Make Calving Season Easier with Brad White

Calving season is a beautiful thing, but there's no doubt it's tiring and stressful. That can negatively affect other aspects of your operation if you're exhausted. 

Dr. Brad White, Angus Beef Bulletin Health & Husbandry column author, chats with Kasey about how to make calving season easier on everyone involved.

Listen in for considerations on:

• New items to keep in your calving kits
• A time limit to put on yourself if intervening during a calving
• How recommendations for newborn calf care have changed
• The timeline for vaccinating mamas to set up calves for success
• The importance of a veterinary-client relationship, and how it's not hard to start one
• The importance of and tips on preventing issues

Find more information to make Angus work for you in the Angus Beef Bulletin and ABB EXTRA. Make sure you're subscribed! Sign up here to the print Angus Beef Bulletin and the digital Angus Beef Bulletin EXTRA. Have questions or comments? We'd love to hear from you! Contact our team at abbeditorial@angus.org.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to Angus at Work. I'm your host, Kasey Brown. We are excited to talk this morning with Dr. Brad White, and he is our columnist for the Health and Husbandry column in the Angus Beef Bulletin. So readers, I'm really excited for you to get to actually hear him and put a voice to a name. And then, listeners, this is a really great opportunity to remind you to check out the Angus Beef Bulletin where we give you lots of practical information on how to make Angus work for you.

Good morning, Dr. White, how are you this morning?

Brad White:

I'm great, thanks, Kasey. Appreciate the opportunity to visit.

Kasey Brown:

Awesome. Well, we are actually at Kansas State today. But first of all, give me a little bit of your background. Where did you grow up? How'd you get started in the beef industry?

Brad White:

Yep, absolutely. And appreciate you having me on the show. I am a veterinarian. Work here at Kansas State, currently. Work in the College of Veterinary Medicine and work with the Beef Cattle Institute. Have been here for several years. I was actually in private practice and spent a couple years... Private practice in Missouri. Spent a couple years at Mississippi State before coming here. So I actually grew up in Missouri around cattle, mostly cow-calf type operations and then have been here since 2005. So currently, working with the Beef Cattle Institute. Also, we have a podcast as well, as you know, our Cattle Chat podcast. So it's always great to get a chance to visit.

Kasey Brown:

Excellent. So tell me, you said you worked in private practice. What are some of the biggest lessons you learned from private practice, and how do you use them in your role now?

Brad White:

I think it's a great question. And I think one of the things, as we think back to and a lot of the practice that I dealt with were cow-calf and stocker operations, and really, the preparation because, while emergencies are important and we need to do things right away, the better that we can prepare to get ready for some of those emergencies, or even better yet, prevent them, is one of the biggest lessons that I learned. And that takes diligence. And a lot of times it's easy to come up with a good idea. It's really hard to continually implement the process when things are going well. And vaccine's a great example.

So if I have a big disease outbreak, it's easy to go, "Man, I need to go vaccinate." I'm willing to put that energy and effort into it. If things are going pretty well, it's easy for me to let that slide down my list and say, "Well maybe I don't need to vaccinate, use parasite control, do some of these preventative measures." So one of the things I learned from practice is it's when things are going well that we need to continue to apply that diligence and implement our health plan.

Kasey Brown:

That's perfect. That's really great advice. And that brings me to our topic today. We're going to talk about being prepared for calving season. So what are the things that producers can think about before calving season starts to get them to be ready when they're in the thick of it and they're running low on sleep?

Brad White:

Awesome. We're right onto preparation. Yes. And I think this is really key, is to make sure that you have everything ready. And I like having a calving box. People do this different ways, but I like having a calving box that has some of the basic equipment that I might need if we have a difficult calving. And I think it's important to think about how often that might occur and what causes it. And I'm going to break it into two categories as we think about difficult calving.

One, adults, most often in adults, our cause of calving difficulty is the calf is not positioned right, which should give us a signal, and we'll talk about later what we watch for, but that should give us a signal, if the calf's not positioned right, we're going to have to fix that.

In heifers or cows that haven't had a calf yet, most common problem is a mismatch or the fetus is too big, or the dam is too small, in which case, we may need to intervene. Calving problems in heifers, look at the national works, 15% to 17%, you'll see it. A lot of times, I think we can do much better than that. That's the national average. My target for my clients is less than 10% that we have problems in heifers, 8% to 10%.

In cows, we'll see a couple percent of them have dystocia. Pretty rare that we would see it. I didn't answer your question.

