Best Beef Breeds for Adding a Second Calf Per Cow?

[Bullitt]

not to mention that it might take two years for a jersey calf to get up to 600 lbs...

I was talking about Jersey X Angus calves. I think they would do alright.

 

[TexasBred]

Hard to beat a good crossbred,, if you venture outside of one breed. The Brahman F1 would e the ticket.. A good Tiger could have one tugging on each quarter.. If she can stay together...

Any thing with a strong Brahman influence tends to milk what ever.

I lost a cow at one place in December. She had a stout Braford bull calf on her. I went back to get the calf and he was hanging off a Brangus cow. Went back a couple days later and he was hanging off a tiger. The herd has been raising him since.



When my 7/8 Brahman heifer was heavy bred a new born came up to her and stuck his head in to milk. She moved her leg and stood there for him. She didn't have any milk and had not even had a calf before.

My brangus always did that. Made me want to knock them in the head. Usually ended up with one or two calves that looked like they could have done better with more milk but at least we had no dead calves.

 

[Brute 23]

Hard to beat a good crossbred,, if you venture outside of one breed. The Brahman F1 would e the ticket.. A good Tiger could have one tugging on each quarter.. If she can stay together...

Any thing with a strong Brahman influence tends to milk what ever.

I lost a cow at one place in December. She had a stout Braford bull calf on her. I went back to get the calf and he was hanging off a Brangus cow. Went back a couple days later and he was hanging off a tiger. The herd has been raising him since.



When my 7/8 Brahman heifer was heavy bred a new born came up to her and stuck his head in to milk. She moved her leg and stood there for him. She didn't have any milk and had not even had a calf before.

My brangus always did that. Made me want to knock them in the head. Usually ended up with one or two calves that looked like they could have done better with more milk but at least we had no dead calves.

I agree... Its not ideal but its better than the alternatives.

 

[elkwc]

Hard to beat a good crossbred,, if you venture outside of one breed. The Brahman F1 would e the ticket.. A good Tiger could have one tugging on each quarter.. If she can stay together...

Any thing with a strong Brahman influence tends to milk what ever.

I lost a cow at one place in December. She had a stout Braford bull calf on her. I went back to get the calf and he was hanging off a Brangus cow. Went back a couple days later and he was hanging off a tiger. The herd has been raising him since.



When my 7/8 Brahman heifer was heavy bred a new born came up to her and stuck his head in to milk. She moved her leg and stood there for him. She didn't have any milk and had not even had a calf before.

My brangus always did that. Made me want to knock them in the head. Usually ended up with one or two calves that looked like they could have done better with more milk but at least we had no dead calves.

I have two cows now that allow another calf to suck. Both are good milkers. The one milks very heavy and it has never hurt her calves so although not ideal it don't bother me. It would be easy to put second calf on her every year.

 

[Tbrake]

"When my 7/8 Brahman heifer was heavy bred a new born came up to her and stuck his head in to milk. She moved her leg and stood there for him. She didn't have any milk and had not even had a calf before. "
That is NOT a good thing. If she was "heavy bred" she could have started to make colostrum, so letting a calf suck her, could put her own calf at risk of lacking the colostrum needed at birth.

Naaaasa.... The great thing about Brahman cattle is they take care of themselves. Just stay out of their way so you don't screw it up.

What a beautiful cow. I always like looking at some ear. Don't see them very often here

 

[Bullitt]

I have two cows now that allow another calf to suck. Both are good milkers. The one milks very heavy and it has never hurt her calves so although not ideal it don't bother me. It would be easy to put second calf on her every year.

What breed are the two cows that allow other calves to milk?

 

[Ky hills]

Had a Charolais cow once that would let anything nurse her, found her standing calmly while her calf and 3 more were going to town. Then the year we lost several calves, she was one we grafted a calf on to and she wasn't happy about that for quite a while but finally accepted it.

 

[Lazy M]

I have two cows now that allow another calf to suck. Both are good milkers. The one milks very heavy and it has never hurt her calves so although not ideal it don't bother me. It would be easy to put second calf on her every year.

What breed are the two cows that allow other calves to milk?

Others may disagree but I'll say NOT angus or high percentage angus. They love their babies with a passion and hate every other calf..Very difficult to graft a calf on one, but once she thinks it's hers she'll give it all she has.

