# why do cows feel the need to steal other cows calves a rant



## jerzeygurl (Jan 21, 2005)

why oh why does a holstein cross think that she needs the long horns baby when she is due herself any day, tried to get the holstien away by myself but couldnt, was hesistant to pick up the baby it being the long horns and all, went back up to keep eye on baby after calling for help and found that one of them had pushed it through the fence and the horses in the other pasture had kicked it and broke its bottom jaw in two, :flame: :Bawling: carried it down to the barn, it died before vet got back with me( though i knew it was a lost cause, thought i would at least try something to help because it was healthy and fat) this is the second calf we lost this fall and at least now we know why, that holstien has to go, as do the horses...

but in the mean time how to you keep the bossy cows from intimidating first calf hiefers off of thier calves???


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## needstoknowmore (Feb 6, 2005)

I am so sorry for your loss!!! I can't blame the horses, although they did the damage. The calf was probably looking for a meal and the horse was not willing to comply. Either get rid of or seperate that holstein! I don't know why they do it. And have no experience with cows having calves. but last year one of my goats stole anothers baby. The screams from the barn sent me running. I got there and saw the kid. It was behind the theiving doe, who was keeping away the real mom. I was able to get them seperated. the theiving mom had triplets later in the day, but couldn't wait. This year she will be seperated from the others before anybody kids so she can't do it again. Once she had her own, she wasn't wanting any extras any more!!! I would guess that this will be a problem with the cow until she has her own baby. She just doesn't want to wait!!!


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## dagwood (Jul 17, 2006)

We milked 300 registered Holsteins 2x's a day for over 12 years here. 
IMO there is NOTHING on this planet that is more stupid than a Holstein.I danced for joy when we got out Dairying and sent those cows off to Auction. :dance:


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## dagwood (Jul 17, 2006)

> how to you keep the bossy cows from intimidating first calf hiefers off of thier calves???


Put them in the freezer............


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## Mountaineer (Jan 1, 2006)

Is it worth fencing them apart?


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## Karin L (Oct 5, 2006)

Since the old HolsteinX is boss cow, that's probably why she's stealing, because she's boss and thinks she has the right over the first calvers to have a calf. 

Okay, I need you to clear up on somethin...you said "one of them pushed it through the fence.."; do you mean one of the heifers or one of the HolsteinX cows, or what??

I'm sorry for your loss, but you gotta expect things like that are gonna happen when you have cows and calves. And like Mountaineer asked, couldn't you separate the old bossy cows from the first calvers to make things easier?


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## Ronney (Nov 26, 2004)

This is a common problem and isn't restricted to Holsteins nor is it restricted to cattle. It isn't restricted to age or boss cows either and while more common amongst animals that are close to birthing, it can occur when the thieving "mother" is empty.

Jerzey, in your case I think it would have to be a management thing. No need to get rid of your older cow, just ensure that she is kept separate from the first calvers. I keep my calving cows together irrespective of their age but I'm on the watch the whole time for this type of behaviour. I rarely have it but have no compunction about going in waving a big stick and cutting out the thieving cow and putting her on her own. If I can't separate them in the paddock the whole lot go to the yards and I draft off the troublemaker. I also have the same problem with lambing ewes and last year had one empty ewe cause mayhem by pinching a triplet which she then couldn't feed.

There are several reasons for this behaviour, the main one being that animals close to birthing have hormones kicking in and they want a baby right or wrong. An empty cow with metritis can also display this behaviour.

Cheers,
Ronnie


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## dosthouhavemilk (Oct 29, 2004)

Hormones!
Your Holstein will likely calve anytime now.
Here's a calf already on the ground for her to mother. Why not take the calf that is already born? She then does not have to go through labor herself? Right? (please, I am not serious...just looking at it as they might).
Freedom gave birth to Amistad. Hale Bopp immediately took her away from Freedom. A few hours later Hale Bopp gave birth to Bjork. It was the hormones. 
They do odd things to animals. Seen it in goats, cows, cats, etc. 
This is one reason animals leave the herd and find a quiet place to give birth. No one to interfere with the bonding process. Unless they are forced otherwise.

Frankly, if this is the second time the horses have killed a calf...well, unless they actually serve a purpose, they would be moved from the bordering pasture or completely gone.
Cows send calves through fences..that is what they do.

