1 out of 7 Heifers Pregnant

[dhayes105]

Waiting on blood test, trich test, ear notch tests for everything the vet though could test for. (BVD, IBR, Brucella, and trich (bull only))

I took three heifers, knew one was bred but wanted to see how far along (biopryn doesn't help with that). She is due in April so he got her very soon after I let him out.

One heifer 21 months old has never cycled. Undeveloped uterus and ovaries. I told the vet I'd never seen her in heat. So she's gone.

Other heifer had cysts on ovaries. I had noticed blood after her cycle (which is very short I notice her in heat very often) the last few times but I had seen that before on my cow that just calved and researched and it was just end of cycle. Vet gave me a shot of cystorelin and said to give 21 days prior to breeding. So I've been researching Ovarian cysts, looks like it can be genetic or communicable? since all my girls are out of the same bull and some mothers are sisters that's worrying but she's the only one of this group that I've seen bleeding after cycling.

Vet is recommending waiting until we get results and then if there's no answer palpating the others to see if they have cysts too. Then I could treat the whole herd and hopefully get some of them bred. At least I could get something out of them. If it's genetic I'd try to move them all on and start over. I'm the only one in our family working right now, because wife stays home with my young son so if I had to sell them all as open culls i'd be back to square one. No way I could replace all of them but 4 or 5 functioning cows would be more productive than 8 with six open...

Poor bull was a champ. Walked up on the trailer without prompting three times out of three. Sure would be nice if a $3.50 shot or two could fix everything (except the cull obviously she's gone but she'll pay the vet bill...)

Ironically, the guy I got them from called me the next day to say he had four heifer yearlings out of the same bull and cow group... mmm no thanks. I'll pass for now.

 

[farmerjan]

We had a nice heifer come up with small non-functioning ovaries. Ours was not born a twin, but on occasion there have been cases where there were twins and one was reabsorbed... so could have started out as a twin to a bull. Will never know, she also was shipped as you plan to do with yours. Have had an occasional case of cystic ovaries but most often in the dairy nurse cows. Have never heard anyone relating it to feed/nutrition but wouldn't say that's not a possibility. Have often seen blood on the tail after cycling, and sometimes I never saw them in heat. But it gives me a good idea of when to start looking for heats the next time.
Good luck with the test results. I think you are very wise to pass on the ones the farmer just offered you. If you have to get rid of some and maybe get a few more, I would suggest either buying some confirmed pregnant, or with small calves by their side so at least you know they are capable of getting pregnant and calving.

 

[dhayes105]

We had a nice heifer come up with small non-functioning ovaries. Ours was not born a twin, but on occasion there have been cases where there were twins and one was reabsorbed... so could have started out as a twin to a bull. Will never know, she also was shipped as you plan to do with yours. Have had an occasional case of cystic ovaries but most often in the dairy nurse cows. Have never heard anyone relating it to feed/nutrition but wouldn't say that's not a possibility. Have often seen blood on the tail after cycling, and sometimes I never saw them in heat. But it gives me a good idea of when to start looking for heats the next time.
Good luck with the test results. I think you are very wise to pass on the ones the farmer just offered you. If you have to get rid of some and maybe get a few more, I would suggest either buying some confirmed pregnant, or with small calves by their side so at least you know they are capable of getting pregnant and calving.

Yes... never again buying anything open.

 

[dhayes105]

So I got test results back from CLEMSON extension. Trich negative on the bull.

Bull and the one pregnant heifer both have IBR (despite both being vaccinated at weaning.) Other heifer we tested came up negative for IBR. Based on this I am assuming at least some other heifers probably have IBR as well.

So now our problems in total are...

1 heifer w/ undeveloped repro tract...
1 heifer w/ ovarian cysts...
1 bull with IBR and 1 bred heifer with IBR.

They had to have had IBR before I got them because none of these heifers have been sick since I got them. The bull did go through a time this summer when he dropped condition QUICK. but that's why I pulled him and fed him up.

Honestly, I'm tempted to take all 6 that aren't bred and the bull to a nearby packer. Keep the cow that calved if she tests clean because she has done everything I asked of her (got bred within 2 days of bull being out and gave me a great calf) and the heifer that is 6 mo bred but IBR positive (who hopefully won't abort) and at least get her calf and then send her to the packer.

I used to buy small groups of weaned calves and grow them out, so I guess I'd buy a group of them and raise a few groups of calves to work my way back to buying some good bred cows/heifers.

Pretty discouraged. Main thing I'm concerned about now is not spreading this to anyone else's cattle because this sucks.

 

[Silver]

That really sucks. Sorry about your luck. Seems strange that no sickness was present in the IBR infected animals. Makes me wonder about the possibility of them being previously vaccinated with a vaccine with no marker in it, but this is outside my knowledge base.
Seems to me that if an infected animal animal has been vaccinated that they don't shed the virus, but I'm sure someone can straighten me out on that as well.

 

[dhayes105]

Rookie mistake. Vet said that modified live vaccines would cause a false positive. FALSE ALARM. I'd already drawn up a new business plan...

 

[Silver]

Rookie mistake. Vet said that modified live vaccines would cause a false positive. FALSE ALARM. I'd already drawn up a new business plan...

That is where my line of thinking was going on my last post.
But at the end of the day you still have 6 open heifers, some with obvious issues. Are you going to sell and replace then?

 

[dhayes105]

Sold the two with obvious issues and replaced with bred heifers. Also sold bull and got a new bull in. Looks like he's settling the others. Looking up!

 

[True Grit Farms]

Good deal.

 

[Coosh71]

my bulls don't need anything to get anything bred... if they do. they are for someone else... not me.

Bulls get relatively same program as cows. Good mineral, same vacs and sane feed. We try to look at this as a business. Everyone here has a job. If they won't or can't do it, they get replaced. Your situation is tuff, heck of a loss in time and money. Sorry to hear all of that.

 

[dhayes105]

It's not how you start it's how you finish, and all that. I love this so much I'm not gonna let it get me down.

I did alright, sold the heifers to someone for freezer beef since they were only 2, so didn't have to sell as culls at the sale, and the bull brought good money as well since he was so young and i sold a calf i'd been feeding. I got my money together right in time for a bull sale at a local forage based seedstock operation and left with two bred heifers (paid for with sold cows) and a new bull (some was covered but most out of pocket) with a great $EN and decent everything else. My dad owns half our cows and he also got a bred back cow calf pair.

So we are looking at this as a win. Plus everybody I know around here that actually tries to calve in a window shoots for late fall/winter due to flies and heat stress on KY31. So this lined us up good for that. Also this way I'm trying to get cows bred when we are on hay or stockpile so no endophyte concerns and i'm supplementing protein a little anyways. Should make it easier to get bred back.

 

[Son of Butch]

dhayes - you sure have a good attitude and a positive way of looking at things.
Best of luck to ya in the future.