any cattle people out there!!!

[hennyannie]

Nothing rare but we have 5 black angus cows and a bull from Yadkin River Angus (Richard Childress's place if your a race fan).
Recently after weaning all the calves, we got a big surprise, one cow we thought didn't breed had a little heifer.
Really nice after the stress of the weaning to see a baby in the pasture again.

 

[roocrazy]

Quote:
my uncle had a cow that "didnt" get pregnant. she was going the the packing plant nut a week before that she popped out a little reedd heifer

 

[Cowgirl71]

I have a neat little story to share...

We had this Hereford cow, #2786, who calved her first calf in January 2007. Had it all on her own, in the snow. A little black baldy heifer. Next spring, 2008, we were checking the pregnant cows for calving and #2786 didn't look 3rd stage. Then later in May we saw that the bull was with her, and so decided to sell her the next time we took a load to the sale barn. But later that day, we saw that the bull had actually dislocated her hip (which is very very rare). She was barely ambulatory, so we knew she'd go really cheap at the sale barn for dog food. We decided that we'd take her to our processor for ground beef for ourselves, since she was still a young cow. Called up the processor, and he was booked out until September 15th. So we went ahead and booked that date. We put her in a little pasture by herself so that she wouldn't get bullied by the other cows, and brought her buckets of water and grain. Also bought a bagger lawn mower so we could give her the clippings from our yard. So we just kept on bringing her food and water twice a day. She was in a pasture right next to where we milked, so it worked out good. We'd just feed and water her right before or after milking every day. We were concerned that she'd lose weight, but she kept the weight on real well, even seemed to get bigger as time went on. As you can imagine, by the end of four months we were getting kinda attached to her. On the morning of September 14th, the day before the butcher date, we went down to milking. And there in her pasture, was a little black baldy bull calf, just standing there looking at us. We were absolutely shocked. We went in the pasture to take a closer look, and there was another black baldy calf, laying dead on the ground. The cow had TWINS! So we fed and watered #2786 (who was a lot thinner than she was the day before), milked the cows, and then hurried up to the house to cancel the date with the processor.

But can you believe that?! The DAY BEFORE her butcher date, she has TWINS!!! We had just seen her with the bull in May, so we weren't even checking her for calving. Her udder didn't get very big or tight, and her belly didn't get huge either. A cow pregnant with twins also calves about 10-14 days earlier than a cow with a single, so if she had been pregnant with a single we would have just taken her to the processor, only to find out she had a nearly full term calf! Not to mention she just barely made it under the wire... What if she had waited another couple days to have those twins?!

 

[OtterCreekRanch]

Quote:
maybe for my first time along with hers have her be bred naturally by my uncles heatseeker bull? oh wow... this IS harder than i thought. i want shorthorn... maybe use my friends bull, but when you do it naturally isnt there a chance the bull wouldnt want her? shell be 13 mos when i hope to get her bred. should i use a seeder??

I don't think heatseeker or his calves are known to be calving ease. In fact, I think they are known for having rather large calves. I would breed her to a bull with a low birth weight himself as well as proven to throw small calves. You do not want her to have a large calf her first time around. It can ruin her. AI is usually a better option IMO for first calf heifers because you can select a bull with a good track record as well as not have the stress of possibility of a large bull injuring the smaller heifer when he mounts her. I would wait until she is 15 months old to breed her. She will calve around her 2nd birthday which is what you want. If you breed them too young you risk stunting them. Two months can make a huge difference in a heifer's development. You can CIDR her or talk to your vet about getting a lutalyse shot to bring her into heat when you are ready to have her bred. Like I said, I would get with something experienced in AIing and have them help you bring her into heat because they will know how to do it most efficiently and at the right time to make the chances of the heifer getting pregnant the greatest.

If you do decide to breed her naturally (again, making sure the bull is proven calving ease), then no, there is not much chance the bull would not breed her if she is in standing heat. A good healthy bull's mission in life is to get cows and heifers bred. Any cow or heifer.

 

[OtterCreekRanch]

Quote:
Lucky calf.

We have never had twins but we did have triplets once. It was a first calf heifer and we seen that she had calved and went out to check on her. The calf was TINY (30 lbs at most) but we didn't think much about it. The calf was healthy and standing so we left it and momma be and started driving back to the house after checking on her and in the middle of the "road" through the pasture was another little calf that looked just like the first. Thought I was going crazy. We loaded it in the back of the truck and went back and collected the first calf. Knew momma couldn't handle feeding two and would need to supplement bottle feeding. Headed back to the house and got a little further along the road than we had before and lo and behold...ANOTHER calf...again, identical to the first two. We searched everywhere to make sure there wasn't a 4th. Ended up putting momma and her three little bull calves (also Baldies) in the barn. We bottle fed them twice a day as well as let them nurse momma. They made it to be a year old and one died. Got a necropsy done and the vet said his heart was about half the size it should have been. They only ever got to be about 400 lbs each. We sold the last two shortly after the first one died. Twin calves just wasn't as big a novelty as triplets I guess.

 

[roocrazy]

Quote:
maybe for my first time along with hers have her be bred naturally by my uncles heatseeker bull? oh wow... this IS harder than i thought. i want shorthorn... maybe use my friends bull, but when you do it naturally isnt there a chance the bull wouldnt want her? shell be 13 mos when i hope to get her bred. should i use a seeder??

