My spring calving is now finished for 2025 and it is very satisfying to walk through the cows and calves.

The calves are starting to get a good shine off them and I am able to see which bulls are performing the best.

Breeding season is next and I have decisions to make for this year’s bull selection. I have used some new bulls over the last couple of years and some are working out very well and there are others that are a little disappointing.

I am sometimes quick to forget about the troubles I had during the calving season. Nobody likes to dwell too long on things that went wrong, but I think that a critical look-back might prepare me better for next season.

Generally, calving went reasonably well. Most cows and heifers gave birth by themselves. Having said that, I did have two Caesarean sections. One was a calf coming backwards and was just too big to come out that way. Then the second was a heifer that had too big a calf.

On top of that I had a cow with a twisted calf bed. Down through the years I have had about one a year and I always try and untwist it myself. But as yet I have not succeeded and had to call the vet. He got it untwisted in less than a minute and made it look very easy.

Weather

With the reasonably dry spring I was able to get the cows and calves out to grass a few days after they were born. This was a massive help and reduced the workload on the farm. At the time it seemed like the right thing to do.

Although the days were bright and sunny (and quite warm) the nights were very cold with a lot of frost. For most of the calves, this did not seem to be a problem, but I had a few issues.

One calf was a little dull for a few days and seemed to have a grey/white scour. It was still sucking the cow, so I did not worry too much.

After a couple of days, I decided to bring it back into the house and put it on electrolyte powders for a few days. If anything, it initially got worse, but eventually it recovered and I got it back outside.

Then about a week later I had another one with the same symptoms. It would get up every day suck the cow, but it just did not look right.

Then out of the blue it seemed to improve and looked a lot livelier. But the next day it went downhill again. I decided to bring it into the house and put it on electrolyte powders. The next day I was still not happy with it, so I called the vet. She gave it a drip and a mixture of medication. I put it under a heat lamp, but it did not improve and was dead the next morning.

Concern

This was starting to concern me, but it was strange that no other animal was sick. I decided to let the next batch of cows and calves out to a different field just in case there was something being picked up from the soil.

There was nothing more for a couple of weeks, but then I got another with the same symptoms. This time I thought I was acting early and after a few days in the house on powders, the calf was back to normal and back out in the field.

About a week later, it went down hill again and this time I went straight to the vet. He seemed to treat it for everything and took a dung sample and sent it to the veterinary lab to see what was causing the problem.

But it did not improve and after two more trips to the vet, the calf died. Over two weeks later and there is still nothing from the lab.

Thankfully there has not been any more, but I would still like some feedback to prepare me for next year

It is nice looking at the cows and calves in the field but there are a couple of calves missing that should have been there.