A difficult delivery

This cow was in the early stages of labour when feeding out this morning, so we cut her out of the calving mob, and put her into a paddock on her own, so we could keep an eye on her.

Farmerboy checked on her before lunch, and she appeared to be progressing well, however, by 2.30pm, she still hadn't calved. She was lying down in the paddock straining, obviously trying to push the calf out.

One leg was out, but the other one was no where to be seen. Farmerboy inspected her and found the other leg, bent back inside the cow, making the delivery of the calf by the cow near impossible.

We had some string on the quad bike, so after Farmerboy found the second leg and pulled it out, he tied the string to the legs, and we all pulled when the cow was contracting. The end result - a delivered calf, which unfortunately was dead.

Our main concern is that if a cow is spending too long contracting and pushing while lying down, and the calf is stuck, then the cow could become paralysed due to damage to the nerves in her pelvis. So it is imperative for intervention as soon as possible to avoid this happening. Luckily this cow, got up relatively soon after the birth.

I hope you don't find this picture too gruesome, but thought you may be interested to see a cow giving birth - albeit with a bit of help.