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Cannibal cow

R

rrlund

Well-known Member
63 years around cattle and I've never seen anything like this. I had a calf born last Sunday with some kind of brain damage. It just laid there with it's head bobbing around,couldn't stand up,if it tried,its legs went in circles and it just flopped around. It sucked alright,so I'd been feeding it on the off chance that it'd come around.

It rained all night last night. I would have put it in the barn if I'd known how much it would rain,but I didn't. I went out this morning to feed it and put it inside but it was dead. It was split open and the mother was eating the guts like it was afterbirth. She had it hollowed out pretty good. I buried it right away,but I've never seen a cow eat a calf like that.
 
If a sow gets upset when she has pigs its not unusual for them to eat the baby pigs,when a sow was having pigs we stayed clear of where she was for a few days.Some breeds were
worse than others, think the old Tamworth's were about the worst and the most vicious protecting their pigs, they'd try to kill you if she thought you were hurting them.
 
She didn't reject this one though. She was right there with it most of the time. When I was feeding it I was always in fear that she was gonna run right over me.
 
I don't know what to do with her. She's quite a young cow. I'm guessing this might be her second calf,third at the most. I'm probably taking a bigger chance by breeding a heifer to replace her than I'd be taking by keeping her. She's protective,I know that much.
 
I bought 10 bred Duroc gilts when I was young. Every one of those gilts would try to eat the newborns. If I could get them out of the pen before she got them, I could give them back to her after she was all done and she would mother them. Last Durocs I ever owned.
 
I would suspect some other predator started eating it and got it open, then the mother ran it off. When you got there she may well have been in mother mode, cleaning up to prevent another attack. I would look for evidence of a coyote or eagle.
 
Ya,I don't doubt it. When I got near her I thought it was a cow with a new calf with a string of uterine sack hanging out of her mouth though.
 
years ago, when we lived in PA, had a neighbor put a freshening cow in the maternity pen one morning, checked on her a couple of times during the day, Nothing then when he went to milk in the evening all he found was a bit of afterbirth, no calf to be found. Had no idea what happened.
 
Late winter I saw an eagle try to carry off a Herford calf that was in a harvested corn field. Don't know if calf was dead or not. Didn't realize eagles would/could do that.
 
(quoted from post at 10:36:38 05/19/18) I would suspect some other predator started eating it and got it open, then the mother ran it off. When you got there she may well have been in mother mode, cleaning up to prevent another attack. I would look for evidence of a coyote or eagle.
Click to expand...

Cow may have even accidentally stepped on the calf's tender underbelly and ripped it open. I've seen that happen.
 
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