Bred Heifer Update

[randiliana]

It wasn;t just the lack of mothering up that made me say she should grow wheels. It's the nutcase attitude that is the biggest reason.

Oh, I knew what you were saying. The thing is she may have already taken the calf, it is just that the calf hasn't got going enough for us to really find out. Were this in calving season we probably wouldn't mess with her. But then again, were it calving season we probably wouldn't have had these problems either, since we would have been watching closer. It is a catch 22, since I really have no desire to bottle feed, the bottle calf market is nonexistant her right now, and unless absolutely necessary, I don't want to use the milk cow. But don't worry, if we actually have to work with her, she will be gone.

 

[cypressfarms]

Maybe I'm getting lazy as I get older. There's just too many good cows out there to keep the ones that make me work 10 times harder. No way for you to know with a heifer, that's the bad part.

The past two days have been really horrible weather here. Tornados, 6" of rain in two days. My next closest cow due was #2. We only know her by #2. She's a 2003 model, commercial Brangus cross. Not really big framed, but really good bag, and mothering ability. This afternoon I went out to check on the cows and she had already calved - had her calf sleeping on an old bale of hay eaten down. She saw me, called to the calf, and the calf got up walked over calmly and starting sucking (I'm guessing it was born early morning). Weather was so bad, I don't know if the calf was a bull or heifer, but hoping for a heifer just like her moma. Cows like that are worth their weight in gold.

Don't you wish that there was a mothering ability EPD? It would make life much easier for cow/calfers.

 

[randiliana]

A mothering EPD would be good, of course, with commercial cows it wouldn't do us much good ;-) . But there are a lot of things that can interfere with how a cow, and especially a heifer mothers up.

Any time you have to assist a heifer you run the chance that the heifer will be standoffish to the calf. Usually if you leave them alone for an hour or so the heifer will settle down and start checking the baby out, and then mother it. If you have to take the baby away from the new mother (cow OR heifer) of course you run the chance that when you bring it back she won't accept it. This is even worse when you have to take the calf before the cow had a chance to at the VERY least sniff it. A long and difficult birth, even if you didn't assist, can cause problems also. Then, you can add in the ones that get overwrought, and OVER mother. Have had a few of those too.

This heifer just had the deck stacked against her from the start. The calf was on the big side, and one leg was slightly out of wack. Then, add in the fact that we weren't checking her, and she was out in the big pasture. So when we found her, she had been working at it for several hours (by all rights we should have had a real wreck). Then, we had to get her in, and she really didn't know where we wanted her to go. She was wobbly as we brought her in, and it took a while. By this time she was pretty darn stressed and tired. Then, we put her in a barn by herself, and then yank this calf out of her. After this, rather than leave her calf with her, we immediately dragged it into the house, so it wouldn't get hypothermia. She was worked up enough that she probably would have taken a while before she did more than look at him, and he was pretty stressed. Right now, she still thinks that we are out to get her, and really I don't blame her. Her calf still isn't up and around, so we have to go out and bug her at least 3 times a day, when we feed him. She is bad, but we have had worse ones. At least she shows a little interest in her calf, and she isn't trying to kill it ;-) .

Now, I am not saying she will stay around, because we have lots of animals that would have settled down by now, if they even got that worked up in the first place. But I do see where the problems came from, and a lot of them really weren't her fault. Add in the fact that we won't have any need for a replacement calf for at least 2 months, and she is going to get a chance to keep her baby.