Belgian Blue

[cloone]

Are Belgian Blue x Limousins hard calved
What kind of mothers do they make
My Limousin X Charolais cows have become too heavy with little milk for calves and consequential high cost meal guzzling calves
What do you all think

 

[greenwillowhereford II]

The only Belgian Blues I've known of, the owner just scheduled a vet for a C-section. He didn't dare even let them try to have their calves naturally. After several C-sections the vet would let him know if they weren't going to be viable any longer, so he could ship them.

 

[goodbeef]

sounds like a c-section waiting to happen

 

[ANAZAZI]

BB brings a lot of milk but you can give your herd milk from braunwieh or gelbweih or piedmontese; the last will give great muscle also. BB are best used for terminal sire on bad dairy cows or true maternal cows. The calving problems start when you breed BB to BB influencecattle, best use for BB in lim cross is lim bull on bb cow. Take piedmontese in stead, better calving. Or use BB strictly as terminal this is my advice. Also calving problems are far worse if you feed too much!

 

[dun]

There used to be a regular on here that raised BB in Europe somewhere. C sections were the norm and did it themselves after getting trained by a vet. It may make the time of calving more predictable but I sure wouldn;t want to have to do it or have it done as normal procedure.

 

[Santas and Duhram Reds]

Using a limo on a bb cow is NOT the way to go. The difficulty of bb calving is mostly caused by the female being a bb. You will have far greater success with bb bull on limo cows.

 

[chippie]

Belgian Blue bulls used on either dairy or a different beef breed make good terminal calves. My husband breeds AI and Belgian Blue beef is some of the best beef that I've ever tasted. We've been using Belgian Blue semen for about12 years.

We have never had any problems breeding a BB bull to our Jerseys, but breeding BB to a BB cow did result in a C-section and a double muscled calf which had to be put down.

My Longhorn cow is currently bred to a BB. Our children say that it will be the world's ugliest calf that will taste delicious ;-)

 

[ANAZAZI]

I meant limo on bbcross cow. Because bb gives ample milk and limo does not.
Actually bb on anything goes, including f1 bbcross; because calving as stated are the worst in double muscled cows. but if the calf is homozygous or not is far less important. For AI use Valentino de pappillion who gives decent birthweights.

 

[Auburn_Ag]

I am not sure about a BB x Lim . However i do know that a BB X with a chiangus is a good cross. My dad artificial inseminated some chiangus cows to a Blue Belgium bull and the calves turned out to be some big thick quality calves, a few years ago.