Our Freemartin Heifer...

[greyfields]

... turns out to not be a free martin.



We were getting ready to bring her into the chute this weekend to draw blood to send off to that lab in South Dakota someone had linked her.

I had a funny feeling about the heifer, but I didn't know if it meant funny as in she's a freemartin... she does look like a steer from a lot of angles. We couldn't see any bag at all forming and her udder looked "lumpy" and not formed. Then, I walk out into the lane last Friday and there is a calf in my lane and it's standing next to the allegedly freemartin heifer.

I was gobsmacked and was letting the profanity fly in four different languages when I called my neighbor and the guy who sold me the heifer on the phone. So, she was probably bred at 3 or 4 months old by the bull rebreeding her mother. It's far from ideal, but both are in good health. I've really got to keep her on good grass now, though, or she could get stunted.

 

[hcammack]

hey thats good for you at least she was not a totaly empty investment. That calf is pretty nice looking and she does look pretty fat.

Good Luck with her,
Henry

 

[chickmomma30]

wow, well that situation is not ideal but hey you do have a new addition and it is very cute. Congrats on the suprise

 

[Buster]

Wow that blows my mind! We had a similar heifer and really wanted to keep her because she did so well, but we took her to the vet and he said she lacked reproductive organs and wouldn't be able to be bred so we sold her as beef.

Congrats on your less than ideal situation that is turning out for the better!

 

[Chirpy]

I've never heard of a free martin!

I'm so glad that both momma and baby are doing well even if it was a shock/surprise to you.

 

[greyfields]

I bought her knowing she was a freemartin, so paid a fair price at weaning for a very healthy, beefy looking beef heifer. I've acutal taken beef heifers to our freezer the last two years and I think they're as good as males.

The guy who sold her to me said this is the 1 time in 100 he was wrong about it. So, it's my luck! You don't often get luck in farming.

The bull was a black angus, by the way, and the heifer is a mix of red angus and simmental. Where the holstein-esque markings are coming from, who knows.

 

[Buster]

Maybe the holstein markings are a throwback to the old simmentals that had white on them. I've seen a lot of pure black simmentals lately but the old ones had white.

The free martin heifer we had was one we had raised. It was twinned with a bull and that whole procedure at my wife's grandpa's house was the first exposure to pulling a calf I had been exposed to. The bull calf entered the birth canal hips first and the heifer calf was pushing against it and we did not know that it was twinned. We finally called the vet who came out and gave the cow a shot to stop the labor and pulled both calves- one very dead bull calf and one heifer that grew so extremely well.

 

[greyfields]

The simmentals she's coming out of are red, though, with some having white spots on their forehead is about it though. Weird!

 

[wynedot55]

you shouldve seen her as she was bagging getting ready to have her calf.thats sure nuff a nice pair congrats.

 

[greyfields]

Well yeah, if I had known to be checking her bag of course. I probably hadn't gotten that close a look at her last week as they were down in the bottom pasture. You don't think to check a bag on an unbred heifer now do you.