Birthweights

[MikeC]

In rare situations you can have low birth weight and high weaning weights. My Angus bull's actual birth weight was 64 pounds, weaning weight 775 pounds, yearling weight 1450 pounds. He was ranked in the top 10% for weaning to yearling weight and top 5% for calving ease.

Actual birthweight is also directly associated with the environment of the pregnant cows. The only way I would consider a bulls actual birthweight in a buying decision is to have all of the calves' BW in his contemporary group ratioed.
EPD's are calculated giving high consideration to ratios, which makes them much more accurate than many believe.

 

[preston39]

Wow dun, I can't be in the business of managing the forage for my customers too!
I am simply pointing out the fact that they don't want those little scrawny 65-70 lb. calves. They want them around 90 with some meat on their back.

I'm looking at it from the commercial producers standpoint. Some buyers may want those big bulls, but they sure don;t work for us.
A cow that drops to a 5 -5.5 BCS breeds back and weans a 600-650 lb calf, gains back to a BCS of 6-6.5 over the winter on stockpiled fescue make money for us.

dun

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dun,
Sure agree with that approach. We have around 87% of our commercial herd achieving those general standards. Don't know if we can achieve a 100% but that is our goal. Breed the best you can and (Like Bama says)cull...cull...cull. Our spring calf crop averaged 76 lbs at birth.

Mike has a point about what is WANTED. We have a saying to those folks who want the 110# calf and the 1700# cow.....watch out you may get what you want and you will not like the delivery problems and feed bill. The shipped weight just can't justify the additional costs.

 

[MikeC]

Wow dun, I can't be in the business of managing the forage for my customers too!
I am simply pointing out the fact that they don't want those little scrawny 65-70 lb. calves. They want them around 90 with some meat on their back.

I'm looking at it from the commercial producers standpoint. Some buyers may want those big bulls, but they sure don;t work for us.
A cow that drops to a 5 -5.5 BCS breeds back and weans a 600-650 lb calf, gains back to a BCS of 6-6.5 over the winter on stockpiled fescue make money for us.

dun

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dun,
Sure agree with that approach. We have around 87% of our commercial herd achieving those general standards. Don't know if we can achieve a 100% but that is our goal. Breed the best you can and (Like Bama says)cull...cull...cull. Our spring calf crop averaged 76 lbs at birth.

Mike has a point about what is WANTED. We have a saying to those folks who want the 110# calf and the 1700# cow.....watch out you may get what you want and you will not like the delivery problems and feed bill. The shipped weight just can't justify the additional costs.

Presto, Just because you have a 1700# cow does NOT mean you have to feed her, nor does it mean you're gonna have a 110# calf. Some environments are conducive to longer growing seasons and higher forage capabilities, thus giving more carrying capacity per acre.
If given the choice, in my environment, of 2-1500# cows that weaned 50% of the bodyweight and 3-1000# cows that weaned 50% of their bodyweight, I will take owning two cows over the three. Especially given the market I am targeting.

 

[Bama]

The size of the cow or heifer don't matter nearly as much as the size of the pelvis. I was at a class once where we were asked to guess what size of a calf they could have safely. After all the guess were in they were ran through a chute and measured and weighed. Some of the smaller one's had a larger pelvic opening.

 

[MikeC]

The size of the cow or heifer don't matter nearly as much as the size of the pelvis. I was at a class once where we were asked to guess what size of a calf they could have safely. After all the guess were in they were ran through a chute and measured and weighed. Some of the smaller one's had a larger pelvic opening.

I have noticed that also when we do a pelvic exam each year. But it is usually not the case in animals of the same age.

 

[Bama]

These were animals from differant farms. The genetics and ages were all differant. There were even several breeds. I ain't going there as I don't wont to get another war started.

 

[MikeC]

These were animals from differant farms. The genetics and ages were all differant. There were even several breeds. I ain't going there as I don't wont to get another war started.

Aw c'mon Bama! My vet says that Limi's have the largest pelvis opening, by far. He also says they need every bit of it!

 

[dph]

Thank you Bama. I was wondering if that was going to come up. I think I read the most heritable trait on a bull yet found is pelvic size. There are things a producer can do to give the claves some "extra room." It is one thing we look at. I love to find a good looking bull and look over and see that pelvis area at 200-220. His looks made you underline his number in the catalog, and things like that make you put a big old circle around it. He will give us daughters with great volume. And it is one thing you cannot "see" just by looking at a bull. We certainly notice at sales that size doesn't have as much to do with it as one might think.

 

[Bama]

Yeap, you gotta measure to see for sure. Just for the heck of it we did some measurments on width, pin bone width, tail head, etc. You really can't tell until you stick a set of calipers inside.

 

[rwright]

I say a live calf is better than a dead one anyday. 75-80lbs is fine with me. BW control and high WW is the key. Good comments. Everybody runs their operation different. Whatever works for you. If you have time to pull, go for it. Not me!

 

[pacadowling]

Calf Birthweight Objectives - Mississippi State University

The first thing to remember regarding birthweight is that you will not starve a small calf out of a little cow or heifer. The producers who stop feeding heifers in the last trimester of a pregnancy (to make the calf smaller) usually have a weak cow that will not breed back, will not milk, and will have a stunted calf at weaning.

You should also remember that when crossbreeding, you get heterosis or hybrid vigor in utero as well as after the calf is born. Use moderation in selecting bulls for a crossbreeding program..

:?
Sorry to get off topic here but I have 2 questions. Are they not feeding the heifer in last trimester to get smaller calves because the bull is large? And second, what is heterosis.