I've geared off topic, but let's go back to... Preparation, I'd get a calving box. And in that calving box, inside the top of the lid, I would tape in some phone numbers that I may need to text or call. And that would include my veterinarian. It may include somebody if I have somebody lined up to help. If I've got a bunch of heifers calving, I may have somebody that I know can come help me. I'm also going to include things like a rope and a halter so that I can catch if we're in the pasture, as well as sleeves, lube, potentially some chains if I have something that I need to get out, and anything else that I may think of as far as calving so that I'm ready to go. Also, I'll include tags because I'm hopefully not pulling calves all the time and something that I'm going to record or write down in the new baby's home.

Kasey Brown:

Perfect. And that's something you don't always hear about in a calving bucket, which I love, is be prepared when it goes right too.

Brad White:

Yeah.

Kasey Brown:

So that's great. Let's go back into... You mentioned you wanted to talk about cows, if they're ready. Let's dive into that.

Brad White:

Well, let's talk cows and heifer. And one of the questions that I get is when to intervene. And so, if we think about labor in cattle and, well, any species, but let's just talk cattle, labor is three stages. And the first stage of labor actually ends when that water bag breaks or the amniotic vesicle. So the calf is basically swimming in water until he starts to be born. And when that breaks, that's the end of the first stage of labor. That first stage of labor is the longest one. That's where we see straining. That's where we see up and down. That's where we see it takes some time.

Then, after the first stage of labor, the water breaks, you may see that come out. After the second stage of labor, the calf comes out. And after the third stage is when you see the fetal membranes come out. So the placenta, things like that.

Now, we often say, okay, well, when should I intervene? Well, the first step to know when you should intervene is figuring out which stage of labor we are in because if that water has not broken yet, I'm not worried. And this is the part when somebody says, "Hey, heifers take longer than cows?" Absolutely. It's all stage one. It's all before that water breaks that takes longer, and that may be six hours, seven hours on effort because she doesn't really know what she's doing, nor does she know what's going on. Cows, often, that stage is quicker.

Stage two, remember, that's between when the water breaks and when the calf comes out. Stage two should be fast. It should be less than an hour. That's not the part. If you see a foot sticking out, you know immediately, stage two. I'm already in that stage and I'm waiting for the calf to come out. I should see progression of that foot every 15 minutes. If I see a foot sticking out and it's not progressing and it's 15 minutes, it's time to intervene, which is different than, often, I was told we're going to wait a couple hours if they're calving. Well, if they're in stage one, I'm all good with that. If you see a foot sticking out or any part of the body and it's not progressing or you see the water break and it's not progressing, 15 minutes is the time before you want to start intervening. I like to intervene sooner rather than later, especially if I can easily tell what stage I'm in.

Now, early on in the process, it may be hard to tell what stage you're in. But then, at that point, I would go in, do an assessment, figure out, do I need to call somebody or not call somebody? If I'm going to be calling my vet, I want to call them sooner rather than later to tell them here's where we are, because, often, it may take them longer than that to get there.

Kasey Brown:

Gotcha. What are you looking for when you're determining, hey, I need help or I can do this myself?

Brad White:

And that'll depend a lot on the personal experience. One of the things that I would encourage, if you've got a lot of cows that are calving or heifers that are calving, there are calving schools, workshops, educational things online. I would encourage you to look at doing those, but you can't beat having some of the experience. So there are times that you will want to have somebody else there that's got that experience. So what I would look for is active progression. We talked about every 15 minutes, I should see that progressing. If it's not, then at that point, depending on how much experience I have, at that point, I might be calling the vet or I might go in and say, "Okay, this is a malpresentation. It's not positioned the right way. And it's a pretty easy adjustment."

Of our calving difficulties I mentioned on cows, most of those are due to malpresentation, basically, which means that calf should come out like he's a diver, front legs first. They should be coming out on the bottom and his head on the top. I don't want to see two noses and two front legs at the same time because that's not how divers dive. That means your elbows are bent back and you're not coming out. But you should come out like a diver, which means, if he's not, you may have a leg back or a head back, which can be a relatively straightforward fix or can be challenging.

So this is the second part. So the 15 minutes was on the cow. The next part is, how do I know if I need to call for help? I should be able to make progress in 15 minutes too. Same rule for me as for the cow. So if I go and I say I'm going to assist, I'm going to reach in and I'm going to try to make some changes, and if I can't get it repositioned in 15 minutes, then I need to call somebody. So same rule for me as the cow, you set a timer on your phone or your watch because I have been there and you go, "I'm so close. I can get it. I'm so close." And you can be so close, and all of a sudden, 45 minutes has slipped by and I didn't make the progress that I needed to.

So set the same time limit or clock for you as you did for the cow. And I know that can be frustrating at times and for many of us who go, "No, no, no, I can do it, I can do it." Yes, you can do it, probably, but we don't have unlimited time, so make those calls sooner rather than later.

