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Having a calving kit ready to go when you need it is important whether you have beef or dairy cows. The OG3 discuss what should be in the kit and why. Big shout out to Troy Salzer for helping with the info in this episode.
Hosted by members of the University of Minnesota Extension Beef and Dairy Teams, The Moos Room discusses relevant topics to help beef and dairy producers be more successful. The information is evidence-based and presented as an informal conversation between the hosts and guests.
[music]
Joe: ?Welcome to The Moos Room, everybody. The OG three is here, no guests. We are coming down off the high of our 100th episode from last week, and we're now trying to push forward trying to get to 200. It'll all depend on whether or not we all get sick of each other. There were some tense moments in the 100th episode. Emily was getting pretty ticked off at Brad and I.
Emily: [laughs] That is not exclusive to the 100th episode.
Joe: It's true.
Brad: Emily has put up with me in 4?H programs for a long time, so I think we're probably pretty good. Not sure, but--
Joe: That's so true.
Emily: I've dealt with Bradley for what, 14, 15 years. I've just come to terms with the fact that I am stuck with him, but of course, Joe, having you come in and having you on the podcast too, you are a very nice buffer-
Joe: Sometimes.
Emily: -between Bradley and I. [laughs]
Joe: It depends.
Emily: I feel like we all play buffer at different times, depending on what we're talking about.
Joe: Yes. We're going to go with a topic today that's not too controversial, I think. We'll see what happens as we get into it. Maybe there'll be plenty of controversy, I don't know. Big shout out to Troy Salzer, extension educator, local extension educator all the way up in St. Louis County. He helped us put this together. There's also a wonderful webinar that Troy did, talking about all these things that we're going to be talking about today. I'll link that in the show notes as well.
What we're talking about is what you need in your calving kit. It doesn't matter, beef or dairy, there's a little bit of differences obviously because of time of year and those things, but what do you need to have when you're getting ready to go into calving season for the beef guys, or what should you have all the time if you're a dairy guy?
Emily: All right. First, Joe, I'm going to ask the obvious question, which is, why should I have these things put together in a kit?
Joe: The big thing for me is, this is something I completely take for granted because I had my vet truck. Everything was just in my truck. Anything you could possibly imagine was in that truck because I was so terrified of forgetting something, I brought everything. Pretty much the whole clinic was in my vet truck. Most of it is that if you have everything together ahead of time, it really saves you time that could be precious to either the cow or the calf. It keeps you from getting stressed out knowing that, "Okay, I've got everything I need," and when you do need it, it's right there. You're not searching around looking for it, trying to figure out who knows where they put it last, all those things. Having everything right there together, it's going to save you frustration and time.
Emily: Absolutely.
Brad: Or you can be like us here at Moos going, well, "Where are the chains? Where did they put them?" Then you're running around looking for them for 25 minutes, and that's valuable time lost.
Joe: Exactly. That's a very valuable time, and one of the themes from today will be to have extras of everything. I can't count how many handles I've lost in calvings, in the straw, and whatever else, which I always feel terrible about because I look for them super hard because if that goes through the spreader, it's not great, but it happens. All the times it depends on who's helping you too. I've had plenty of very young helpers that wanted to hold things for me and who knows where they put things. Honestly, [laughs] I have no idea. I'm looking forward to the day when my son can do that to me as well. Having extra everything's going to be good.
Emily: I agree that it saves time, and it's good to do this in advance. We'll go through these lists and our suggestions for things, but some of them are things that may need a prescription from your vet or things that you may need to order that may take a week to get in. If you're ordering them the day after you started calving, they're not going to come till you're done, in some cases. It's really important to get after it and get it ready now, and then it's done. Then, when it's go time, you just grab your kit, you grab your pail, whatever you have it in, you're ready to go. Dr. Joe, what are some things that we should have?
