Calving, 2018

[frieghttrain]

Good luck with calving LF hope the all come easy and alive

 

[lithuanian farmer]

Good luck with calving LF hope the all come easy and alive

Fingers crossed! A friend of mine told me that this bull has some easy calving genetics in him, so we'll see. Hoping for heifers too!

 

[holm25]

Jeanne we seem to have the same opinion on those heavy muscled beasts. Don't care for them when they get like that. I've posted pics of a beef calf we have and he's the heaviest muscles calf we have had. I wouldn't want them any heavier than him.. But we do things differently on our side of the pond..

Well holm25, I don't care for light muscled calves or medicore ones.. you have nice calves but some of them seems too light muscled to me.

Buddy I by no means think our calves are perfect and you're right. A lot of them are too light muscles. We just culled three cows late raised light muscled calves. Our herd isn't perfect but it's gettinng closer to how we want it.

 

[lithuanian farmer]

Finally have the first BBx calf on the ground. Bull calf out of Charxdairy cow, 274days gestation.

I think I'll use bb for her again. She has a very good fertility and calving ease. Last year she has calved in the mid of November, went inheat on the Christmas day and stuck on the first AI then.

 

[lithuanian farmer]

The little boy today.
[youtube]https://youtu.be/KTFfkquMl8I[/youtube]

 

[lithuanian farmer]

Another bbx calf was born today. This time it's a heifer! :banana: 276days gestation, out of 3/4Char cow. Had heard many people saying to never cross Charolais with Belgian blue if you don't want trouble calving. I had some worries that these two girls might have extreme calves, but both proved me wrong. Can't say that these calves are small, would say abit over 90lbs, but we had more extreme calves from Limousine bulls.

[youtube]https://youtu.be/bWBbH4yS8Ic[/youtube]

 

[lithuanian farmer]

After a closer look at the calves, they seem to be heavier than I first thought. They easily could be over 100lbs, maybe close to 110lbs. Bull calf has a shorter, but abit wider body. Heifer is tall, has longer body, narrow shoulders, small long head, but pretty wide and more meaty rear. Not a problem for their dams. Both had around 110lbs Limox calves in the past without any trouble.

 

[lithuanian farmer]

My favorite heifer this year. Going to be the scale smasher for sure. She is June born.

Two weeks younger heifer than the first one. Dam seems to be proud of this one.

My heifer. Born in July. Have twin full sisters born last year and those two have horns. This one is polled.

 

[lithuanian farmer]

I always love watching calves... But it is just a pleasure to watch these two. They sure look like twins!

 

[lithuanian farmer]

Holy moly - that's a lot of udder!! Calf shouldn't starve if it can find those tiny nipples.

She seems to be doing just fine!

 

[lithuanian farmer]

Bluex calves are filling up slowly. They definitely will have more meat than an average calf, but I believe that they won't be that extreme, especially heifer. Bull calf is much wider, so he should be quite a tank in the future. Heifer is pictured at 9 days age.

What I've noticed so far that all AI calves seem to have better growth and they are softer looking that similar age calves from our bull. Will take some photos of Angusx calves, when I'll return home after ~2weeks. It'll be interesting to see them at the weaning, but I believe they'll be some nice calves.

 

[lithuanian farmer]

[youtube]https://youtu.be/0-sEDshEFRE[/youtube] Already one month old. Like them a lot. Already planning which Charx cows will get BB for their next calf. Will be interesting to see BBxLimoxCharx calf in January.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

they are really tanks!

 

[lithuanian farmer]

they are really tanks!

Yes, especially the bull calf and they have longer fur. He was very wide since the first days. Heifer seems to be getting abit wider now. They are growing very well. The red small heifer is a couple days older and the black heifer is almost 1.5months older that these two. I guess, BB and Charolais works very well together to increase the growth and have decent shape.

 

[Muddy]

Belgian Blues crossed well with Charolais and Limousin from what I seen on a group on Facebook. Meaty tanks for sure! Plus they makes a pretty show calf or a show steer...

 

[lithuanian farmer]

Belgian Blues crossed well with Charolais and Limousin from what I seen on a group on Facebook. Meaty tanks for sure! Plus they makes a pretty show calf or a show steer...

I've seen many BBx on facebook too. Very popular cross to produce a show animal in most parts of the Europe. Most of the time it's a bluex cow which produces a show calf. No such shows here, where you can show your commercial animals, compete in a competition in the breed group, but I want to put abit more shape on cows at first, that could get some nice calves. There is always a risk with calving, but all breeds can cause difficult calving. So far I'm very happy with the calving. Of course, have chosen those cows, which have proven themselves as easy calvers. Will use Charolais for the dam of the heifer this time, to get a calf with higher Char %, but the dam of bull will get BB. She's a very plain cow so you need quite a nice bull to put some shape on the calf. There will be at least one more Charx and two Limox cows, for which I plan to use BB after their calving this spring.