# Calf Drowns in Partially Frozen Pond



## BJ (Aug 8, 2004)

:Bawling: God has challenged me in many ways this year, but this mornings challenge is one that brings me great sadness. Here is Missouri the ponds have been frozen over, but only solid around the edges. With snow covering the ice, I guess one of my calves was confused and did not understand the danger of the thin ice. When I checked my cows yesterday, I was missing one calf and went searching. I spotted him several yards from shore, floating dead in the icy water. Now I must find a way to safely retrieve him without falling through the ice myself. Then trying to bury him good enough away from predators will be another problem as the ground is frozen. I've raised fall calves for many years and this is the first cow or calf I have lost in this way. Late this fall I lost another calf to a coyote, so all in all, so far this calving season has been very discouraging for me.

So now I am off to attempt to retrieve the calf from the icy pond while it is still floating. :surrender:


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## M5farm (Jan 14, 2014)

sorry for your loss, Some of them are born looking for a way to die.


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## Bret (Oct 3, 2003)

All the best...

Be safe.


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## MO_cows (Aug 14, 2010)

So sorry. Cattle have no concept of "thin ice". Calves are nosy and sometimes too adventurous. Be careful in your recovery efforts! Maybe you could toss out a line with some kind of hook and snag the calf, pull it in closer?


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## stockdogcompany (Jan 25, 2015)

Sorry to hear about that hard lesson.

A dead calf every decade will pay to fence off the ponds with two strands of hotwire and composite posts. A couple of cows would really pay for it. I'm surprised you've gotten this lucky this long.

I watched a neighbor at a ranch I used to manage cut holes in pond ice and then heard him complain when a dozen head broke through and died. Same neighbor asked why I bothered setting up various systems away from ponds for winter water more than a few times until he threw away $30K worth of cows.

I also place rebar grids on my big tanks. Much cheaper than a drown calf when an ornery cow knocks one sideways in the water and plays boss cow until it's dead. 

Hope you find a good solution!


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## roadless (Sep 9, 2006)

How sad, I am so sorry.


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## BJ (Aug 8, 2004)

stockdogcompany said:


> Sorry to hear about that hard lesson.
> 
> A dead calf every decade will pay to fence off the ponds with two strands of hotwire and composite posts. A couple of cows would really pay for it. I'm surprised you've gotten this lucky this long.
> 
> ...


Unfortunately fencing off the ponds is not an option for us...and as we have learned this year with trying to isolate big hay bales .... the calves do not respect "hot wire". We have some very "active" calves this year who frequently wander off on their own away from their mom ... and as did this one, get into trouble. We do have concrete freeze-proof livestock waterers in every pond. We have tried to do all that we can to make our farm safe, but sometimes accidents happen in spite of all your best efforts....that's farming.


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## Moboiku (Mar 7, 2014)

So sorry for your loss - not a fun discovery and now a dangerous retrieval.

If you don't mind my asking a question about the calf lost to coyotes.....was the calf in with the mother and any other adult cows in the herd? The reason I ask is we've had coyote issues with our sheep but haven't been too worried about the cows, since the adults tend to form a protective circle around the calves if they feel there is a threat. We recently got LGDs for the sheep but the cows are pastured in another area where the dogs won't be able to protect them as well.


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## slingshot (Jun 25, 2014)

Moboiku said:


> So sorry for your loss - not a fun discovery and now a dangerous retrieval.
> 
> If you don't mind my asking a question about the calf lost to coyotes.....was the calf in with the mother and any other adult cows in the herd? The reason I ask is we've had coyote issues with our sheep but haven't been too worried about the cows, since the adults tend to form a protective circle around the calves if they feel there is a threat. We recently got LGDs for the sheep but the cows are pastured in another area where the dogs won't be able to protect them as well.



I know your question is for the OP but I have some experience with this issue... 

Every year both my neighbors loose calfs to coyotes, it's ridiculous and stupid. There's absolutely no reason for it, it should not happen. 

They both only use a 1 wire system to contain their cattle. This is the single biggest reason for lost calfs to coyotes, the coyotes can go under the wire without issue and attack new born calfs. 

What makes it even more insane is the the cost of a single years losses would fence the entire place with a standard 5 wire perimeter. 

