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Breeding / Calving Issues
Bull influence on BW
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<blockquote data-quote="randiliana" data-source="post: 624151" data-attributes="member: 2308"><p>The bull is certainly not the be all and end all when it comes to BW and calving ease. The cow has a lot to do with it, as well as feed and weather. </p><p></p><p>We have cows in our herd that will consistently throw larger calves regardless of what bull they are bred to and what the majority of his calves are like at birth. When you have one or 2 cows throw substantially larger calves as compared to the rest of the group bred to the same bull, you can definitely attribute the extra BW to the cow.</p><p></p><p>I've also seen feed throw a kink into things. We fed split chick peas to our cows one winter in the last trimester (this was one of those learning experiences). Got them for free from the seed plant where DH was working. We were feeding good quality alfalfa to begin with and then added in about 5 lbs of chick peas per head. I mean, how could we go wrong with free feed??</p><p></p><p>Our BWs that year were probably 10 lbs heavier than we usually see, and we had more than one calf over 120 lbs. We were lucky, we had only 1 c-section, and pulled a few. No major wrecks, but it certainly could have been. Extremely high protien in the last trimester is NOT a good idea. Not to say that you want to deprive your cows of protien, but I won't ever do <em>that</em> again.</p><p></p><p>Sure spooked us on the new bull we had, but we kept him around and never had a problem with him other than that one year when we fed the chickpeas.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="randiliana, post: 624151, member: 2308"] The bull is certainly not the be all and end all when it comes to BW and calving ease. The cow has a lot to do with it, as well as feed and weather. We have cows in our herd that will consistently throw larger calves regardless of what bull they are bred to and what the majority of his calves are like at birth. When you have one or 2 cows throw substantially larger calves as compared to the rest of the group bred to the same bull, you can definitely attribute the extra BW to the cow. I've also seen feed throw a kink into things. We fed split chick peas to our cows one winter in the last trimester (this was one of those learning experiences). Got them for free from the seed plant where DH was working. We were feeding good quality alfalfa to begin with and then added in about 5 lbs of chick peas per head. I mean, how could we go wrong with free feed?? Our BWs that year were probably 10 lbs heavier than we usually see, and we had more than one calf over 120 lbs. We were lucky, we had only 1 c-section, and pulled a few. No major wrecks, but it certainly could have been. Extremely high protien in the last trimester is NOT a good idea. Not to say that you want to deprive your cows of protien, but I won't ever do [i]that[/i] again. Sure spooked us on the new bull we had, but we kept him around and never had a problem with him other than that one year when we fed the chickpeas. [/QUOTE]
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