Joe: I know we've already seen some eye-rolling from Bradley and Emily on this, but having your veterinarian's phone number is the Number one thing that you should have. It doesn't necessarily mean that you need to have them come out either. Answering questions on what to do next or what to feel for, or what are the other options. That's something that a lot of veterinarians are willing to do and should be willing to do, especially beef clients that don't have a veterinarian that's very close.
There's a lot of things that beef producers and dairy producers can get done with just a little bit of direction on what to try and what to do next because a lot of these guys have pulled a ton of calves. Just little suggestions, little things, medications that can help, those are the first things you need to do. Your veterinarian's phone number is the first thing on the list.
Emily: That's the Number one. Woo. We get that.
Brad: That's okay. You never know when you're going to have a problem. The calf's backwards and you are having problems. It's midnight and you are frustrated. Sometimes it's just easier to call the vet and make things a little bit easier.
Joe: I think this is something that we've talked about on the beef side a lot. We don't talk about it on the dairy side as much, but that frustration is huge. The rule of thumb is that you shouldn't ever try anything, the same technique, the same thing that you're trying to do with a calving, for more than 5 to 10 minutes. Then you got to switch it up. You got to try something different. Grab a different tool.
For some people, that list of things to try is super long because they've been doing it a long time. They've got a lot of experience, and they can switch and switch and switch. When they call, I know I'm doing a c-section because they've done everything that I would do. That's a skill that you build over time. If you run out of things to try, it's time to call the vet, and they might give you a couple more suggestions to try on your own, or they might have to come out. If you just keep banging your head against the wall, it's not helping anybody, you or the cow.
Emily: All right. I think we've established the fact that you should have your vet's phone number very, very handy. Get it tattooed on your forehead. I don't know.
Joe: That's fine.
Emily: [laughs] All right, so what else? Let's maybe talk about what are some of the things-- When we think calving, we think the cows and the calves, but there are also some things that we need for ourselves.
Joe: Absolutely.
Emily: What would some of those things be?
Joe: This goes to some of your safety things. It's warm clothing, especially for these beef guys and dairy guys on pasture. You never know. If you're going out to a calf, you don't know where you're going to end up. I've been in some weird spots trying to pull calves, and it can be cold. I prefer having insulated bibs on with a coat over the top just because then if I do need to take my coat off, I still got quite a bit of insulation on with the bibs. That's my-
Emily: You have plenty of insulation, anyways.
Joe: It's true. I'm working on it. Trying to get rid of it, but that's a big thing. Bibs and a coat are my thing just so your arms are free. Layers, lots of layers. Then I think one of the things that gets really underappreciated and underestimated a lot is a good light. If you don't have a good light, it can be just a nightmare to try to do some of these things. Even just to walk out to where you need to be in the pasture or something else. A really nice headlamp that's reliable with extra batteries in your kit for it, a huge deal.
Sometimes, it's the walk back, too. You end up in that pasture, you get done, and you're like, I hope I have my phone on me, and I hope it's charged because I have no lights, and it's a long walk back to the truck. Even in the barn too. It could be dark, especially in some of our older barns.
Emily: It's even a safety thing just so you can make sure you're positioned at the right spot from where the cows are if you're walking up to them in the pasture. If you have black cows and it's nighttime, it can be useful, and making sure you don't trip over anything and can get yourself back to the barn or your house afterwards.
Joe: People can find you too. If you're out in the pasture, and you need to call for somebody for help, you've got something. They can see you where you're at. Like you said, there's a lot of things that go with the cows. I think that's something that I wanted to ask Bradley, how he sets up in the calving pen and what they do if there is a problem. What do they do with the cows? Do they get them in a chute? Do they just halter them? What do you guys do up there?
Brad: We've changed over time. Of course, like usual, like many things, there was lots of things that we haltered, and you'd tie them to this board and that board and everything else. It can be frustrating and takes a lot of time. There's just lots of things wrong about it. We've actually got a chute now that we can handle the animals in. It's probably been the best $1,500 we've ever spent because we do have some calving issues, and we can take care of them right away, so we're not hurting the cow, hurting the calf, you name it. The vet likes it a lot better, too. If we can put them in a chute and we can maneuver things and make things work a lot easier.
