Birth weights

[cowgirl8]

When you keep cows for many years, some of their udders(a lot like us human females) dont stay up nice and pretty like they were in younger years. It doesnt happen often with us, but occasionally we'll have a 1300 pound angus deep bodied cow have a 100 pound old school Sim type and that calf will come halfway up her body. If its a bull calf and he's overly big, they will suffer with LUTTCS. So if i have a cow who's body is deep and low, i dont like putting her on anything that will produce a large calf. Calves weighing around 70 will not have a problem. I will not get rid of a good cow if her udder is low unless she doesnt raise a good calf. Those cows usually give so much milk they raise a darn good calf.
I guess it has to be location. We are in NE Texas and i've know many other ranchers and no one wants calves over 100 pounds. If anything, i over estimate the weights of our calves.
My daughter bottle raised a longhorn heifer from the sale barn. She calved the other day for the first time, bred to our angus heifer bulls. You talk about dinky. I bet it only weighs 25 pounds. Cutest thing ever. Curled up asleep it looks like an easter egg..lol Just put her with the rest of the heifers who've calved and all those babies are around 40 pounds now and look like monsters next to this longhorn..This calf was born standing up. Took maybe less than 3 minutes before it was nursing. 5 minutes it was running around. If that heifer had a 70 pound calf, things would have been way different. Next year, she'll handle a bigger calf, but its important for a live healthy calf for that first time.

 

[tnwalkingred]

I want my heifers to have a 70 pound calf. After that 80-90 pounds is ideal.

Kyle

 

[Ozhorse]

I think I have run into a low BW problem this year and I think the trend to lower and lower BW has gone a bit too far. Usually I might loose one calf at birth a year or perhaps two from 90 to 120 angus cows. This year went pear shaped, because of a bushfire and lack of feed and some bad agistment. So the problem was MOSTLY feed - but that combined with low BW sires of the younger cows and of the bulls that were put over them, and some bad weather meant that I lost about 10 of 130 newborn calves to (I think) exposure. I used an AI sire on my big registered angus cows and he had a low BW and is very low on days to calving and the calves sure did turn up early. I lost one of those bull calves, probably to exposure too when it was a few days old. Also it means I have lots of undersize calves at weaning and calf sales. I admit again the problem is MOSTLY feed. But the low BW seems to just add to other stuff happening. I have older cows who did have more feed who were joined to a middling to higher BW bull and they have produced good size calves despite a hard year.

Heifers that were small late calves themselves did not cope as well after their first calf and did not get back in which I am actually glad of as I have no feed this winter either so I can give them a year off and not be forced to sell them small and skinny AND back in calf.

The up side of this is that I dont even dream of checking the older cows calving - and in 7 years have lost zero older cows and perhaps only 2 calves 80 - 120 births per year and had zero problems with heifers at home with 80 births and only two pulled away on agistment from calfs with a tucked up leg.

I have taken to buying higher BW bulls for the older cows (and I keep heifers from these cows) and breed from AI from my registered cows low BW heifer bulls for the heifers and dont keep the first calvers heifer calves. That means my heifer bulls dont owe me much money, I can use them while they are small as one, two and three year olds, and then sell them before they get a bit too heavy for heifers.

I am going to stay away from super low birth weight bulls for any of the females, lowish for the heifers and average minimum to higher BW for the older cows.

 

[ANAZAZI]

The new word LUTTCS, would anyone explain it to me?

 

[Ozhorse]

The new word LUTTCS, would anyone explain it to me?

Me too - though I guess it is to so with udder shape?

 

[dun]

The new word LUTTCS, would anyone explain it to me?

Me too - though I guess it is to so with udder shape?

Explained on the previous page of this thread. LUTTC - low udder too tall calf

 

[cowgirl8]

Its just my funny abbreviation for a problem when you started out with Sims, then over years mix in angus. You have a big deep body angus cow with a large udder and a she has a big sim (genetic throwback) calf who is tall and leggy. Its usually a bull calf, heifers seem to figure it out. He'll root all around her side and never bump into her udder. Their noses will usually be raw by the end of the day from rubbing at her flank and neck...
We'll bring them up and put her in the chute and show them where to nurse. I'll milk her down if her udder is engorged, feed the colostrum to the calf. Once they catch on its done. If the calf is real stupid it takes a little more work. I've found that this almost always happens to the Sim throwbacks and are always bulls and big.
It use to happen more often when we had more Sim in our herds. I may have it happen once every 3 years, in fact its been about 3 years since i've had one. Along with pulling calves this is also becoming history with the more angus we get in our herds.

 

[Nesikep]

My last cow to calf has an udder that's *seriously* too low...watching her walk is actually quite hilarious.. Her calf couldn't find the teats, so I put her in the chute and got him going, and milked a whole gallon of colostrum from 1 front quarter. She's 10 years old and has had too big a bag since her 3rd calf (and she's MEAN).

Here's my LUTTCS cow.. don't have a picture of her standing

Here... This is the udder I look for... She's 18 years old... Calves can always find those

And it's hereditary.. Her 9 year old daughter...

The less angus we have in our herd the better our fences last