Our Freemartin Heifer...

[wynedot55]

well honestly yes being an old cattlemen i do watch the cows an heifers baggs.to see if they are getting ready to calve.

 

[onthespot]

well? .... is it a boy or a girl? Lucky the daddy was angus!

 

[Buster]

I think it's pretty amazing that a 3 or 4 month old heifer was bred at all, let alone being a freemartin! I certainly wouldn't have specifically checked. It's hard enough keeping track of all the ones you are expecting to be bred, let alone the ones who are merely calves themselves. I know it's not unheard of, but you really don't check bags on heifers that are 12 or so months old. That's usually when we are just turning them out with the bull (except of course when they are still with their mothers).

 

[92caddy]

What is meant by "freemartin". .................

 

[Buster]

A freemartin is female calf (heifer) which was twinned with a bull at birth. In almost all cases, they are never fertile. They grow out much like a beef steer because they lack feminine qualities.

 

[wynedot55]

they dont have all of their female reproductive tract or organs.

 

[Farmer Kitty]

Quote:
We've had several bull and heifer twin sets and the heifers have been fertile.

As a dairy farmer I wouldn't have looked for her to be bred at that age either! She was awfully young to have been bred. Plus, if she is suppose to be a freemartin, why would you watch for her to be bagging?

 

[Buster]

Quote:
We've had several bull and heifer twin sets and the heifers have been fertile.

Well that's interesting! Around here, it almost goes without saying that if a bull or a heifer are twinned at birth you just sell the heifer for beef. In addition to that, because we are a beef cattle operation, we consider twins undesirable for our operation and usually sell off the twinned heifers and also the cows who have them. Too many times cows have a hard time counting to two and also, we have noticed that many of the cows who give birth to twins are late breeding back.

Anyway, interesting to note that your heifers have been fertile.

 

[Farmer Kitty]

Quote:
We've had several bull and heifer twin sets and the heifers have been fertile.

Well that's interesting! Around here, it almost goes without saying that if a bull or a heifer are twinned at birth you just sell the heifer for beef. In addition to that, because we are a beef cattle operation, we consider twins undesirable for our operation and usually sell off the twinned heifers and also the cows who have them. Too many times cows have a hard time counting to two and also, we have noticed that many of the cows who give birth to twins are late breeding back.

Anyway, interesting to note that your heifers have been fertile.

Being a dairy operation we have opted to keep the heifers and see what happens. If they are freemartins they make excellent meat animals so it's no loss for us.

 

[greyfields]

Our grass is pretty amazing her, so I normally wouldn't be too worried about the mom losing too much condition nursing twins. We always have goat milk to fall back onto as well if things aren't going well for one or the other.

But yeah, the bull could not possibly have mounted her, but probably was just tall enough to slip one past the goalie on all 4's. I guess anyway.

Every bit about her, though, made me think she was a freemartin because of her very thick neck... very steer-like. But I really hoped she wasn't becuase I like her coloring and she's fairly tame. She was actually grafted onto Brown Swiss, which the farm I got them from often does with twin calves.

I couldn't be more pleased. She is also a heifer calf. That gives me 5 heifers counting the calves, which is for me ideal on 25 acres plus about 8 more we use for pasture and another 15 or so we cut for hay. A litlte bit of everything and not too much of any one thing. :0