Is there a separate area you can keep your up close animals, especially the HolsteinX?
We don't run into this problem much. Even with Freedom and Hale Bopp it wasn't that serious. Then again, we're a dairy and our calves aren't left with the dams for very long.
Our goats are though.

Sorry about your loss. How frustrating! Keep an eye on that long horn's udder. Any chance you can find a foster calf for her?


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## wr (Aug 10, 2003)

I'm sorry you had problems but I find with heifers, difficulties can occur at any time and tend to keep them separated so I can handle any crisis they may have quickly. When I have had to resolve these baby thefts, I like to work with someone with me to act as the eyes in the back of my head or protection should one of the cows become agressive. Your longhorn is young and it's not neccesary to let her horns intimidate you and I find when you do, they have the ability to become quite assertive as they mature. 

Just a side note, in all the years I've raised longhorns, I've found they don't take well to the calf grafting process. I find that if they think it's a great idea, they'll adopt a calf and if they don't, all the arguing in the wold doesn't seem to change their mind. I had an old gal one year that lost her calf in a storm and was insistent she raise her daughter's calf. I felt that she might want to raise an orphan. We argued about it for about 10 days and she was quite cruel to the orphan so I figured we'd bottle feed the calf (before she killed it) and she'd had enough time in isolation to forget about calf stealing. She had, but she'd concluded that a baby sharing program would do so her and her daughter proudly raised their granddaughter.


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## tallpines (Apr 9, 2003)

We always had a couple older cows who wanted to move in and take over.
DH called them "old Granma's"


It sort of crosses into the human species, too!

I remember giving my first born a bath----------while my mother sat there and told me I was doing it WRONG.
Never mind that I had given baths to hundreds of newborns and had learned the PROPER TECHNIQUE in Nursing School.

During that bath, the phone rang!
It was MIL calling to tell me HOW to get the Baptism scheduled!  :help:


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## 65284 (Sep 17, 2003)

I have an older Dexter cow that wants every calf born here. While she is sometimes a PITA she is also a treasure. She is always willing to adopt an orphan or a calf who's mom rejected it. She will let any calf in need of a snack nurse. I think of her as a granny cow and a great "calfsitter". It's not unusual to see her moving around the pasture with 5 or 6 calves trailing along behind.


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## jerzeygurl (Jan 21, 2005)

update, the cross did calve that evening( twice!!) she had one by the lot that i found, went to get her and found she had a second one in the creek, spent all nite warming her up and both little girls are fine now(luckily they are both girls) and mamma took both of them, and all three are in a pen away from every one else

the horses were hangin over the fence calling the calf to them, so i have no use for them, could use the room for the cows.

40 acres, 4 pastures, all full. we had just moved them closer and on smaller pasture to keep an eye on them and that got them all closer together and fighting, things seem to have settled down with holstien up.

and actually holstien cross jersey mama is boss, but has been unbounced since butting the longhorn and catching her horns on long horns horn, what a mess ugg...the long horns are the least agressive of the bunch...


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## Jennifer L. (May 10, 2002)

Congrats on the twins. I never worry too much about cows who want to mother everything that comes along. It's handy every so often to have a cow who will take a calf. Sometimes a PITA, too, though! 

Jennifer


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## DiF (Feb 20, 2021)

