knew was close to calving, about 3 weeks prior to her calving she had started to lose weight and took on the appearance of a dairy cow. No one was able to work out what was wrong with her and even now she is still on the thin side.

I had a feeling that this was not going to be an easy calving, so I had brought vet gloves, calving chains and lube just in case. I can say, these are going to be staples in our vet kit from now on including the new pully system we have just purchased.

At 6.30pm on Sunday 22^nd October, Spirits water broke, she started producing a thick yellow discharge, we stayed with her and at 7.30pm she produced a bag of fluid which was not see through and appeared to be full of deep red blood. The fluid was not transparent as you see in videos, I became concerned and contact my friend’s husband that is a farmer that lives out of town. I sent him the pictures and let him know what was happening, he said that if she hadn’t calved by the morning to contact the vet, sometimes heifers take a little longer to calve.

At 5am Monday 23rd, I went to check on her, there had been no change and she looked defeated. We got her to the crush and I did an internal on her to see if I could feel anything. I had never done this before so was a little unsure of what to expect, I felt 2 little feet about 3 inches in and a little further in I could feel the head, I also felt something sharp which I know was the teeth.

I tried to pull the feet with my hands with her contractions but by this time she was exhausted and not pushing all that well. We called the vet about 5.30am and let her know that she had not calved and was having difficulty however the vet told me that she could not get there until after 10am.

I then called a retired farmer that I met at the rural supply store in town Darryl. He had overheard some of my conversations with the owner of the business and he offered to help me out if I needed it. In the meantime, we attached the calving chains and continued to try and help her until Darryl arrived. By this point Spirit was not able to stand and was making strange grunting noises, so I knew she was done trying and was in a lot of pain.

Darryl was able to get to our farm at 7am and he brought a ratchet / pully system with him, he attached it to the cattle yards and the other part to the calf chains. David was on the ratchet taking instructions from Darryl, Darryl had his hands inside making sure Arthur ‘s elbows where clear and making sure his head was in the correct position, I was applying gentle pressure to her sides and trying to comfort her.

With this we were able to get Arthur out. When he was born, we all thought he was dead, we then saw his eyes move so we tried to clear he airways and stimulate him by rubbing him with towels and compressions on his chest. When he started to breath it was very congested. We cleared his throat with our hands, massaged his tongue and tickled his nose with straw to try and get him to sneeze or cough out the rest of the gunk. We called the vet again to give and update and she said to place him over the cattle yards and let the fluid drain out of his lungs.

By the time we got him breathing properly, Spirit was not interested in him at all. We left them together in the yards and checked on them every 30 minutes. We thought giving them some alone time they could bond and that maybe she would show interest. After 2 hours, Spirit started to lick and clean him. I thought all the problems were over…

I had the vet come and check on them, she pulled some of the placenta out which we thought was all of it. It ended up coming out in 3 separate stages over the course of the day. Arthur still could not stand, she said with larger claves sometime the tendons contract and need help stretching them out. Because he could not stand, we tried to milk Spirit to see if we could feed him. We had to keep rotating him from side to side throughout the day and keep propping him up so that he could breath properly. Spirit did not produce enough milk so we then had to purchase colostrum for him, which we needed to tube feed has he would not suck on the bottle.

The days that followed where hard and I had wondered if I had made the right choice, in trying to save him. I have nick named him the “cash cow” as he has taken a lot of time and money to save.

We had to keep the two of them confined to the yards for 4 days. During that time:

• We set up food and a water source for spirit.
• kept stretching out Arthur’s legs and trying to hold him up on his legs to get strength in them
• keep rotating him from side to side and propping him up on his chest to feed
• Milk spirit to try and get as much of her milk in him as possible
• Supplement feed him colostrum for the first two days and calf milk since then

Once he could stand:

• Had to put spirit through the crush in a head bale so he could feed
• Teach him to feed from her (getting him to suck out figures and the guiding him to the teats)
• At one stage we thought he might be blind because he couldn’t find them without assistance
• Then she would not let him feed so we put her in the crush without the head bale using a pole in front to stop her moving forward, this way she could see what he was doing hoping that this would make her realise she needed to feed him.

Three days later , Spirit got an infection and started to discharge puss, I took pictures to the vet and asked what might be going on, it was then suspected that she did not pass all of the placenta, I had to go home and give her an injection of penicillin in one side of her hip muscle for the infection, an injection of syntocin in the other side to assist in clearing any placenta and to assist in milk production. The next day I had to insert 2 utozyme pessaries as far in as I could get them into her uterus, they would foam up and clean out anything that was left in there.

Once we had him feeding from her, even if it was small amounts, we let them out to be with the others. He still tries to feed from spirit however, I am curtain she is dry.

All my girls look out for him, Spirit is a good mum and is very protective, she keeps all the girls from trying to steal his bottle so I think she knows we are there to help.

What I have learnt from this experience:

• Not all calving presents the same, Spirit did not isolate herself and kept eating for a large portion of her labour and her udder did not grow. I was told she would go off her food and isolate and she develop a bag. The only things she displayed were her is her pins dropped and her back end swelled up.
• Trust your instincts and follow what your gut is telling you, I knew weeks before she calved that something was not quite right with the weight loss, mood change in her. Although I have had test done and people look at her appearance multiple times, checked my research and had one internal examination as I did not want to induce labour, no one can find anything wrong with her. Her build is completely different.
• Make sure you prepare for the worst, we have now brought our own calving pully system and extra calving chains
• When you by calving chains, make sure they are a full set, I asked for calving chains and I was sold one chain for one foot when I thought it was for both.
• Learnt how to give injections
• Perform internal examinations while calving and to see what the cervix felt like at dilation
• It takes 3 people to be able to perform an assisted birth, this is definitely something I don’t think I could do on my own.
• Teaching a calf to feed
• Tube feeding a calf
• Milking a cow
• Do your research, what has worked for others in the past, may not work for your situation so think outside the box. Hence feeding in the crush without the head bale
• If you are new to this like I am, don’t be afraid to ask for help or for information.
• Just when you think you have learnt everything, something new comes up, I have definitely done a lot of second guessing myself.

Next on my learning path is tagging, registering, vaccination (have watched never done), castrating, tattooing and loads more…

I have often said over the last week, why could I not have an easy calving first up and then teach me slowly all the things that can go wrong. I feel now that after what we have all been through, I am prepared now for almost anything.

I have another calf due in a few weeks, I am hoping this one is going to be smoother, Sage is presenting very differently, and I swear, if a cow could have a pregnancy glow, she is showing it.

Hope this article can help someone else on their farming journey.

Kind regards

Ally