Just having a chute, it doesn't have to be a extravagant, expensive one. Like I said, we bought ours for 1500 bucks, and we've used it many times, and it just works better. Having animals in a chute where you can restrain them and just work with them without having any issues, probably one of the best things. I think the veterinarian will probably thank you for it as well.
Joe: Oh, 100%.
Brad: If you can get a chute into your management situation, and it works economically for you, or you can buy a used one or something, it's money well spent.
Joe: Is there a chute designed for calving, Bradley, or is it more of a production-style chute?
Brad: No, it's a calving chute, so we can-- It's got double doors, I guess, where if we need to do a C-section we can open one of the doors and do that. We can use it for other things too with health issues if you have a DA, or you name it. It's built exclusively for calving and health-type issues.
Joe: That's perfect.
Brad: I recommend it.
Joe: The thing I worry about with chutes, and we'll cover this now because we're talking about chutes, but if it's not designed for calving, it could be really difficult to work on a calving in a chute that's not designed for it. If you have a standard production-style chute, especially on our beef operations where we're just running cattle through, giving shots, treating, but it's not really designed for calving, I actually prefer to work out of the chute, if possible, because if that cow goes down, she can get wedged in a bad spot. I got nothing to really do with her to get her out of there.
The side release on some of those chutes is real dangerous when that cow is putting that much pressure on there. I sometimes prefer to get a halter on those animals and tie them somewhere else or get them in the chute so I can get the halter on and then tie them to something. The chute for an initial exam is perfect, and then usually, I work on them somewhere else unless it's a chute designed for calving, which are awesome and Brad's totally right, I [unintelligible 00:12:18].
Brad: I actually saw this at, what was it, Minnesota Cattleman's beef tour over the summertime a few years ago. A dealer had one there, and we got one, and we wouldn't go any other way. It's worked out really cool. It's a Minnesota company.
Joe: There you go.
Emily: Whether you use a chute or a halter or however you choose to restrain when assisting with a calving, it's not going to be hospital clean. What are some other things that we should have in our kit as far as cleanliness goes? Because you know how much we love that here on the Moos Room.
Joe: I think that the big thing for me is everything starts with a nice pail that you can get clean because the bucket has to be clean for your water to be clean and everything else. A nice stainless steel pail is worth a lot. I had quite a few of them on my vet truck, and they were always handy. It serves as a way to contain most of the things that you're going to use all the time in your calving kit really well. Everything can be stored in there and then you can fill it up with water when you need it. You need a disinfectant as well. I prefer iodine. I think it works the best in general for what we need it to do. Warm water and iodine in that bucket, and that works as your disinfectant.
You can throw your sleeves in there as well, or at least wash off your sleeves before you're going in into the cow. I know that some of the old-school guys love to work on cows without the sleeves and trust me, I've been there, I've watched DA surgeries, old school James Herriot style where you take your shirt off and you scrub pretty much your whole upper body to do the DA surgery. It's just not necessary anymore. Laundry's cheap, and you can afford to just get some sleeves and do it that way. It's cleaner and better for the cow.
Now, in addition to keeping everything clean, you want to wipe off the vulva and get everything clean on the outside and use your water for that. Have a towel or a bunch of paper towels, whole roll in your kit would be great. Then you need lube. That's probably one of the most important things in your kit, and not just a little bit of it, a lot. There's times on some of these difficult calvings, I'll use a whole gallon, and that's not a joke, not an over-exaggeration at all. We use a lot to make sure that that cow stays safe, and that calf is as viable as possible.
Lube is huge, and there's all sorts of different kinds. It really honestly doesn't matter too much. I have no preference. I think there's some branding and some niche marketing things where people color things with dyes and make them up here like they're a disinfectant as well, and they're not. Just read the label. You just need lube, and you need a lot of it.
Emily: Now that we have our cleaning stuff and the basic things that we need-- I remember growing up on my family's dairy farm. Every so often we had those cows that needed a little extra help. We would often use OB chains in that case. There's also calf jacks, those types of things. Joe, what can you tell us about those?