When I ask why they don't put up more wires the answer is always the same, takes too much time, costs too much money. That's as backwards as it gets. 

Dead calfs cost money, cheap fences are very expensive.


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## haypoint (Oct 4, 2006)

Homesteadingtoday is a site of helpful people. Hopefully our mistakes can become your wisdom.
Without internet, I lost my first calf to scours. Without internet, I had a horse drown in 2 feet of water. But I have 40 years of farming experience that I'll share.
If you don't fence livestock out of manure lagoons and ponds, they will die. Farming has plenty of accidents. Some are quite preventable with a bit of insight. 
People contain Bison within fences, so fences can be built to keep calves from walking on thin ice.


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## Moboiku (Mar 7, 2014)

slingshot said:


> I know your question is for the OP but I have some experience with this issue...
> 
> Every year both my neighbors loose calfs to coyotes, it's ridiculous and stupid. There's absolutely no reason for it, it should not happen.
> 
> ...


Thanks for sharing your experience Slingshot. Our cow pasture has a 5-wire perimeter fence which isn't a challenge to coyotes who can easily go under or through such a fence. My question for the OP was whether the calf is in with adults or not. Our experience since we raise our calves on the cow, is that the cows will form a protective circle around the calves when there is a threat. Our issue so far has been that the coyotes will get into the cow pasture easily, but ignore the cows, running through their pasture to dig under the field fenced sheep pasture fence. Perhaps they're not interested in the calves because the sheep are easier prey.....or perhaps it is the protective nature of the adult cattle. My concern is now that we have LGDs protecting the sheep, the calves might be more vulnerable since the sheep will no longer look like the "easier" prey. However if the OP's calves were not protected by adults, I'm less concerned about ours, as without the adults I can see where calves would be more vulnerable.


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## barnbilder (Jul 1, 2005)

Coyotes Kill calves, sometimes, just like they kill sheep, sometimes. Seems to be regional, once they start, every coyote in the area wants to do it. Only way I can see a 1 strand wire causing a coyote problem is if they were running the calves under it away from the cows. They can walk through a six or eight strand fence with no problems, and if they need to they can jump over anything less than six feet with ease. Thinking that a one strand fence lets coyotes in while a five strand keeps them out, well, it doesn't work that way.

They have several methods to kill calves, the favorite of experienced calf killers is to wait for a calf with a newborn to go to water and hide her calf, then slip in and kill it. If you have really protective cows, they like to use the cow to kill her own calf by worrying her and making her trample it. If they find one down with calving trouble, they will eat the calf hanging out of the cow. But most coyotes just hang out in the pasture and eat meconium. 

One of the reasons I keep sheep is to monitor coyote predation. I would rather lose a lamb than a calf finding out they have turned to the dark side.


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## Moboiku (Mar 7, 2014)

Great info Barnbilder - thanks!


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## TAGoodwin (Mar 6, 2013)

Have you considered allowing a local trapper to take care of the problem. You would have to keep pets in for a while.


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## fireweed farm (Dec 31, 2010)

Nothing against getting a trapper to get 'the' coyote besides the fact there are 3 to takes its place. Hot fence works. A farmers job around here is keeping up with the fence maintenance. 

The op mentioned the calves don't respect hot wires. Then you may will want to ask us how to set up a good cheap electric fence. Easy and effective, and incredibly cheap. It's all I used for years and I highly recommend at least a few strands around this pond. It is just our job, they are domestic animals they don't need to know about ice since they have us to keep them safe.

I've had a few calves get out and they were either pushed out or my fence maintenance was lacking.


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## barnbilder (Jul 1, 2005)

Anything less than woven wire will not hold calves. Multiple single strands of electric wire will let them pop right through. Sometimes, if your fence maintenance is good, it will shock them on the way through and they don't want to go back through. So, in effect, you have built a calf trap. Now over time, by watching their moms and getting shocked, they will learn to respect electric fence, or anything they perceive to be electric fence. But, if their flight reflex takes over, stranded electric fence won't stop them, they can barrel right through. Unless you run high tensile and run somewhere around 12 strands, at which point the savings over woven wire are negligible. Newborns learning to stand are the usual victims of chilling in the pond. They will slide right under, and usually since the pond banks slope inward, they will be drawn right to it. Every time they walk up toward their mom, they get shocked and fall back toward the pond. Woven wire makes a physical barrier.