I don't think heatseeker or his calves are known to be calving ease. In fact, I think they are known for having rather large calves. I would breed her to a bull with a low birth weight himself as well as proven to throw small calves. You do not want her to have a large calf her first time around. It can ruin her. AI is usually a better option IMO for first calf heifers because you can select a bull with a good track record as well as not have the stress of possibility of a large bull injuring the smaller heifer when he mounts her. I would wait until she is 15 months old to breed her. She will calve around her 2nd birthday which is what you want. If you breed them too young you risk stunting them. Two months can make a huge difference in a heifer's development. You can CIDR her or talk to your vet about getting a lutalyse shot to bring her into heat when you are ready to have her bred. Like I said, I would get with something experienced in AIing and have them help you bring her into heat because they will know how to do it most efficiently and at the right time to make the chances of the heifer getting pregnant the greatest.

If you do decide to breed her naturally (again, making sure the bull is proven calving ease), then no, there is not much chance the bull would not breed her if she is in standing heat. A good healthy bull's mission in life is to get cows and heifers bred. Any cow or heifer.

Thanks. My FFA Adviser went to vet school and know how to do it and has done it several times. i think im gonna bite the bullet and try it. by the looks of her shell be a pretty good sized cow so i will worry but not too much about calving ease. do you thin k darn Proud out of jakes proud jazz would be high enough calving ease? its not negative anyway, other wise gus maybe.

 

[roocrazy]

Quote:
I do have to ask. did purdy have a calf??

 

[Longhorns&Chickens]

I love all the cows!! Here is some of our herd. We have about 30 head of Texas Longhorns.
This is our 2 year old bull, Rio's Final Answer. He was 60" tip to tip at this age. He was 2nd last year at the Horn Showcase for his age class.

This is our newest herd sire LC 585 War Bonnet. He will be going to a satellite measurement on Saturday, wish us luck. Actually he has a pretty good chance, he is growing really well. He is a 1 and 1/2 years old. He is a beautiful, and very well mannered boy. That is his girlfriend Hannah next to him, she is 2 years old.

This is Fern, she is a 6 yr old cow. She is one of my pets, and just so you all know she loves glazed donuts.

This is Jessy and her first calf! Longhorns have really small calves, and are great for first time mommas

This a new cow to our herd. Sugar is a 3 year old, and a nice girl.

This is the first cow born on our farm.

And last but not least the Queen of our longhorn herd: Emperoress. Whose horns are about 70" tip to tip at 11 years old, and the mother of the heifer before this.

I had better stop now, I have soo many cow pics and I love to talk longhorns!! I love all cows, so keep the pics coming!

 

[OtterCreekRanch]

Quote:
I don't think heatseeker or his calves are known to be calving ease. In fact, I think they are known for having rather large calves. I would breed her to a bull with a low birth weight himself as well as proven to throw small calves. You do not want her to have a large calf her first time around. It can ruin her. AI is usually a better option IMO for first calf heifers because you can select a bull with a good track record as well as not have the stress of possibility of a large bull injuring the smaller heifer when he mounts her. I would wait until she is 15 months old to breed her. She will calve around her 2nd birthday which is what you want. If you breed them too young you risk stunting them. Two months can make a huge difference in a heifer's development. You can CIDR her or talk to your vet about getting a lutalyse shot to bring her into heat when you are ready to have her bred. Like I said, I would get with something experienced in AIing and have them help you bring her into heat because they will know how to do it most efficiently and at the right time to make the chances of the heifer getting pregnant the greatest.

If you do decide to breed her naturally (again, making sure the bull is proven calving ease), then no, there is not much chance the bull would not breed her if she is in standing heat. A good healthy bull's mission in life is to get cows and heifers bred. Any cow or heifer.

Thanks. My FFA Adviser went to vet school and know how to do it and has done it several times. i think im gonna bite the bullet and try it. by the looks of her shell be a pretty good sized cow so i will worry but not too much about calving ease. do you thin k darn Proud out of jakes proud jazz would be high enough calving ease? its not negative anyway, other wise gus maybe.

Regardless of the size of a heifer their bodies are not developed enough to handle a large calf the first time out. You can literally ruin a heifer for the rest of her life by not being concerned with finding a good calving easy bull for their first calf. A larger calf will likely have to be pulled or removed by c-section. Pulling calves gives you a much greater chance of having a prolapsed. That can be an automatic death sentence for a heifer. Even if the calf is delivered without complications, a larger calf will be more demanding of the mother to grow both before birth and after. A two year old heifer is not nearly done growing herself. The is no reason to put more strain on her body and further stunt her. Show heifers are already at a MUCH higher risk of birthing complications than a normal heifer out in the pasture even with a low birth weight bull because of the way they were fed and will likely continue to be fed throughout their pregnancy. More feed for the mother means a faster growing unborn baby. It is really not worth the risk in any way to not put a little more extra effort in getting a calving ease bull for a heifer's first breeding even if it looks like she is going to be a larger heifer.

As far as the bull "D*** Proud". No I would not consider him calving ease with an almost 90 lb birth weight. I would be looking for a bull with a 70-75 lb birth weight for a first calf heifer. As far as TM Gus goes I have no been able to find a birth weight on him in the few mintues I've had to search for it. I will however say that when looking at EPDs and wanting a calving ease bull, the lower the BW EPD the better. So 3.3 that I am seeing for him is probably a bit on the high side for a heifer in the breeds I am most familiar with anyway. I don't know a lot about shorthorns EPDs in particualr, but I am sure they work the same way.

You will have plenty of calves in the future to use whatever bull you want if you do not ruin the heifer on their first calf.

 

[roocrazy]

OH Wow!!! thanks. browsing www.cattlevisions.com even if hes not shorthorn, rocky balboa, would you say he looks like a decent bull. to bad it looks like a calf pic.

he was 60lbs birth weight!
would that make a smaller less productive calf though???
ETA: It doesn't state his EPD'S but im sure with that birth weight he has to be excellent calving ease. dontcha think?