Kasey Brown:

Right, because the shorter calving takes, the better on the calf and the cow.

Brad White:

The better on the calf and the cow. And we know, anytime we have a difficult calving, she's probably going to be a little bit slower to breed back. That calf itself could be okay, depending on when we intervene, or could have some difficulties as he goes through. So the quicker that we get him out of there, the better off it is for everybody.

Kasey Brown:

Gotcha. Let's switch tracks just a little bit. And I've gotten to attend some calving schools and I think something that I find fascinating is how some of the science of newborn calf care has changed. And I mean, I grew up reading James Harriet. He talks about lifting the calf up to try to drain stuff out of the lungs. And then, recently, that's not good. So what-

Brad White:

Let me interrupt you for a second.

Kasey Brown:

Yes, please do.

Brad White:

Because that's a common thing. And we'll talk about it. And I did the same. And I lifted several calves up and you can see stuff come out. And what you're actually seeing come out is, I mentioned they were basically floating before they came out. They are floating and they're ingesting some of that amniotic fluid. It's where they get their nutrition. So their stomach has a fair bit of that amniotic fluid in it. So the stuff that we see come out isn't necessarily coming from their lungs. So we're not draining out a bunch of fluid in their lungs. We're essentially draining out from other areas and it may go through their nasal cavities. But yes, you don't need to hold a calf upside down or shake them or vigorously spin them around to try to get that stuff going. That's not what's happening there. Sorry I interrupted you.

Kasey Brown:

No, that was perfect. So what should you do?

Brad White:

What I like to do is, as soon as we get them out, I do think there is value in stimulating, and we're going back to mimicking what happens in nature. As you've watched cows calve before, one of the first things that they do is that mom will go over and she'll start licking and may nudge him with her head, sometimes more or less aggressively, depending on the mother, but we're going to do the same thing, right? We're going to get out and you're going to get your hands and you may rub along his chest to stimulate him, especially if he's having trouble or it's been a long difficult calving. I'll try to stimulate him. I'll also try to rub on his head a little bit to just to try to get him stimulated because that physical stimulation is going to simulate what his mom would be normally doing.

And often, in these difficult calvings, we've got his mom contained. She's either in a chute, she's tied up, she's got something because we had to restrain her. So we are going to serve that purpose and try to get him stimulated. Those would be the big things that I would look at. Ideally, if he's got the energy, we'll get him up, try to get him either to nurse or to feed him some colostrum.

Now, this is the second part. As we think about what's important in getting these calves going, we want to be sure that he does get that colostrum. He may be slower to nurse because he was a difficult calving. So if I've got the cow restrained, and this is not always a fun part, if I don't think he's going to get up or I can't get him up, I may collect some of that colostrum or that first milk from his mother and go ahead and feed that calf. And I can too feed that calf so it goes directly into his stomach and gets him stimulated because sometimes that's also what they need, is energy.

My first preference, by far, is milk or colostrum from his mother. A step-down from that, a pretty far step down is something else that I could get commercially prepared if she doesn't have milk. And sometimes that's our only alternative because if the cow has problems or there's other issues going on, we may not be able to get milk from her for some reason. But ideally from her.

Kasey Brown:

Because she's been spending the last nine months getting ready and she's got all of the antibodies that she's given to him passively.

Brad White:

Yeah. And the antibodies that she makes, and there's some other stuff in colostrum, but the antibodies that she makes are specific for your farm. So the antibodies are those proteins that will fight it against infections. And she's actually building to... And we all have stuff on our farms, right? No farm is different in that they have no pathogens. We all have pathogens. But she's built antibodies or immunity specifically to guard against some of those pathogens.

Kasey Brown:

That's cool. I heard last year a really great explanation of how the antibody cells are so much bigger and they can't pass through a calf's bloodstream and that's why it's so important to have colostrum. Is that correct?

Brad White:

Yeah. Colostrum itself is made up of antibodies. Antibodies are proteins. When the calf is born, his gut is in such a way that it will allow some of those things to pass for about the first 12 hours to 24 hours. Now, once some of those antibodies pass through his gut wall that it will start to close, which means, and the implication for us as managing these calves is twofold, once he is passed 24 hours, he's not going to be able to get colostrum. We have a short window and it closes. Two, if I give him... When I start feeding him, when we just talked, when they get out, I may decide to feed him or not feed him. What I don't want to do is say, "Okay, what I'm going to do is just feed him just a little bit" because if I feed him just a little bit, then that actually starts the gut wall process closing at that point. And then, if he doesn't nurse for another 12 hours, then I may have missed my window. So what I want to do is decide, A, I'm going to feed him or I'm not going to feed him? I'm not going to feed him just a little bit at that point to try to get to him.

