rocket2222
Well-known member
Alan, looks like you have enough comments on the heifer, so I'm not going to add to it, but I will say a couple of things. You have mentioned barn blindness a couple of times, yet, you have pointed out faults that you see in the heifer, but it seems that you are willing to ignore them based on hers and her dams performance, I don't believe this would truly qualify as being barn blind. To me, by doing this you have chose a direction for your herd based more on performance over quality, and if thats the direction you wish to take, thats fine. Another thing you commented on was she may not have got adequate amount of feed due to the older cows she was with, it might help in the future if you split the feed in to 2 or 3 piles or put out 2 or more bales at the same time, this gives the younger ones a least a fighting chance of getting some groceries in their stomach when its needed the most, there may be a little more waste that way, but it would give you a better idea of how the younger ones will turn out early in life instead of waiting another year, just to find out they hard doing anyways. Found out I had a hard doing 1st calf heifer myself this year, out of one of my older cows, she was sired by a Online son I had for a while, I kept 3 daughters of his for a while, was going to get rid of all 3 of them, but ended up keeping the one as she did quite well out to pasture with the older cow through the summer. Had a pretty nice bull calf this past fall, who's doing really well, problem is, as soon as she was stressed a little with raising the calf, she fell apart. It would be pretty easy to ignore the problem beings her calf is a pretty good one, I could pull her from the herd and feed grain and make her look good, and I have someone whose waiting on a bull calf [ not sure why he's willing to wait, but theres one born every minute ] 
I could probably sell him her calf fairly easily. But then he takes him home, and he falls apart or he keeps some daughters and they won't hold up, and all I've gained is a bad reputation. I'm not willing to take the chance on keeping any daughters she might have, they may also be hard doing, so they would have to go to market, as its to risky sell them to someone else either. So in the end the bull calf will get cut and the cow goes to market in the spring. Culling tough to do sometimes, especially when it takes so long just to get one calf on the ground.
I could probably sell him her calf fairly easily. But then he takes him home, and he falls apart or he keeps some daughters and they won't hold up, and all I've gained is a bad reputation. I'm not willing to take the chance on keeping any daughters she might have, they may also be hard doing, so they would have to go to market, as its to risky sell them to someone else either. So in the end the bull calf will get cut and the cow goes to market in the spring. Culling tough to do sometimes, especially when it takes so long just to get one calf on the ground.