 

[elkwc]

I have two cows now that allow another calf to suck. Both are good milkers. The one milks very heavy and it has never hurt her calves so although not ideal it don't bother me. It would be easy to put second calf on her every year.

What breed are the two cows that allow other calves to milk?

Others may disagree but I'll say NOT angus or high percentage angus. They love their babies with a passion and hate every other calf..Very difficult to graft a calf on one, but once she thinks it's hers she'll give it all she has.

One is a registered Black Angus cow and the other is a commercial Red Angus heifer. The black angus is a daughter of War Party. It doesn't hurt her calves at all. She does wean her calves by 7 months of age. Last year her bull calf weighed 1000 even at 8 months of age to the day. And she had another calf sucking her most of the time.

 

[Bullitt]

One is a registered Black Angus cow and the other is a commercial Red Angus heifer. The black angus is a daughter of War Party. It doesn't hurt her calves at all. She does wean her calves by 7 months of age. Last year her bull calf weighed 1000 even at 8 months of age to the day. And she had another calf sucking her most of the time.

Wow, that is really good. I wish I had a herd of cows like that.

 

[ALACOWMAN]

What breed are the two cows that allow other calves to milk?

Others may disagree but I'll say NOT angus or high percentage angus. They love their babies with a passion and hate every other calf..Very difficult to graft a calf on one, but once she thinks it's hers she'll give it all she has.

One is a registered Black Angus cow and the other is a commercial Red Angus heifer. The black angus is a daughter of War Party. It doesn't hurt her calves at all. She does wean her calves by 7 months of age. Last year her bull calf weighed 1000 even at 8 months of age to the day. And she had another calf sucking her most of the time.

:shock: 1000 pds at 8 mo..what was the calfs sire???

 

[elkwc]

Others may disagree but I'll say NOT angus or high percentage angus. They love their babies with a passion and hate every other calf..Very difficult to graft a calf on one, but once she thinks it's hers she'll give it all she has.

One is a registered Black Angus cow and the other is a commercial Red Angus heifer. The black angus is a daughter of War Party. It doesn't hurt her calves at all. She does wean her calves by 7 months of age. Last year her bull calf weighed 1000 even at 8 months of age to the day. And she had another calf sucking her most of the time.

:shock: 1000 pds at 8 mo..what was the calfs sire???

His sire is a performance son of Hoover Dam. He sired the number one bull to sell at Green Springs last spring. The cow comes from a performance line of cows also. They have as much bone as you'll find in an Angus. He had no creep. I did run him on wheat until it played out and he continued to grow well. He bred cows all summer. I have took him off the cows. He is running to hay and caked once a day. Will weigh him when I take him back to the pasture. This breeder breeds for soundness and performance. He feeds out everything he don't retain so he knows how his cattle will perform. He has had bulls at the top at Midland also and they do well on RFI tests.

 

[farmerjan]

That's impressive. Need some genetics like that in our herd. Where is the Green Springs sale? Don't see a location on your posts.
We have 2 cows that are raising an additional calf between them. The cow died and her calf was about 4-5 weeks old. She was old and this was her last calf and would have been sold when it was weaned. These 2 cows had calves about 2 weeks old and the orphan started sucking one and then the other when I went in the field to check them. I was all set to bring the orphan in but figured that if they would let it suck, between the two it should do okay. They got turned out to pasture for the winter on stockpiled grass and I saw him specifically and he looked to be doing okay.
Thing is, we have several that will let another calf suck, especially when their own is sucking. But to try to "make them take a 2nd calf" is something I just don't want to try.

 

[farmerjan]

I also bred several of the dairy cross cows to Aubrac. Will be preg checking the heifers this next week when we get them all in and moved to the home farm. Have one cow confirmed and one other needs to be checked. 2 were open to the AI breeding. I blame it on "operator error" since I hadn't been doing much AI lately and had to get back into the "feel" of it. Hoping the heifers did better. I really am looking forward to some of those cross calves now that I saw your pics.

 

[farmerjan]

not to mention that it might take two years for a jersey calf to get up to 600 lbs...

I butchered a jersey steer at 26 months that weighed 1127 lbs live and hung at 700. They will grow good after they hit a year. Most of mine are about 5-600 at 12-14 months.

I'm not the biggest fan of the jersey x angus. The jersey tends to overshadow the angus and they don't grow as good as I would like. Am really hoping that the Aubrac will improve the calves.