Joe: Chains are the basis of everything that we do with an OB. Chains, there's straps out there. I prefer chains because I can get them cleaner afterwards. I like chains and it's up to you how you want to work it. I prefer a really, really long chain, one long chain, and I'll use one chain instead of two. That's just my personal preference. One really, really long chain that you can get on both feet or two shorter chains, it just depends on personal preference. Have extras. You're going to lose him. It's inevitable. Usually, I'll find them a month later because the farmer hung him up for me and I forgot them somewhere, but it just goes into my collection, and I'll need them again because I'm going to lose chains again.
Handles are up to you. Handles make things easier to pull manually, and when you're by yourself, and I'm not a very big guy, so I can't pull super hard. When you're by yourself, handles are tough, and pulling manually is tough, and that's where we get into a calf jack or a calf puller. Now, the big thing to know with a calf puller or a calf jack is that if they're not used correctly, they can be really dangerous. You can put a lot of force on that calf and on that cow to the point where it's equivalent to three to four 200-pound people yanking on that calf. It's a lot of force. If you don't know how to use it or you haven't really been taught how to use it correctly, that's a great question for your veterinarian, or even just another really experienced farmer who knows what they're doing with these OBs.
It's a lever. I think that's the biggest lesson with these calf jacks is it's a lever. You're not just cranking on the winch and over and over and over again. You're getting things tight and then you're pushing down to take advantage of the fact that it is a lever and some of the anatomy of that cow to get that calf out. People that have done it a lot make it look really easy, but the first time you're using one, it's a complete mystery, and that's how it was for me too. You just got to find someone who does know how to use it correctly to keep yourself safe and the cow safe and then the calf safe as well.
Emily: Once we get this calf out, chains, calf jack, whatever it may be, what is the stuff that we need immediately? Calf hits the ground, what do we need?
Joe: Usually, we're looking at that calf right away just to make sure it's breathing and looking like it's going to be okay. There's some good videos out there on what to do and there's a lot of myth-busting that's been done on what we should do with that calf. I don't think we need to get into too many of the weeds, but you shouldn't be hanging them over gates. You shouldn't be picking them up and swinging them around. There's going to be fluid that comes out of their nose and mouth. That's just how it is. What we need to do is expand those lungs. We really need to expand those lungs. Anytime we hang them upside down or we swing them around, we're taking all the GI contents from the abdomen and pushing them into the diaphragm. It's making it harder for that calf to breathe.
That's all leading to the fact that you want a clean piece of straw or your fingers, clean fingers, to jam in that calf's nose and stimulate that calf to take one big deep breath. That's what we want. We want a big deep breath. Unless I'm on concrete, and even sometimes if I am on concrete, I don't catch that calf on its way out. I'll try to let it hit the ground and that's fine. They're designed to be sturdy and strong, and we all know how tough cows are. When they hit that ground, that's what we want. We want them to hit that ground and gasp, and that big gasp is what expands those lungs and gets them going.
Having something to tickle that nose or grab the inside of that nostril, propping that calf up so that it's on its sternum, on its chest so it can expand both sides of its lungs is what we're looking for. Then we get into dipping navels and everything like that. Iodine is my choice there, and we should be doing that fairly quickly. Obviously, you got to check the cow, get everybody safe, and then you can figure all that stuff out. When we're talking calf, dealing with a calf, we do all those things, get it breathing, and then if it's cold you got to get it warm.
Then we start talking colostrum, which is different between the dairy and the beef side, but everybody needs some backup plan for colostrum. It doesn't matter, dairy, beef. There's going to be cows that reject calves. There's going to be times when the colostrum from that cow is no good or not present, and we need to have a backup plan, whether that's fresh from another cow, frozen, or some commercial replacer. Those are some of the things you need to think about for that calf right away.
I have a question for Bradley. Bradley, when you guys are feeding colostrum to calves, are you trying to feed them with a nipple and a bottle or using an esophageal feeder right away?
