Chanda, please accept my apologies on my late condolences for the loss of your filly. I hope you and Sophia are both recovering strongly. For horses, it seems just a wee bit easier than for us because they live more on the moment.
My reason for waiting actually had to do with a question that I knew my cause hurt, so I delayed in asking. I saw in your calving thread that you'd been losing some calves to early births. Do you have any theories as to whether or not this might be related? Any chance that the changes in the quality of your hay (due to drought, etc.) may have contributed at all?
Though I'm not a breeder myself, I'm always extremely interested in breeding in all it's aspects. Just in case I ever should have the opportunity, I like to be aware of all involved. Additionally, it might help others in similar situations to take into consideration things they might not have normally.
We did send in one calf for necropsy, that calf only showed septicemia, mineral levels were fine (we tested at least selenium). I do not recall if we tested for common cattle diseases, but we vaccinate for the most common issues breeding cattle have. Vet suspects low protein in the diet, we don't supplement our cattle excessively, mostly just their forage and trace mineral salt. I tested one batch of hay for the horse to balance that, it was 9% protein, fine for maintenance, but would be low for late gestation; all of our hay is probably similar, so low protein as a culprit makes sense. The horses are supplemented more than the cows, so probably helped them some; may have been the hay as an issue for Sophia, or just plain bad luck, she is doing quite well; she goes out to pasture with the 4 years that initially hated her, along with her 2 year old daughter, and the three of them graze much of the day. The other 4 mares don't leave the drylot, so I leave hay out for them.
Bonny is getting plenty to eat: lots of the hay we have, a serving of Standlee Timothy compressed hay (at least for now, it's expensive, and this batch isn't as good as previous bales I've bought), senior feed in the morning, and hay pellets in the afternoon. She's just starting to get outside with baby; it's been windy or rainy all week, so I've not let them out much. I need to get more pics of baby, especially while she is outside, so ya'll can see how long her legs are.
