Anyone ever have this?

[Jogeephus]

A cow that only seems to throw bulls? I have one and I really have hoped to get some replacements from just as I had hoped her mother would but her mother only threw one heifer in 8-10 years before she got too fat to breed. Their propensity to gain weight on grass is what intrigued me. Plus the calves normally gain almost a pound a day over their counterparts yet the mother doesn't lose weight and stays fat. You don't even know they have calved till you see the calf by their side. Problem is they just keep on getting fat till they are too fat to breed and I only have one dam out of years of trying to collect some of these.

This year I bred her with a bull who is supposed to do real well on grass. So far he has remained fat as his genetics claim and he has now given her another bull calf. I suspect she will only be good for three more years so there is still time but I sure wish she'd throw me a heifer soon. If not, I guess I'll be saving the bulls and going this route. Looks like she has passed the fat gene to this little bugger.

 

[dun]

Granny was like that all she had was bulls till the last 3 years before we put her, the last 3 were heifers of whihc to are in the herd along with their daughters. The other heifer was sired by a bull that we ended up culling all of his daughters. Grannys heifer by him aborted on the first April with her first calf and the next year aborted on the same date.

 

[branguscowgirl]

Yes I have seen it happen also. However I do not know why when the sex is determined by the bull. With breeding mine AI, I have heard speculation that the sorted female semen gets separated off and maybe the males get tossed back in with the unsorted. But I don't know if there is any truth to that or not.

Have you thought about using some sorted semen on her to get your heifers?

 

[Jogeephus]

The original mama was headed for the sale barn after I saw her kick her own calf off her utter one day. I watched her do this several times within an hour and thought the fat slob was just a bad mother - no bag to brag on either - so I went to load them but ran them across the scales to take them off the inventory. I was shocked when I saw the ADG of the calf so I unloaded them and began watching her closely and found she would only nurse when she was taking a break from eating. I don't know if she converts food well but I do know she knew how to eat and get fat. Her daughter is the same way. Its not often you can sell a cull cow that looks like its been in a feed lot when they are ready for retirement. I'd like to have a whole herd of these.

Have you thought about using some sorted semen on her to get your heifers?

I'd rather not AI. Am an all natural operation. ;-)

 

[ALACOWMAN]

Cheer up, if he was a terminal bull, You'd have all heifers.. My new grass type bull has give me three heifers out of 16 so far.. The breeder said your gonna like his heifers.. Must of been what jinxed me

 

[branguscowgirl]

Kind of interesting when I was looking at AI sires to flush with, I looked to see the number of daughters vs the number of sons that they had produced. Nearly every bull produced twice as many bull calves than heifer calves.

 

[branguscowgirl]

Its not often you can sell a cull cow that looks like its been in a feed lot when they are ready for retirement. I'd like to have a whole herd of these.

I do have a whole herd like that. (I had culled down to just one maternal related group of females.) My problem is keeping them from getting too fat. My vet cusses every time he sticks a hand in them!

 

[cow pollinater]

Kind of interesting when I was looking at AI sires to flush with, I looked to see the number of daughters vs the number of sons that they had produced. Nearly every bull produced twice as many bull calves than heifer calves.

That's because a lot of "breeders" will register a mediocre bull calf in hope of selling him but they're only going to register the keeper heifers that they're really excited about and the rest are commercial cows.

 

[cow pollinater]

Yes I have seen it happen also. However I do not know why when the sex is determined by the bull. With breeding mine AI, I have heard speculation that the sorted female semen gets separated off and maybe the males get tossed back in with the unsorted. But I don't know if there is any truth to that or not.

Nope. At least not with any of the big studs. They don't even run sorted and conventional at the same time so there's no conventional for them to dump it into.

 

[cow pollinater]

I do have one old registered cow like that except that she keeps giving me heifers and I want a bull so I can spread it around faster. She's old enough now that I'm running out of chances and for the last two years she's given me the slip at breeding time and shows back up with a baldie at her side.

 

[branguscowgirl]

Yes I have seen it happen also. However I do not know why when the sex is determined by the bull. With breeding mine AI, I have heard speculation that the sorted female semen gets separated off and maybe the males get tossed back in with the unsorted. But I don't know if there is any truth to that or not.