And then those antibodies will pass through, and that provides those antibodies, proteins, they attack different pathogens that we face, viruses and bacteria, and provide us some immunity. Those will provide the bulk of his immunity the first few months of his life. There are also some non-specific things in that colostrum, which help with his immune system, which get him simulated, which is another reason that... And there's been some research that shows colostrum from his mom is going to be better than colostrum from any other mom because it's more specific to him. That's what she built for him, for her, the baby.

Kasey Brown:

Cool. Let's talk about building some of those antibodies while that calf is still in the womb. So what's the timeline for vaccinating the cow to help set that calf up for success?

Brad White:

Great question. And there are multiple programs that will work. And you've got a national audience. And so, we have spring calvers. We have fall calvers. We have some herds that have both. We will have herds that have high exposure to different types of diseases based on region of the country. And I'm going to generalize a little bit and say our goal is to have healthy cows that produce healthy calves. And to do that, we have to have a comprehensive program. And as we started out at the top, that's not a one size fits all, but it is a, I have to pay attention to it all the time.

So this is an area I would work with your veterinarian to come up with what works on your operation. And some considerations that you may want to make are, one, we have vaccines that are safe for giving to pregnant cows and we have vaccines that are safe for giving to open cows. And then there are some that you could do in both, but you have to follow those label directions. Two, I would prioritize what diseases are important to my operation. So we work with purebred operations. We work with commercial cattle operations. And they have some different preferences as to what's most important, and it varies depending on region of the country. So what am I going to build immunity for? Two, I won't ever rely on just my vaccine program to keep cattle healthy. A vaccine program is one of the building blocks. The other building blocks are, I've got to limit exposure to some of those diseases and then I have to monitor and make sure that I keep animals together or separate that should be together or separate. So it's part of a whole comprehensive program.

Kasey Brown:

Well, that's great. Really, make sure you've got that relationship with your veterinarian.

Brad White:

Absolutely. Yeah. Find somebody that you can have those. Every time I've done it, it's a conversation. It is not... A health program, too often has the misconception that you come and say, "Hey, I want a health program" and I give you a piece of paper that says, here's your health program. That's not as valuable to you or to me as if we sit down and talk through some of these things. What's our goals? What's our objectives? When are we going to sell those calves? That's a part of the conversation. What are some of the diseases that we've faced in the past? Well, we're not 100% sure. Okay, well, we got to figure that out because that plays into how do we build that comprehensive program.

Kasey Brown:

And so it's not, I just have to call my vet when something's wrong?

Brad White:

That's right.

Kasey Brown:

Talk to them ahead of time.

Brad White:

I would much rather do it ahead of time.

Kasey Brown:

Right. Those conversations are much more pleasant.

Brad White:

That's right. Absolutely.

Kasey Brown:

Well, awesome. I think that is... I know our podcasts are pretty short, but I would love to end on some good news because we all know the cattle business is really the people business. Tell us something good that's happened either professionally or personally, or both.

Brad White:

I'm going to tell you a good, and it relates to our topic from today. So as a veterinarian, I have seen a lot of calvings. Very few of them have gone just as smooth as they could, right? Because, often, that's not why I'm there.

Kasey Brown:

Right.

Brad White:

But I was out with my... And this happened last year, I was out with my son and we were watching. And we were supposed to check the cows real quick and then go home for supper. However, this cow went off and she walked off by herself, and we were able to just lay there and watch. And we were actually able to get within 15 feet of her and basically laid on the ground, and the spring, and it's cold, and it's wet. And we watched the whole process, the cow-calf. It got up and nursed. We entirely missed supper, which is a difference... That's not a piece of the good news, but we got to see that experience.

And I think just being able to share that with your kids and share that with people who aren't involved with AG, and I took a video on my phone, shared it with some other folks, it is one of the things that don't forget, how lucky we are to be able to observe that part of the process. And the frustrating times can easily... They're easy memories, right? They come right to the surface. But stuff like that, you got to keep it close to the surface as well because it's really important.

Kasey Brown:

That's such a beautiful image. I mean, new life never gets old.

Brad White:

No, absolutely not.

Kasey Brown:

That's awesome. Well, thank you so much for talking with me today. Listeners, be sure to check out Dr. White's column in the Angus Beef Bulletin. It's called Health and Husbandry. If you need information on how to subscribe, check out the show notes. If you have questions or comments, let us know at abbeditorial@angus.org. We also recommend you check out Dr. White's podcast called Cattle Chat. He and his colleagues at the Beef Cattle Institute provide a lot of great practical information, so go ahead and check them out anywhere you'd like to listen to podcasts. For Angus At Work, this is Casey Brown, and thanks for listening.