Siphakeme .Mnindwa
Mhlupheki Dube
ONE of the most pleasant times for a livestock farmer is to witness your animals dropping young ones. It is the calving period in cattle, kidding in goats, lamping in sheep and hatching in chickens.
This is the period that defines production in your farm and gives you an indication of the direction taken by your investment.
In smallholder livestock farmers, this period tends to coincide with the last three months of the year, that is October to December. We are in that season. However, instead of this season bringing joy to farmers this year, most are enduring pain of one form or another arising from the failure of the cow to take care of the calf due to its own poor body condition.
It is a very common and painful sight across the different rangelands to witness a severely emaciated cow struggling to nurse an equally poorly nourished calf. Some animals are even dying either as they struggle to nurse the newly born calf or even before they manage to deliver the calf.
A lot of cows especially during the last trimester and a few weeks before calving are succumbing to what is known as pre-calving milk fever also known as pre-partum hypocalcemia. This happens when your in-calf cow with about three weeks before calving down, suddenly becomes recumbent. In other words, it now fails to rise on its own.
The weight of the calf somehow seems to be too heavy for the in-calf cow. This happens because in preparation for the delivery of the new calf, your cow will try to produce enough milk and when the cow is of a poor plane of nutrition which was the situation this year and more so for the mentioned calving period of October to December, the cow will run short of calcium it its diet.
Calcium is an important component or ingredient in milk production. To compensate for the lack of calcium in its poor diet, the heavily pregnant cow will utilise calcium from its own body, mainly from the bones, to produce the milk that the calf to be born will need.
The draining of calcium from its own bones leaves your cow very weak and in extreme cases unable to rise on its own. This condition is called milk fever. This may happen a few days after delivery in which case it is just referred to as milk fever. When it happens before delivery, it is called pre-calving milk fever or pre-partum hypocalcemia.
The cow becomes weak, with muscle tremours, loss of appetite, general lethargy and an abnormal gait. It is this weakness which results in your cow failing to rise on its own.
Older cows are more susceptible to milk fever if their nutritional status is poor. Also, animals that have given birth multiple times, which in itself is indicative of the age of the cow, are at high risk of milk fever.
However, the primary causative aspect is poor nutrition which leads to low calcium in the pregnant cow’s diet. Pre-calving hypocalcemia may result in low milk yields in the subsequent lactations. There is also a risk of post-calving complications in cows that experience pre-calving milk fever. These include complications like retained placenta, ketosis and metritis.
Pre-calving milk fever in most smallholder livestock farmers actually results in the loss of the cow and the calf. When the cow can no longer rise on its own, farmers just slaughter the cow and count their loss. They hardly look for other solutions like giving it a calcium injection. In fact, they are mostly not aware that it’s pre-calving milk fever.
To prevent pre-calving milk fever, it is therefore important for livestock farmers to ensure that pregnant cows get diets with enough calcium. A good plan of nutrition is important during the last trimester. Farmers need to keep at least a bag or two of commercial feed to give the pregnant cow during this time, especially in this drought year when the veld is completely depleted. When your in-calf cow becomes recumbent and it can not rise on its own, it will help to give it a jab of calcium Boro gluconate.
This will help replenish its diminished calcium reserves and give it strength to be able to rise again. Preventing both pre and post-calving milk fever is an important cow-calf management practice by a livestock farmer. It ensures that you do not incur unnecessary economic losses in your production unit. Uyabonga umntakaMaKhumalo.
Mhlupheki Dube is a livestock specialist and farmer. He writes in his own capacity. Feedback mazikelana@gmail.com cell 0772851275
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