r/Cattle

Hi all, I’m wondering if anyone here could recommend a suitable subreddit page to post this question on, if this isn’t the best place?

I‘ve 10 acres in the midlands (England) and I’m looking into expanding my livestock (we keep a few horses and a donkey, goats, and alpacas) I’m looking ideally for an animals which will be well suited to turning some ground over from bramble type forage into useable meadow ground- I’m assuming pigs would be best for this but would appreciate some opinions on whether cattle would manage a similar thing? I keep a number of chickens and cats and would worry about them less around cattle than I would with pigs - I’ve heard some horror stories!

Thanks in advance for any advice anyone can spare!

Cece

For feedlot cattle, what feed-to-silage ratio are you using with good results?

How high can feed go before having performance problems? Curious about your real-world ratios and ADG results.

Cattle reference

Hi everybody. I grew up in the countryside. Since I was a child, up to now, cattle rustlers have been a serious problem for cattle farmers. They steal cattle that are ready to be sold, causing considerable financial loss for farmers. Just to give you an idea, a single cow or bull can be valued at $1,500 to $5,000 USD. Imagine being a farmer, taking care of your animals for months, and losing all that effort in just a few minutes.

As a mechatronics engineer, I think a solution might be to introduce a GPS device small enough to be embedded under the cow's skin to prevent thieves from removing it. I'm not a vet, and of course, I care about these lovely animals, but it's the first idea that came to my mind. I've done a quick search on the internet and it seems that these kinds of tiny injectable devices do not exist yet. Therefore, the GPS device would have to hang from the cow's neck using an uncuttable strap or chain—you know what I mean.

It should work as follows:

• If the device or strap is broken or cut, it must send an alert to the farmer's WhatsApp and trigger a loud sound to warn the thieves that they've been caught.
• If the cattle leave or move away from a safe zone set by the farmer (geofencing), it must send an alert.
• There is no internet connection available in the pasture, but the owner will have a connection elsewhere to receive the alerts.

Do you guys have better ideas or suggestions? Do you think it is possible to design a customized PCB with a GPS for this? Is there already a solution on the market for this problem? Would it be necessary to have a server to manage the devices and handle the phone calls and WhatsApp alerts? I'm very excited to hear your ideas. Thank you all!
PD: I've used AI for grammar checking of this post, but the cattle rustlers issue is real.

Sale sizes and sale bills aren't "normal" seasonal cycles or inventory offerings. The market is pumped and it seems like people are dumping out of the cattle business. It's a weird time of year for sales to be big, BUT, they aren't just big. Wee had over 600 weigh cows, breeds, and pairs and over 40 calves under 200lbs... Normal any time of year is 40-120 cows and less than a dozen light calves and bottle babies. Even the sale barn operators aren't sure how to manage these sale dynamics. I kind of get it on a financial level but it seem like more colsolidation and cow herd shrinking. Beef is just becoming more and more of a rich man's game and the rich man rarer and rarer.

After losing a pregnant mom and her full-term calf, we bought two week-ish old heifers at the sale barn. They looked great when we got them but quickly showed being sick even the next day. Scours, green gunk from their eyes, etc. We haven't bought many calves from the sale barn so I didn't realize we should have done electrolytes the night we got them. They drank their milk that night fine, but the next days were a struggle. This was about a week ago. After 2 days of Vetrimycin 100, and then 1 day of Baytril with electrolytes given between milk feedings, they seem to be on the mend. The only thing is one of the calves has a cough. Definitely more noticeable during/after drinking her bottle. I googled and it says possible milk getting in her lungs so I'll see about getting a slower bottle. I did give a 2nd dose of Baytril yesterday (2 days after the 1st) but not sure if I should do something more? They otherwise seem to be doing much better with their eyes clear and scours almost gone. Today is the first day they won't get electrolytes at noon since I'm in the office and not home. Figured I'd ask here before contacting the vet.

Hi all,

First time heifer calved on Mother's Day, naturally at the worst time of the year/dead heat of summer in central Florida where it's been hellishly dry and hot.

Calf has contracted tendons, so it could not walk well enough to nurse. We've got it colostrum day it was born, and have locked up Mom in our pen. Problem is it's not covered and it's hot as h*ll out. We had calf locked up with Mom to encourage nursing, bottle feeding the calf to build it's strength and hopefully get it to take naturally to Mom.

Problem is, my lane/headgate setup is not perfect. We've been able to get Mom locked up each day but she's increasingly more aware of what's going on and doesn't want to get into the headgate. We've been able to feed grain and place the calf close to her, where he has found the teet and nursed some, but not nearly enough. Today, he got stuck between a bunk feeder and post, and clearly stressed himself out to where he can't even stand up again and clearly was overheated.

We brought him home to our goat pen from cow pasture, and let him cool down/gave him some more milk replacer so he's got his morning 2 qt in his belly.

I have taken to vet, they gave him La200/oxytetracycline, which vet said will resolve issue with up to 3 treatments. Planning on taking him back tonight to the vet.

Anyone had similar situation with calves? The last two that dropped calves were first time heifers and both had problems. First one had no interest in being a mother (very skittish) and completely deserted her calf, this one is a great Mom but her calf can't nurse properly. So both ends of the spectrum frustration.

I'm really only able to manually squeeze milk out to relieve pressure from Mom and keep her bag filling up, but I'm hoping this little bull calf comes around soon, especially after the setback today.

This post is mostly a vent, but curious who else has dealt with contracted tendons and if anyone has used La200/oxytetra to resolve and how long maybe, some anecdotal insight can't hurt. Want to see this guy come around / back to life and also want to give Mom a chance to be a great Mom that I know she will be without her bag drying up.

Thank you all

Hello everyone! My family has a cattle farm with around 250 cows. The cows stay in a large outdoor fenced area with electric fencing. We also have a water/drinking area, but we’ve been facing a problem: when the herd is too far away, many cows don’t go to drink water on their own. They end up dehydrated, sometimes even collapsing from thirst.

Because of this, my grandpa has to move the entire herd to the water area several times a day. Since the pasture is hilly and the herd is large, he ends up walking more than 10 km every day, which is becoming very difficult as he’s getting older.

We were thinking about buying a drone with a speaker/sound system and using it to guide the cattle toward the drinking area, but we don’t know how effective that would actually be. Has anyone here dealt with a similar problem? How do you manage or move your cattle herd efficiently in large grazing areas?

We also tried using dogs, but there were always a few cows left behind, so my grandpa still had to go move them himself.