Livestock losses?

How"s everyone"s stock taking the storm? I think around here (cent Ia) losses have been few. We lost my daughter's oldest horse a week ago but the vet said not weather related. He was very old but in good condition, his ticker just gave out. Otherwise, everthing else is in good shape.

Bad thing about stock losses this time of year, no way to dispose of them. I think we have only 2 rendering plants in Iowa left, used to have one in every county. My guess the disease regulations run them out of business.

I'd been thinking that we came through it alright with no colapses and no deaths,but yesterday morning there was a cow out by the feeder with a little bit of afterbirth hanging out of her. I don't start calving for another 2 months,so she must have lost it. Went looking and couldn't find anything. The one button that I could see on the afterbirth looked old and kinda green,so I'm inclined to believe she lost it before the storm. It must be burried in the snow somewhere out there.
Other than that,so far,so good. The price of these things these days,ANY loss is a BIG loss.

We had one in Michigan, it was a soap plant. But lack of animals shut it down. Same thing with a packing plant here, not many folks raising animals for slaughter anymore.

Critters are just plain tough. As long as they can get out of the wind, they usually do just fine.

Was amused at my horses the other morning when it was -30° out there on the hill. Their hair was standing straight up on end. :>)

Allan

no losses but some joker swapped all my red and black cattle for white ones sometime last nite.

There have been many cows killed around this area of New York from barn collapses in the past few days. Over 120 dead, last I checked.

This is one of the worst winters I've seen in 30 years when it comes to snow sticking to roofs and buidling up. It's a logical conclusion that roofs come down when the snow gets left up there.

One of the big barns (with 265 cows inside) was only built five years ago. So much for going by minumum building codes (which I'd never do).

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I was kinda concerned with part of one barn of mine. There's quite a span in one part without much bracing and the snow we'd had up until this last big storm had come straight down. I figured with the wind they were talking about this time,it would blow off as it came down,and it did. I didn't dare risk it though and went and got some lumber Tuesday and spent part of the afternoon bracing some things up. Figured better to spend a few bucks on some 2x6s than to loose $50,000 worth of steers in a colapse. It doesn't take many of them to make that big of a loss these days.

Give cows a hollow with a thick stand of cedar trees and they forget its Winter(LOL)

If your livestock have a water supply, feed and some protection from the wind they will be fine. I have fewer losses in the winter than the hot moths in the summer. When it gets good and cold you don"t have the respiratory disease problems.

It was 17 degrees below here Thursday morning. Calves where running around like crazy. Both cattle dogs sleep outside. Neither would come in the garage. They love the cold.

I haven't had near the problem the folks up north have had but I did loose 1 calf and have had several cases of pneumonia. Last Saturday it was 70 degrees and Wednesday morning it was 5. We have snow on the ground this morning and it's supposed to be 50 by this afternoon. Next week they are saying highs in the teens.