Brad: It depends on the calf. If the calf is weak or not-- We try to use a nipple and a bottle first just to get them that sucking reflex and everything to-- It stimulates a lot of different aspects. If they're not very aggressive, they don't suck well, if they're weak, if they had a hard calving, we are talking about calf jacks and everything like that, more than likely, we'll tube it just to get the colostrum in fast because that calf has had a traumatic experience already, and you need to do something to make sure that that calf's going to make it and do well later on in life. I should say we don't tube every calf, but if they've had some problems, things like that, we will.
Joe: Especially with beef calves, you got to check for suckle anyway and make sure that they're going and all these things. If, for whatever reason, mom's not letting them get to it, colostrum we know is the most important thing we can do for that calf. If you've tried and you've tried and you've tried and it's just not looking like it's going well with mom, and you get to that four, six-hour mark where that calf definitely hasn't been able to nurse yet, then it's just time to get that colostrum into that calf, knowing that that cow might accept that calf eventually, but the colostrum needs to be in in a timely manner. That's really, really important. Like Brad said, if they're stressed, you can't let them get behind any further because they won't catch up.
In relation to that, there's all sorts of calf claim products out there for the beef guys. There's so many products. I don't think we have time to get into all the different ways that you can try to get a calf claim to buy a cow. Maybe we'll have Troy on later to talk about all that because he's super experienced in all the different ways. That's something that we don't really have time to get into today.
Brad: I have a question for the veterinarian. What do we do? Sometimes cows have traumatic calving problems. They get jacked out, you name it. We think about the calf a lot, but what about the cow? What do we do with the cow or things that we can do? Do we try to get it up right away? What do we do with that cow?
Joe: The first thing when you get a calf on the ground is to go in and check for another calf, every time. I don't care if you've got four calves out of that cow. You're going back in to see if there's a fifth one because there's nothing worse than two weeks later realizing that there was a second one in there or another calf in there. It's just disgusting. Your vet's not going to be super happy.
Emily: I think every vet has a highly unpleasant story about calves that were left behind in cows and needing to remove them, and they're gross.
Joe: It's disgusting. You smell for days like that. The only thing I've ever found that works is toothpaste. You wash your hands and your arms and your face with the cheapest toothpaste you can find. It's disgusting. It smells terrible. Don't do that. Look for another calf. Then I'm usually checking the cow for, are there any tears, like obvious tears in the uterus, obvious tears in the cervix, because those things will affect obviously if the cow's going to live or not, whether or not we go on antibiotics, whether or not we're going to breed back very well. Those are the things I'm checking for right away.
After that, we make sure the calf's okay and then we come back to the cow to reassess. Can she stand? Can she do all these other things? Does she need some additional help in terms of either calcium or oral bolus of calcium or oxytocin to get that uterus to shrink up? Whatever else is there. I usually go in right away, check if there's not another calf, check for tears and everything to make sure that I know what's going on. Then we get to assessing the cow later after we know that the calf's doing okay because she can hang on as long as there's nothing major wrong right away that you check for.
Emily: Quick follow-up on cows, a question I have, and that is, how long or when should you help the cow with cleanup? Again, I remember growing up on my farm. Friends would come and they'd be like, "Oh, what's hanging out their butts?" after they had a calf, and it's like, "Oh, we just let them pass that." There can be issues with that as well, retained placentas, that kind of thing. What do we need to be watching for or when do we need to intervene on those issues?
Joe: A retained placenta really isn't considered retained unless it's been at least 24 hours. I don't do anything with them. I let them hang, let them do whatever they're going to do. Even after that 24-hour period, I usually let them hang. We want that weight to be pulling on those things and taking things out of the uterus with it. Anytime we go in to pass the cervix in the uterus and try to mess with things and peel that off the [unintelligible 00:25:57] and get everything out or put something in there that's caustic to try to help it along, we run the risk of not breeding back as well, even compared to other cows that have retained placentas that we don't mess with.