 

[MikeC]

Calf Birthweight Objectives - Mississippi State University

The first thing to remember regarding birthweight is that you will not starve a small calf out of a little cow or heifer. The producers who stop feeding heifers in the last trimester of a pregnancy (to make the calf smaller) usually have a weak cow that will not breed back, will not milk, and will have a stunted calf at weaning.

You should also remember that when crossbreeding, you get heterosis or hybrid vigor in utero as well as after the calf is born. Use moderation in selecting bulls for a crossbreeding program..

:?
Sorry to get off topic here but I have 2 questions. Are they not feeding the heifer in last trimester to get smaller calves because the bull is large? And second, what is heterosis.

Usually the size of the bull at maturity has little to do with birthweights. Heterosis is Hybrid Vigor.
Hope I understood your first question. :help:

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

Hi All, Just jumped into this thread - after reading it all.
First, I'm a firm believer of growing your heifers out as good as possible prior to breeding them & keep them growing on good grass management, and using our best quality hay during the winter (which would be during last trimester.)
I have NEVER believed in using "Calving Ease bulls" - just looking to end up with a herd of replacements that can't calve. Now don't get me wrong, I use CE EPD's to get a little smaller calf out of a heifer (I expect a heifer to be able to have a 75-90# calf without assistance - but all my calving heifers will weigh 1000-1200# after calving). But, like Dun, that AI sire can have a good CE and have great WW, YW EPD's.
Next, pelvic size. Pelvic size is a good TOOL - just like EPD's are a good TOOL. If you base your purchases on the LARGEST pelvic size, you are inevitably increasing the mature size of your herd. Yes, there are out-lyers that you can find, but you need to use PS as ONE of the many TOOLs to pick a bull/cow for your herd - ie frame size, actual BW, WW, YW, etc.
That was an excellent article. I do believe in working my cows & heifers, but DO NOT believe in creating situations where you need to be pulling calves. That situation happens without our help - TWINS (ugh - have you heard - I hate twins??), breech, etc.

Pacadowling, some producers thought that if they reduced the protein level on the feed they gave to 3rd trimester cattle, that that would reduce the BW. What it mainly does, is makes weak cows/heifers, and weak calves.
Heterosis - hybrid vigor - is the added growth/pounds you get when you cross two different breeds - especially when you cross a British breed with a Continental breed.

 

[dun]

Next, pelvic size. Pelvic size is a good TOOL - just like EPD's are a good TOOL. If you base your purchases on the LARGEST pelvic size, you are inevitably increasing the mature size of your herd.

I was told by a pverson that I trust and respect that a pelvic size of under 168 and over 177, maybe fudged to 180 was the size that he shoots for. When we've slected heifers in that range we've had good calving ease and no increase in size at maturity.
When we select AI bulls to generate replacements, daughters calving ease is a pretty heavily relied on indicator.

dun

 

[bwranch]

Informative article on Pelvic Measurement.

http://muextension.missouri.edu/explore ... G02017.pdf

Also, I seem to remember reading somewhere that the current line of thinking indicates that pelvic area may be even more heritable than BW. I can't find the reference. Any thoughts on this?

 

[taranr2002]

We tried something different last year and bought a Murrey Grey bull and bred our black angus cows. His bull calves averaged about 55 lbs at birth and at 6 months they averaged 550 lbs which we thought was good, we are keeping him for a heifer bull. And have bought a black angus to bred the cows with. The only thing we didn't like about him was all the calves were mousey colored.

 

[susie]

We tried something different last year and bought a Murrey Grey bull and bred our black angus cows. His bull calves averaged about 55 lbs at birth and at 6 months they averaged 550 lbs which we thought was good, we are keeping him for a heifer bull. And have bought a black angus to bred the cows with. The only thing we didn't like about him was all the calves were mousey colored.

You can get Murray Grey's in homozygous black now. That's what I'd like!
Susie

 

[taranr2002]

Really I didn't know that we will have to check into it because that was the only thing we didn't really like we would prefer black calves. They are so easy going and we can see it in the calves. They are much easier to work than our other calves.
Thanks

 

[dph]

bwranch: great link. Thanks for posting. I had never heard pelvic area is linked to increased size at maturity. Never mind that our bull with the smallest measurement is the biggest, and the one with the biggest is smallest (160, 220 adjusted, respectively), I realize it just could be by chance, and don't doubt the article. I am going to ask around on that. There was one university study that said pelvic area was the single most heritable trait from a bull (sorry I can't remember the university)

Jeanne: I don't belive myself or bamma said we base our purchases on pelvic area alone. I don't believe either of us implied that we use it alone in our decesions or suggested that others should. I apologize if I didn't read your post correctly.

Pacadowling: The thought was if a person reduced FEED to a heifer it would lead to smaller calves, which it might, becasue they are about starved to death when they come out. People thought at one time "too much corn" for instance would lead to calving difficulty. So the thought was to leave them hungry. It led to weak calves and weak heifers at calving, and actually increased one's trouble. Iowa State University has shown that giving heifers a large abundance of protein could cause an increase in calving difficulty. For instance feeding silage (which more than likely would have enough protein for them, test for sure) with a good dose of protein thrown in "for good measure."

 

[Bama]

I don't AI. I use a "heifers" bull or another bull. I use the pelvic measurement to determine which bull to breed the heifers tr sometimes if the numbers dont add up I use the measurement to cull em. I have said it before, you can't poke a golfball through a garden hose. Why waste time and money trying?