[nutterly_uts]

I've been asked whether its good or bad for a fresh calved cow to eat the afterbirth or not?

My gut says yes but I couldn't say why- vaguely think for hormone reasons?

[shep53]

Neither it is nature , most cows don't  as most sheep don't ,   I have had one cow and one sheep die while eating its cleansing out of many thousands so very rare (so in my case I remove  and could say its bad for a cow to eat its cleansing )

[Rosemary]

I believe it is a behaviour to help hide the birth from potential predators. I remove it by choice.

[Marches Farmer]

Me too - makes sense in the wild but must be highly indigestible, especially for a ruminant!

[SallyintNorth]

I always think 'full of protein' and if she wants it, let her have it. 

[ballingall]

I have utterly no experience of cattle afterbirth. But I'm sharing my twa penniworth anyway 
 
We remove the afterbirth from our dairy goats. In the wild, in nature, they would eat the afterbirth. However, as we now have generations and hundreds of years of breeding these animals to domesticate them, and to change them to what we want, the afterbirths tend to be bigger. The bigger they are (or the more offspring they have- possibly more relative to goats/sheep than cows) the bigger the afterbirth will be, and the more difficult it will be to digest.
 
So this is why we remove it from our animals. This I guess may apply more to the commercial or dairy breeds of cattle rather than rare (or even smaller) breeds, as we would expect the rare breeds to be closer to their original ancestors, than the ones who have been bred for bulk or milk production.
 
Beth