Q&A for How to Help a Cow Give Birth

Average gestation rate is 285 days. It can go plus or minus 10 to 20 days.

Nope! What you need to do instead is to get the calf to be laying normal or on its front, tickle its nose with a piece of straw, rub the chest vigorously, or, if necessary, get some cold water on it to get it to start breathing. The lifting the calf by the back legs method only empties out the stomach, not the lungs. You don't want to empty the calf's stomach of amniotic fluid because that fluid is actually beneficial to the calf.

No, it's the opposite, actually. The rule of thumb is to feed in the evening so that cows will calve out in the morning. This is a great way to reduce nighttime calving.

Absolutely not. Removing the placenta can result in uterine infection because there's a high chance that some tissue will be left behind if pulled out. The placenta doesn't attach to smooth uterine tissue like in human females, dogs, cats, etc., rather with projections to projections on the placenta and in the uterus, respectively. It is best to leave things alone and let Nature take its course. But, an injection of Oxycontin may also help the cow get rid of the placenta. Please talk to your vet before doing anything.

Contact your veterinarian to see what's going on. She probably has milk fever, but from here it's very hard to tell.

A calf shouldn't be calving. It is too small and physically immature to bear a calf. Even heifers that have actually reached puberty at 6 or 9 months old are still much too small, young, and immature to be bred. Their reproductive tracts and bodies are generally too small to bear young of their own. Calves that age have been bred and successfully calved, but they would need assistance if they were calving out.

As long as necessary. The longest to wait is around 10 days after calving, because then she should have been able to push the placenta out. If she's still got the placenta hanging out by then, an injection of oxytocin will help with this.

Actually, most cows, if you count both beef and dairy cows, don't really need help to give birth. Those that do are either very lucky to be able to get help, or unfortunate because of their pelvic size and/or the bull had too high of birthweight genetics than expected. Heifers tend to have more troubles than cows, but they're actually expected to be able to calve unassisted.

Please see the wikiHow article How to Tell if a Cow or Heifer Is Pregnant .

It could be that you were pulling extra hard on the calf today and the chains and calving chain handles did some damage to your hands. It sounds like you might need to invest in a come-along calf puller, or start looking at a better, more calving-ease bull.

It can take anywhere from 30 minutes to 24 hours. First-calving heifers generally take longer to calve out than a mature cow that has done it several times before.

You must talk to your vet about this. He or she may need to euthanize the calves because surgery can be very costly for the calves' survival and for your time and effort to ensure full recovery.

Your cow may have consumed poisonous plants, be suffering from an illness or infection or have a bSTD (bovine sexually transmitted disease). Only a veterinarian will be able to diagnose the issue.

You mean on her vulva. If it's been that long, you should really go see a bovine veterinarian about it. You haven't listed any other symptoms or signs, so it's impossible for any wikiHow community question answerer to answer your question.

A calf is usually trying to stand within 20 minutes, and should be up and sucking within 1 hour. If it is just laying there after 30 minutes in decent weather, check to make sure mom is doing her job. If she is, try to make sure the calf is okay, with its head up and eyes bright, tongue not hanging out or swollen. If it is listless or you see a problem, tube it to get it going. If it is really cold, your time to intervene is shorter.

Do not remove it. One day is nothing to worry about. Be more worried if the placenta is staying after a week has gone by. Then you will need to go to the vet to get some Oxytocin to inject into her to get the cow to push out the placenta. But either way, never ever remove a retained placenta. Doing so will only invite infection into the uterus that can cause a cow to become ill if it gets serious.

You can use a rope in the place of calving chains to tie around the calf's legs, yes.

No. You have a much greater chance of getting twins (1 in every 10,000 births) than getting quadruplets (approximately 1 in every 650,000 births).

Although it's not necessary, if you do use the medication, use it under the veterinarian's recommendation to do so, and only if you need to do so (like if she's well past her due date). Otherwise, if she or her calf isn't ready, you still have to continue to be patient and wait it out.

Yes, if it's necessary. Consult a veterinarian first, though.

They may, yes. Some cows, particularly heifers, won't show or leak milk until right after birth; other cows will have a large udder but not leak milk. So it depends on the cow or heifer.

Look at the calf's muzzle and its belly. If the calf looks like it has a little bit of a milk mustache and its belly looks full, and it's playing and running around or sleeping quietly and seems quite content, then there's a significant chance that the calf is successfully nursing from the cow. Any behavior that is the opposite of this, like the calf acts restless, is constantly following a cow or trying to steal milk from other cows, and its belly looks not full at all, then it's obviously not getting enough milk.

It depends on the cow. A cow can "clean out" (dispel her afterbirth) after a several hours to a week after birth. Retained afterbirth can happen, and just needs a dose of oxytocin from the vet to encourage and enable her to completely clean out.

First of all, find out why the calf isn't out yet. Is the cow in labor, or no? If not, then you have to wait. If yes, then she could still be in early stages. If she's been in labor for a few hours after the water bag has shown, then get her in and have a feel inside to see what's going on. She may have a breach, and you may need to act fast (or call in the veterinarian to tell them it's a dire emergency) to get that calf out as soon as possible.

Nope. Stopping the grain will have no influence on the size of the calf. Mainly it's the bull that has the biggest influence on calf size, not particularly nutrition.

Generally, cows only have one calf at a time. Cows are capable of having twins or even triplets, but that's extraordinarily rare.