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## grandma12703 (Jan 13, 2011)

I am very sorry for your loss. Coyotes are why I love our pyranees. They patrol, mark and bark. Coyotes won't mess with them. We have even found bobcats in the pasture that they have killed. I have sheep, pigs, chickens, ducks, geese and a few calves. We have a small amount of acreage here in Mo (20 acres) compared to Oklahoma where we had 160 acres but never lost livestock to predators and I attribute that to our dogs. As far as the pond ice, break it around the edges as often as possible but you are entirely correct, it is farming/ranching sometimes things happen that we can't control. Fencing a pond just doesn't seem reasonable to me. But hey, everyone needs to do what they feel is the right thing.


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## slingshot (Jun 25, 2014)

barnbilder said:


> Coyotes Kill calves, sometimes, just like they kill sheep, sometimes. Seems to be regional, once they start, every coyote in the area wants to do it. Only way I can see a 1 strand wire causing a coyote problem is if they were running the calves under it away from the cows. They can walk through a six or eight strand fence with no problems, and if they need to they can jump over anything less than six feet with ease. Thinking that a one strand fence lets coyotes in while a five strand keeps them out, well, it doesn't work that way.
> 
> They have several methods to kill calves, the favorite of experienced calf killers is to wait for a calf with a newborn to go to water and hide her calf, then slip in and kill it. If you have really protective cows, they like to use the cow to kill her own calf by worrying her and making her trample it. If they find one down with calving trouble, they will eat the calf hanging out of the cow. But most coyotes just hang out in the pasture and eat meconium.
> 
> One of the reasons I keep sheep is to monitor coyote predation. I would rather lose a lamb than a calf finding out they have turned to the dark side.



I will agree with some points...

Not all though... 

A single wire fence provides an eat exit for a new born calf where the mother won't generally follow. I never said anything about the coyotes in the fence, that's not the issue. 

The issue is the calfs outside the fence with no protection. Seen it many times during the spring, only calf tracks outside the wire and some of them go a long way. All of the dead calfs this spring were within 30 yards of the wire on the wrong side. 

One calf was killed in the other side of a brush next to the fence, tracks clearly show the calf went under the wire and the coyotes killed it while the mother watched. She was still out there hollering when I got there later in the morning. 

5 wire systems contain calfs much better than single wire.


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## nosqrls (Jun 9, 2012)

Had a Cow 2 yrs. ago give birth next to pond run off. The little guy fell in trying to standup, When I found him his temp didn't reg. on thermometer Took him inside warmed him up then bottle fed him till he was big enough to sell. Tried to give him back to mom she wanted him but he was afraid of her. Last week We lost a cow to old age 15YO was 7 mos. bred, That will sting for a while She was our best cow. Just goes to show You can't plan for everything.


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## DJ in WA (Jan 28, 2005)

slingshot said:


> I will agree with some points...
> 
> Not all though...
> 
> ...



Actually, you did say this in post #9, which confused me also:

"They both only use a 1 wire system to contain their cattle. This is the single biggest reason for lost calfs to coyotes, the coyotes can go under the wire without issue and attack new born calfs. "


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## grandma12703 (Jan 13, 2011)

DJ in WA said:


> Actually, you did say this in post #9, which confused me also:
> 
> "They both only use a 1 wire system to contain their cattle. This is the single biggest reason for lost calfs to coyotes, the coyotes can go under the wire without issue and attack new born calfs. "


 
Barb wire fences do little to stop coyotes or stray dogs. Woven fence wire will do a better job if that is your goal.


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## slingshot (Jun 25, 2014)

DJ in WA said:


> Actually, you did say this in post #9, which confused me also:
> 
> "They both only use a 1 wire system to contain their cattle. This is the single biggest reason for lost calfs to coyotes, the coyotes can go under the wire without issue and attack new born calfs. "



Tough crowd.... 

It's an issue either way, a coyote can get to a calf and get away from the heard. Either way not a good situation. 

Sometimes context is lost or the meaning isn't fully conveyed through txt. 

At the end of the day after what I've PERSONALLY seen there's no reason to only have 1 wire. It's just not anywheres near as safe. 

Sorry for the confusion


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