Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 27, 1993 TAG: 9303270089
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JAY TAYLOR CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
A strapping man of 31, farm manager David Rader can't help but get emotional as he tells of the animals' distress.
The mother "couldn't get in a position to get leverage," Rader said. He spent five hours trying to deliver the half-born calf. Its body trapped in the cold rain, the cow went into shock, as did the calf. Both died.
Similar stories could be told by hundreds of cattle farmers in Western Virginia. This has been a difficult year.
There is no clearinghouse of cattle mortality figures, but the farming community doesn't need anyone to tell it that beef herds, especially calves and calving cows, have been hit hard by the weeks of damp weather and snow that have moistened Virginia's mountains since Jan. 1.
Pneumonia, dehydration, collapsing barns, unpassable snow drifts and bitter cold have taken a deadly toll.
"We've lost a significant number of calves," says Reggie Reynolds, executive secretary of the Virginia Cattlemen's Association, and it has been tough financially.
He says that losing 10 percent of a herd's calves can wipe out a year's profits for many of the region's farmers. Many face that level or worse in their pastures, he said. Even mature cows may have lost weight during the blizzard when they were cut off from food for days.
In Rockbridge County alone, county agent Jon Repair estimates cattle losses may total $750,000.
In the mud and cold, the snow and rain, there have been a few victories, but against heavy odds. Rader says he has lost about 20 calves to wet and cold weather.
"It'll get better," he says. Until the past two months, Rader had no regrets about leaving banking in 1991 to take up farming on his father's land. Recently, he said, "I've had second thoughts."
He lost two animals in the mid-March blizzard. One cow, despite Rader's efforts, refused to come into the barn to bear its calf. Instinct, he said, tells cows to bear their young in secluded spots in spite of the weather.
"When they find a place where they're going to calf, they've pretty much made up their minds," he said. The calf that Rader wanted born in the barn eventually froze to death beneath a tree.
The struggle has not been without its triumphs. Two weeks ago, with more than a foot of snow on the ground and more coming down, Rader carried an 80-pound newborn calf half a mile to a barn, over the protests of its mother.
"There were a lot of calves lost during the blizzard itself," said Ike Eller, an animal specialist at Virginia Tech Extension Service in Blacksburg. The storm was ill-timed for cattle, which begin their calving season in March.
"We had reports of people who had calves actually in the house with them," said Jerry Ramirez, the livestock statistician for the State Department of Agricultural and Consumer Services. They worried that barns would collapse under the combined pressure of snow and wind; and many did.
Immediately after giving birth, cows try to lick their newborns dry. In severe weather, "it's a hopeless task," said Herbert Taylor, the Alleghany County Extension agent based in Covington. Wet and weakened by the cold, the newborn calf cannot stand up to nurse, though its mother's udder is filled with colostrum - milk rich in protein and immune-bodies that is yielded in the first days after birth.
Those calves that did survive were driven by cold, bitter winds to huddle with full-sized cows.
"They were looking for a windbreak," said C.W. Pratt, a livestock marketing specialist with the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. But the little animals were "mashed" in the pack and some farmers living miles from their leased fields weren't able to get through the roads to help, he said.
The blizzard was merely the knockout blow to one of the toughest rounds of cold, wet weather in memory. "The losses are still occurring," Eller said.
The reasons are as complex as farm life itself.
Though they weigh from 50 to 100 pounds at birth, newborn calves are fairly weak, vulnerable for the first two weeks of life. Pneumonia can bring them down fast. If the weather weakens them, they won't suck, and they get weaker and complications set in.
The mud around barns, mixed with manure and loaded with bacteria, gets on cows' teats and the calves ingest it. Wracked by diarrhea, the calves quickly become dehydrated. This becomes a tailspin into death. They can't stand up to feed, and just become weaker. If it is cold, they can develop hypothermia.
Sometimes calves, particularly if they are born in a manure-laden puddle, pick up diseases through their umbilical cords.
David Mankin, a Botetourt County veterinarian, has had farmers bringing him calves in pickup trucks, sometimes in the back of a station wagon.
"These [weather] swings are what give us all the trouble," Mankin said. "When it is real cold one night and fairly warm the next day, the change like that real subjugates your animals to a lot of stress, and they get sick; and when they get sick, they die."
by CNB