Check your inventory of calving-related equipment and supplies to ensure that you have the right items available and in good working order.

Obstetrical chains and handles should be clean and rust-free. A bucket or plastic tub and disinfectant should be available for soaking these items prior to or during use.

Obstetrical lube and a cattle-friendly disinfectant such as chlorhexidine should be purchased.

Obstetrical sleeves should be checked to see if they are clean and still pliable. And if you have a fetal extractor (commonly called a calf jack), it should be checked to ensure that it is clean and in good working order.

There are several different fetal extractors available for purchase by cattle producers today.

Each has different features and benefits, but all provide a method for helping get a calf out of a heifer or cow when there is incomplete relaxation of the pelvic ligaments or cervix or a slight disproportion between calf size and maternal pelvic size.

Before using a fetal extractor, the producer should do a pelvic exam to make sure there is not a major disproportion between the size of the calf and the size of the pelvis.

In cases where the calf is obviously too large to be delivered vaginally, a Cesarean section is the procedure needed to save the lives of the dam and calf.

Getting the dam to a veterinarian quickly will give the best opportunity of saving the lives of both.

If it is apparent that there is no major disproportion in size involved, then the producer may want to assist the delivery.

Many calves can be pulled manually by hand; however, if the producer is unable to perform a manual extraction, a fetal extractor can be used to provide a little extra assistance.

As a rule of thumb, no more pressure should be applied with a fetal extractor than could be supplied by two average-sized men pulling by hand (approximately 400 pounds of pressure).

Work done at the University of Nebraska Great Plains Veterinary Educational Center several years ago showed that with the average fetal extractor, a small person can easily exert up to 2,000 pounds of pressure on a calf.

Obviously, calves and cows were not created to withstand that much pressure. In addition to a broken leg on a calf and an occasional prolapsed uterus on a cow, other things can go wrong.

Crushing of the chest cavity of the calf is one common result when there is a significant disproportion between the size of the calf and the size of the female’s pelvis and too much pressure is exerted.

It is really disheartening when you start with a nice, large, live calf and end up with a calf that gasps once or twice before dying after you get it out.

Obturator paralysis of the dam is another common result that occurs when the hips of the calf are too wide to pass easily through the pelvis of the dam.

In this situation, the calf’s hips press on the obturator nerves of the dam, and this pressure damages the nerves either temporarily or permanently.

The fetal extractor operator may eventually get the calf out, and the calf may be alive, but the dam is not able to rise.

Occasionally the dam can be treated and regain her ability to rise, but in most cases the paralysis is permanent and she will eventually have to be destroyed.

If she cannot rise, the producer will need to milk out her colostrum and get it into her calf, and either bottle or bucket feed the calf or graft it onto another cow that has lost her calf.

The bottom line: Fetal extractors should be used judiciously or they can become a weapon rather than a calving management tool. Have a great calving season! 

—Excerpts from Kansas State University newsletter, Beef Tips