Nope. At least not with any of the big studs. They don't even run sorted and conventional at the same time so there's no conventional for them to dump it into.

Good to know. Like I said, it was just a speculation that I had heard. I did not put much value in the comment.

 

[regolith]

Lots of cows that go four, five years only producing either bulls or heifers then swing the other way. Unfortunately it seems like my Annie is on a bull run now having given me five great heifers as a young cow.
If you've got the means to raise the bull calves and their quality is right, the mother cow could probably have a much bigger impact on your herd that way.
I'm not too sure that you'd want to go that route though is these genetics will be antagonistic to the Demetrius lines, and you'd need to run separate herds to ensure the great qualities of Demetrius are retained.

 

[dun]

We have one cw family with 7 daughters and grandaughters. Last year was the first bull,from that line.

 

[Red Bull Breeder]

I got one that so far has only had bulls. I kept last years bull calf.

 

[Fire Sweep Ranch]

One of my top cows only produces bull calves, and all are good enough to stay Bulls. She has had five calves, and I was really hoping I would beat the odds and get a heifer because she was AI'd to Built Right. Built Right has some really nice females, and this cow is a Macho sired cow. We got yet another bull calf, but he is stout and definite bull material. I have thought about flushing her with heifer sexed semen... Might do it if she gets much older and I do not get a heifer out of her!

 

[Nesikep]

Here's the stats for us
Arnold (Our last Gelbvieh bull) 59 bulls, 45 heifers
Rustam, Shorthorn, 35 bulls, 55 heifers
Zal, Saler, 59 bulls, 58 heifers

Last year we had 15 bulls and 8 heifers.. makes for hard choices when you have a bunch of cows to cull

I have one cow, a really nice shorthorn that is 8 years old.. never had a heifer (maybe this year), it's too bad she went through the Gelbvieh years without a heifer, I think it would have been a great combination.
My old girl Rosie had lots of heifers.. 11 out of 16 calves were heifers... I wasn't so lucky with her sister, She had 1 (Mega) out of 5.. though I'm still grateful for that one! So far Mega has had 1 heifer (Sofa), and I'm really crossing fingers she'll have another this year.. I think the Limo will work very nicely with her.

Then there are the cows that have made thunderous steer time after time, and when they finally make a heifer it's a dinky scrawny thing.. I've had many 'good' cows that were unable to make a respectable heifer calf

 

[Jogeephus]

Interesting stuff here.

 

[1982vett]

A cow that only seems to throw bulls? I have one and I really have hoped to get some replacements from just as I had hoped her mother would but her mother only threw one heifer in 8-10 years before she got too fat to breed. Their propensity to gain weight on grass is what intrigued me. Plus the calves normally gain almost a pound a day over their counterparts yet the mother doesn't lose weight and stays fat. You don't even know they have calved till you see the calf by their side. Problem is they just keep on getting fat till they are too fat to breed and I only have one dam out of years of trying to collect some of these.

This year I bred her with a bull who is supposed to do real well on grass. So far he has remained fat as his genetics claim and he has now given her another bull calf. I suspect she will only be good for three more years so there is still time but I sure wish she'd throw me a heifer soon. If not, I guess I'll be saving the bulls and going this route. Looks like she has passed the fat gene to this little bugger.

Have 27 calves on the ground 11 are heifers. Had a "mild spring and summer" as summers go around here so ~~~~~during mild spring and summers you will get more bulls than heifers out of cows~~~~

Had one that raised 10 heifers. She got culled in 2010 at the age of 12 years and 11 months when I reduced the herd size to accommodate what we thought at the time was a drought.....

I've had some that never got fat but raised a healthy stout calf. Those too endured the "forced workforce reduction" due to the lack of timely precipitation.

 

[kjonesel]

My wife who did fertilization on people explained to me that the females sometimes have something as simple as a slightly abnormal PH. This affects the vitality differently on the male and female sperm. Its fairly simple but the details I never put to memory.

 

[ALACOWMAN]

My wife who did fertilization on people explained to me that the females sometimes have something as simple as a slightly abnormal PH. This affects the vitality differently on the male and female sperm. Its fairly simple but the details I never put to memory.

This is hitting on something here,I've read that the male sperm are faster swimmers...just wonder if it has any advantage on the abnormalities...