Young heifer bred

[Ky hills]

Looks like we got a young heifer bred.
My guesstimate coincides with when the neighbor's bull from 2 properties over came to visit for the second time last year. Had two calves by him from the first time out of cows. He must have got in the field of heifers and got into our cow field without us realizing he was in there. We found him in with the cows, both times.
So now I've got the youngest scrawniest heifer of the fall calves bred to calve around 18 months old to a CharolaisX bull.
I figure she will calve around mid June.

 

[Hpacres440p]

Were the calves from the cows big or do you have hope for an easy calving for this heifer?

 

[Ky hills]

Were the calves from the cows big or do you have hope for an easy calving for this heifer?

Both, they were bigger and I'm hoping this heifer calves easy and unassisted.
The frustrating thing is we weaned our heifers young and this particular one real young at 5 months so she could be weaned with the other heifers 2-3 months older and not have to be weaned by herself. I noticed her a few days ago looked like her udder was developing and she was springing.
The mother of this heifer calved as heifer at 21 months, to a CE Angus bull. She was the youngest of that year's group and at the time I didn't want to hold her out by herself for another 2 months and she was very similar in size to the older heifers.

 

[farmerjan]

Don't feed her any grain or extra until she calves so the calf doesn't do a late trimester growth spurt/weight gain......
Sounds like a family of cows I have... they all seem to start to come in heat young and calve young if we aren't real careful to get the bull out before they should even start to come in heat... have had 2 to get bred while still on the cows, and granted we did not get the bulls out as soon as we should have... but still, getting bred at 7-9 months is not expected normally.
Just watch her close, and once she calves feed her extra so she can make some milk and it does not drag her down too much.... I have one and she did a decent job of raising the calf... 6 months ahead of her "group" and held her to breed her back again with the ones she should have been calving with... still got her about 5 calves later... she is a little smaller/stunted because of the early calving, but does a bang up job of raising a nice normal size calf every year now, so she gets to stay and do her job.

Only other thing to do is calve her out, sell the calf and dry her up so she can grow more and get bred with the rest of the heifers... unless that is going to put her out of synch with the rest....

 

[Ky hills]

We've had several over the years to get bred too early, mostly purchased heifers that would be bred unbeknownst to us when buying, and a few home raised ones that were bred early before weaning.
Most of those heifers turned out ok as they were likely pretty much lighter BW Angus bulls that bred them. I've retained several of them for cows.
I'm generally not too concerned about it, and just watch them close. This one is more concerning to me because she looks so light made, and I'm not comfortable with Charolais influence on British heifers. i thought she should have been sold after weaning, but we decided to keep her because thought she might grow out more and we were wanting to grow our herd.
I'll watch real close in case we have to pull a calf. I've had her and her mates wintering with the cows so our bull could breed them and the fall cows. I separated her the other day and put her with a group of heifers that are calving now so I can keep a watch on her.
I've had a mostly good run calving young heifers out but got a feeling the law of averages could go the other way on this one.

 

[farmerjan]

We've had several over the years to get bred too early, mostly purchased heifers that would be bred unbeknownst to us when buying, and a few home raised ones that were bred early before weaning.
Most of those heifers turned out ok as they were likely pretty much lighter BW Angus bulls that bred them. I've retained several of them for cows.
I'm generally not too concerned about it, and just watch them close. This one is more concerning to me because she looks so light made, and I'm not comfortable with Charolais influence on British heifers. i thought she should have been sold after weaning, but we decided to keep her because thought she might grow out more and we were wanting to grow our herd.
I'll watch real close in case we have to pull a calf. I've had her and her mates wintering with the cows so our bull could breed them and the fall cows. I separated her the other day and put her with a group of heifers that are calving now so I can keep a watch on her.
I've had a mostly good run calving young heifers out but got a feeling the law of averages could go the other way on this one.

Think positive and be prepared for the possibility it won't go well...

 

[angus9259]

If you have a date when she was bred you could induce her a week or so early ….

 

[Lazy M]

I'll probably get heat for suggesting it, but you should consider taking her to the stock yards. You'd make good money from her as heavy bred, and the yards are always "buyer beware"..

 

[Logan52]

I kept back several heifers last fall and had one that turned out almost exactly like yours. She was the least of the bunch, out of a first calf heifer and sort of scragly compared to the others. We gave them all a shot of lutylase at weaning but the timing must have been wrong on this one.
I have chanced it with them before, with mostly good luck, but this time took her to the yards with the whole story as an early bred heifer. The man who wrote her up convinced me to just let her go by the pound and I did. She sold pretty well. Just one less thing to worry about this summer.