Live Birth of Holstein Calf

To those with the uniformed comments...
Well I'm not sure what kind of experience you have with calvings but I'll try to educate you and several other of the commentaters to this video. I am a dairy veterinarian so I deal with dystocias almost everyday. Dairy cows have a calf unassisted over 90% of the time. Occasionally the calf is malpositioned or very large and needs assistance to help both the cow and the calf have the best odds for survival. The poster of this video has a good explaination of the situation. The calf normally comes feet and head first, this calf was backwards. There are many other more complex and difficult presentations than a simple backwards calf. Most farmers pull these calves on their own rather than call a veterinarian like myself. This is fine as far as the veterinary profession is concerned. The calf may die while waiting for us to get to the farm and we train farmers on how to assist cows properly for these simple calvings. Farmers call us for the more complicated abnormal presentations beyond their ability to handle. They pulled this calf so that it didn't suffocate. The umbilical cord gets torn on the pelvic bone when the butt of the calf just starts to show, at that point it needs to come out in less than 90 seconds or it will likely die. The cow is clearly fully dialated to a trained eye as evidenced by the ease of pulling and size of the vulva. This cow is also larger than an average Holstein with very wide hips making it easy for her to push a calf out. The cow may very well have been able to push the calf out on her own over an hour or so, but the calf would die in the process. This cow was not "hurting as hell" as one comment stated. Animals don't experience anywhere near the pain during partuition as humans do during childbirth. She only vocalized three times by my count and they were not a distressed vocalization which is much higher pitched and MUCH louder. It is quite common for a cow to stand while calving. In fact on assisted calvings it is very difficult if not impossible to correct some malpositions without the cow standing. As a side note I would like to add that doing a C-section is a poor option in dairy cows in most cases, including this one. There is a much greater risk of infection in cows than humans during surgery since obviously cows live in a barn which contains manure, dust, flies, etc. There are times when doing a C-section is the only or most appropiate option and in those cases we perform them. As far as kids laughing, I couldn't tell if it was laughter or poor sound quality. All I could comment on that is that they are teens, their behavior should surprise no one.

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• Birth
• Cow
• Holstein

[lormarti]

done

[bradbaxter7]

the cow and the calf would have died if the man didn't do that. the calf should have been head first. it would have been pretty hard for to have it on her own.

[bradbaxter7]

who cares what other people say. the guy did a very good job. i me and my cousin had to do that today.

[Miss65boo]

Great job with the breech delivery!

[mandtconstruct]

I'm Hungry!

[nirorinify]

this has nothing to do with the cleaveland show

[eviltreemonster]

Welcome to the world cow :)

[TheOrkneyblues]

100% to the Vets comments

[cyngirl]

bravo! great job!!! so cute!

[cervixdilation1]

are you glad that we don't have to go through that to give birth. I mean be on all 4 legs and then eat the afterbirth afterwards.

[melindagray]

Speaking of researching subjects, that would be a calf...not a foal

[LeoBurns728]

it looked like a breach birth to me, i didn't see the head at the beginning, THANKS for sharing such an AWESOME vid...

[rfabiano22]

I don't think if you ask the cow to lay down she will. The normal calving postion is standing up, so the calf can hang and the fuilds can drain from their lungs. And to the vet, 90% calvings happen on their own?? i'd say it's the other way around, you know when a calf is due, we keep records, you keep an eye on that cow 2 weeks before the calving date, you see when the cow is springing and then you have an idea how long until the birth. I'm glad you aren't the vet at my barn.