My feeling is just leave them alone and talk to your veterinarian. If we've got a fluke or a weird case that just won't clear up, usually we're talking systemic antibiotics to help with those retained placentas and metritis rather than messing with the back end of that cow at all.
Emily: Now we got the calf out, got the colostrum, cow's okay. We're just thinking about now the little management things that need to be done. Make sure that you have tags and your tagger. Bring a notebook out. Make sure you're recording all that. If there were issues with the birth, like you did have to pull or use the calf jack, make sure all that is written down for the cow's history so that you know for the future. Those are the little things that we can maybe forget about, but having those types of things, anything you'd need for administering any treatment right away, syringes and needles, your [unintelligible 00:27:14] dander, anything like that.
Joe, speaking of the little things we don't want to forget, I want to ask you specifically as the vet about medications. What are some common medications that we should have? Maybe not necessarily in our kits that we're taking out into the pasture with us, but that we need to have in our medicine cabinet for calving.
Joe: There's all sorts of things that you could have, but I think there's a basic list that we really need to think about. I would advocate that a thermometer be in the kit or in the cabinet right away. It's the first thing you should do. It's the first question most veterinarians are going to ask you when you call in. "Did you take the temp on the calf or the cow?" Whatever has a problem, we need a temperature so we can tell if we have a fever or not, how high the fever is, all those different things. If we're low, that tells us all sorts of different information. A thermometer is one.
Oxytocin is something I keep in the medicine cabinet. Sometimes it helps with milk letdown on certain cows that just don't want to give up colostrum. Most of the time, I'm actually giving oxytocin to help the uterus with the involution process and actually get smaller and shrink up so that we can try to avoid the dreaded uterine prolapse. That's what we're looking for.
Penicillin is a great thing to have in the cabinet. It treats a lot of things, especially our problems in calves. It's still a very viable medication to have around. It's also inexpensive, which is wonderful. The big thing is that we don't really give it at the label dose anymore. What we need to remember is that anytime we're not using the dose of 1ml per 100 pounds, and usually what we're using is a 3ml per 100-pound dose of penicillin, that becomes a prescription because we're now off-label. That's something you need to work with your vet on.
Usually in that medicine cabinet, I also have some long-acting systemic antibiotic. You'll have to talk to your vet about which one and why. If we're talking calves with scour issues, I usually use a macrolide, just because it's really long-acting and it doesn't have as much effect on the gut. Long-acting systemic antibiotic. Then you got to have something for pain. The cow, the calf, they both has been through something very traumatic, so there can be pain associated with that. I don't want to get into what medications you can have there because we've been talking about both dairy and beef. It could be confusing what's labeled for each one. Milk withhold, meat withdrawal, you got to know those things. Talk with your veterinarian about what NSAID or what you're going to have in that medicine cabinet for pain.
One thing that I don't think we give enough credit to, especially on the beef side, maybe on the dairy side we do a much better job, but it's electrolytes. Electrolytes and keeping a calf hydrated no matter what problem it has is the number one goal. They have to stay hydrated. We can't take away food from them and they have to stay hydrated on top of that food, usually, and electrolytes are the way to do that. Electrolytes are probably one of the big things that we don't advocate enough for on the beef side but is a huge difference and probably the biggest difference we can make for that calf in terms of a successful outcome.
Brad: I would agree. If you have a dehydrated calf, that is trouble number one. You need to keep them hydrated. Even if you feed electrolytes and they don't need it, it's still good to get some hydration into them because by the time you've realized that the calf is dehydrated, it's getting too late.
Joe: I couldn't have said it better myself, Brad. By the time we realize there's a problem, it's usually way too late, so try to be proactive with that. One of the things that comes up all the time is things that we inject into these calves or give them right at birth that are considered supplements like vitamin E, selenium, iron, vitamin A and D. To me, in a well-managed herd with great nutrition, a lot of times, those things are unnecessary. That changes based on where you are in the country. We know that selenium's super low in certain parts of the country. In Minnesota, it's just a patchwork. Certain areas have low selenium, certain areas have high selenium. It's something you need to talk to your veterinarian about on that front.
