Southwest Iowa Calving Clinic Set for January 23

Jan 05, 2024

Southwest Iowa cattle producers, including 4-H and FFA members, are invited to attend a calving clinic Jan. 23 at St. Peters Catholic Church Parish Hall, in Defiance. In addition to classroom style learning, attendees also will have the opportunity for hands-on practice with delivering calves and dealing with dystocia cases utilizing a life-sized model cow and calf from the ISU College of Veterinary Medicine.

Iowa State University Extension beef specialist Erika Lundy-Woolfolk said the educational program will offer valuable information about the basics about the birthing process, newborn calf care, and cow nutritional impacts.

“Using the model, we can place the calf in various positions so that participants must work to correct those undesirable positions before delivering the calf," she said. "The session also provides a great opportunity to share questions and experiences with speakers and fellow cattle producers."

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Video: Cleaning Sheep Barns & Setting Up Chutes

Indoor sheep farming in winter at pre-lambing time requires that, at Ewetopia Farms, we need to clean out the barns and manure in order to keep the sheep pens clean, dry and fresh for the pregnant ewes to stay healthy while indoors in confinement. In today’s vlog, we put fresh bedding into all of the barns and we remove manure from the first groups of ewes due to lamb so that they are all ready for lambs being born in the next few days. Also, in preparation for lambing, we moved one of the sorting chutes to the Coveralls with the replacement ewe lambs. This allows us to do sorting and vaccines more easily with them while the barnyard is snow covered and hard to move sheep safely around in. Additionally, it frees up space for the second groups of pregnant ewes where the chute was initially.