Hello all, I am new to the group and although this thread is old, I thought I'd share my recent stories in case they are of help to anyone else. We just went through h* with this thieving behaviour. I had 3 angus x pregnant cows in a pasture together - all due at the same time and none of them first timers. They were due on Feb 14th but waited until 0 degrees at night (with snow on the ground) to calve. Cow 1 calved fine around 9 pm and was doing the motherly licking. Cow 2 then began desperately trying to take over this calf - licking it, trying to separate it from its mom, and not letting it nurse its mom. Time was ticking and the temperature was dropping. We tried everything we could think of to separate the two Cows. Cow 2 was aggressive towards us, and as she obsessively followed Cow 1 and calf around the field, the calf started running out of energy and still not had it's necessary colostrum. Then at 1130 pm Cow 2 calved. She literally laid down, dropped a calf, and within 5 minutes was up and running to try again to grab the other calf. She didn't even look behind her at her own calf which is now lying in the snow shivering with cold. Great, so now we have 2 calves that are under stress, it's after midnight and the temperature is 1 F. At 1 am, my neighbour came over to help and the 3 of us decided that the only workable strategy was to lasso and tie up Cow 2 so that Cow 1 could look after her own calf and maybe we could get Cow 2 to accept her own calf. We were fortunate to have these assets: a lasso (never used by my wannabe cowboy partner), a food greedy Cow 2, woven wire fencing attached to trees near the birthing area. Cow 2 had already tried charging at us through the fencing so we put some food on the ground by a tree, wrapped the lasso end around the tree and waited for her to charge us and get the food. Which she did and voila we got the lasso around her neck. Once she was restrained and had stopped fighting, we picked up her calf, rubbed some afterbirth on it and took it and the remaining afterbirth and placed them on the ground in front of her. She immediately took to it so you might think our problems are over. Wrong. It's now 2 am, calf 1 still hasn't nursed (we tried to get it attached to a teat but no luck here and no luck with a bottle either) and calf 2 is wandering around a loose rope and a still aggressive Cow 2. My very brave partner stayed near pair 2 and more than a few times kept the calf from getting strangled. This could so easily have gone the wrong way and we were mortified. About 3 am we felt that pair 2 bonded and that we could take the lasso off. This was more challenging than getting it on as the Cow is charging the fence and the calf is in her path as well as getting caught up in the rope. We used a long rigid riding whip to reach down under the lasso against her neck to get it off. It has now been 6 hours since calf 1 was born and it has had no colostrum. We went to bed around 4 am and I was already planning how to dispose of the body when I went out the next day. It was another below freezing day and when I went out the calf was still alive but seemed to be hanging by a thread and with green stuff coming out its nose. It wouldn't take a bottle and it's eyes seemed to be rolling back in its head. I pushed it partway into its shelter and wrapped it in a blanket still preparing for the worst. To my amazement, that calf was up and nursing when I went back in the afternoon to check on it. I still wasn't very hopeful but the calf is now 4 days old and doing well. 
During all of this drama, Cow 3 has stood back and watched. She's pretty docile and has had about 6 calves and always been an excellent mother. She'd been spending time away from the other 2 so I was waiting for her to go off on her own and calve any day. To my horror, she returned to the group and started trying to take the calf of Cow 2. She has never done this before, but I have! After spending an hour in the ATV trying to get her out of the field, she outsmarted me by going behind the pond on the dam, I abandon the ATV and go and get a horse. This doesn't work either, Cow 2 is threatening to charge me and horse and Cow 3 is glued to the calf of Cow 2. I'm getting concerned because the calf is looking a bit confused and trying to nurse off Cow 3. So I go and get the same tools as before, less 2 people. No problem, Cow 3 lassoed, tied to tree and I get her a bale of hay and some buckets of water. At 1130 pm (9 F outside), I see the mucous plug and then plan to check her hourly. At 3 am, there is a wet and cold calf on the ground with Cow 3 totally ignoring it yet looking longingly over at the rest of the herd. I cannot get into the pen as the calf is too close to her and our safety would be jeopardised. I tried reaching through the wire to see if I could dry off the calf a little and this has the effect of Cow 3 getting a little interested in the calf. My partner then appears on the scene and we decide to unlasso her to make it easier for her to care for the calf. Instead, she starts walking off. So, I intervene again and as soon as she sees me heading to the calf, she goes to it and licks again. At 4 am, we decide we've done enough and go in to bed. I check them again at 9 am; the calf is still partly wet and shivering - it's 19 F. Same strategy - I pretend I'm coming in to touch the calf and then mom starts getting interested in it. We play this game a couple of times and I then leave her to it. Hopefully this will have a good outcome...
We've had these cows several years and they've always gone off on their own to calve. No idea why none of them did this time. For anyone thinking that we shouldn't have interfered, we had weighed that option and unanimously thought that we would have at least 2 dead calves. Cow 1 could not continue to fight off Cow 2 and look after her calf and Cow 2 was never going to let calf 1 nurse from Cow 1. Cow 2 was also never going to look after her own calf if it were fixated on calf 1 and same for Cow 3. My neighbour tells me that dogs are a lot easier.... Good luck to anyone else that might experience this exhausting situation. Moral of the story is to get on top of the situation as soon as you see it starting to happen and have warm clothes and good helpers. 
And if you're thinking 'why didn't they just pick up the calves and move them' - we tried - it didn't work.


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