I usually would rather focus on the big picture and get the nutrition right so I don't have to use those things at all and I don't have to worry about it. That's my goal because having to juggle having those things around, giving injections to every calf, it's just one more thing to do in a stressful time of year that you don't really have time to be messing with.
Emily: Don't forget that for some of these products that we have mentioned, they do require a prescription from your veterinarian. Making sure that you have that veterinary client-patient relationship in place so you can get some of these things is important as well. There's another plug for the vets, Joe.
Joe: Yes. That might be one of the first times that I've gotten anyone else to really plug a veterinarian, especially between the two of you. I appreciate that.
Emily: We are not anti-veterinarian by any means. They serve a great purpose and are an awesome resource, so making sure you have their number, they know what's going on, they're getting you the prescriptions that you need, all of that.
Joe: I think the last category of things -- We've covered a lot, and there's a bunch in this kit, and there will be a link to an article that has all this listed so you can see what's there. The last set of things that we would talk about are really for what I would consider advanced producers and people that have a really good handle and a lot of experience doing these things, and especially good experience IV-ing cattle and doing that really well and calmly and safely and cleanly. Then people that have been taught to give an epidural. An epidural is something that's indicated in certain situations in calvings. You need lidocaine to do that. Lidocaine could be in the kit if you are experienced with an epidural.
The next thing that we talk about is milk fevers. They're going to happen. It doesn't matter how good your nutrition is. Eventually, it's going to happen. I've seen milk fevers on the beef side too. It's not exclusive to dairy cattle. For a dairy kit, I prefer to have calcium gluconate in the dairy kit, just because it's a little more targeted in what we're dealing with and most of the time that's our problem, is calcium. We can supplement with phosphorus and magnesium if we need to. In the beef kit, I like CMPK, mostly because with some of our beef things, we just need a bottle of CMPK to treat grass tetany, and so, it's nice to have a dual-purpose thing in that kit. CMPK is my choice.
Hypertonic saline is a wonderful thing to have in a kit. It can be a dangerous thing to use, so you need to understand what it does and why and when to give it. It's dangerous for the cow. I'll make that clear. It's not dangerous for the people. Hypertonic saline is a super valuable tool. If you know what it's used for, when to give it, and how to give those fluids, that's a great thing to have in your kit as well.
Regular fluids for calves, IV-ing calves, you just got to do it sometimes. If you can, having sodium chloride or lactated Ringer's in your kit is wonderful as well. Then you got to just have everything that you need to IV, so the simplex, correct needles, catheters if you're comfortable using a catheter, those kind of things.
Emily: Did we get it all?
Joe: I think so.
Emily: Everybody's kits are full?
Joe: There's a lot on there. There's a lot you can have in that kit, and you can see how it'd be so easy to forget something and then be looking for it or be frustrated or really need it and not have the time to be looking for it. It does pay when you do have a moment to get all this stuff together, make sure you know where it is ahead of when you're going to need it. It probably follows the same rules as everything else. If you get it ready and it's there, you probably won't need it, but the first time that you don't have it set up and ready to go, you're going to need it bad.
Going through this all ahead of time, it's going to remind you of other things too. You should probably lube the chute, make sure it's working, do all those kind of things that if you haven't used it since last calving season. It's a good thing to get done.
Emily: Taking time now will save you time down the road. That is a wrap on this episode talking about what should be in your calving kit. If you have questions, comments, scathing rebuttals, as always, you can email those to themoosroom@umn.edu.
Joe: That's T-H-E-M-O-O-S-R-O-O-M@umn.edu.
Emily: You can find us on Twitter @umnmoosroom and @umnfarmsafety. Be sure to visit our website for more information about this topic and many others, extension.umn.edu. Okay, bye.
?Speaker: Bye.
?Speaker: Bye.
Brad: Bye-bye.
[music]
[00:36:27] [END OF AUDIO]
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