Bred Heifer Not in Estrus

[inyati13]

I have an angus/simmental mix heifer who had her calf 12/3/11. I keep her separated with another bred heifer for 45 days then turned her out with the herd and a bull in mid January. I am around the herd all day this time of year and she has not come in. I would have expected to see her bulling by now. There were no indications she came into estrus while she was separated. Any thoughts?

 

[dun]

Not real unusual for a heifer to take a little longer to start cycling. But, unless you were watching 24/7 including at night you may have missed a heat but probably the bull didn;t if it happened. Unless you have some sort of heat detector on the cow or a ball marker on the bull there really sint; anyway to know for sure if she did or didn;t unless she's preg checked (too soon to tell) or has a calf in 9 months.

 

[Lucky_P]

In my herd, I'd be SURPRISED at any first-calf heifer that was back in heat less than 60 days post-calving. Yeah, I've had the rare one that cycled back in 30 days later, but that doesn't happen very often here.
I don't even think about trying to get a first-calf heifer bred back until she's at least 60 days out from calving.

 

[inyati13]

Thanks to both responses. I was getting a little concerned.

 

[inyati13]

The heifer I referred to in the start of this thread was with the bull today. Every time he tried to mount her, she moved a step away. I assume she is starting to come in but is not in the standing estrus phase yet. I did not see her doing anything with any of the cows. She was at the bulls side all day and only left long enough to feed her calf and eat some hay. I will see what she is doing in the morning but I was wondering why she was not fooling around more with the other cows. My other cows make a little more show of it than this young girl is.

 

[cow pollinater]

She's showing estrus and that's all you can do at this point. If you don't like what you see this time around then make improvements to keep it from happening next year but once they're cycling there's not much else you can do besides keeping the minerals in them that will help

 

[dun]

Some make a big deal out of being in heat others not so much. We have one cow that doesn;t ride and nobody rides her but the day before she comes in she bellers constantly.

 

[cow pollinater]

Some make a big deal out of being in heat others not so much. We have one cow that doesn;t ride and nobody rides her but the day before she comes in she bellers constantly.

That's true... I do have a few older cows on my route that I expect to see locked up at the same place every day in a four hundred cow pen. When they lock up next to the truck they're in heat and that's the only sign you get... The rest of the time they're at the other end of the pen where the dominant cows are. They breed back every year and it's usually AI so I can't say that their fertility is compromised by lack of display.

 

[Old_man_emu]

I don't watch my cattle, it's less stressful just to leave them alone apart from checking the bulls of course.
The bulls do their thing and the cows do theirs. I preg test at weaning because I'm not going to cull prior to that.
I get good calving percentages and the each group will calve start to finish in about 40 days for 40 to 50 head I have.