Calving, 2018

[lithuanian farmer]

Turned cows on the fresh grass just recently, but it already looks that calves gain more weight and started getting into better shape.
A couple days old heifer out of 2nd calver. Loads of milk...

Other calves:
June 18th born heifer.

2.5 weeks old heifer.

1.5weeks old.

Almost two months old

Almost three months old.

4 months old.

7months old heifer.

Almost 7 months old.

Almost 3months old.

And the bull calf I like the most.He's almost 4 months old, 7/8limo.

Calves' sire today:

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

You sure have meat wagons!!!

 

[lithuanian farmer]

You sure have meat wagons!!!

Thanks. :tiphat:

 

[lithuanian farmer]

Finally, fall calving heifers started calving. The first one is bred by Limousine bull. Had a medium size bull calf today, guess around 90lbs or a bit less.. 290days gestation, calved unassisted. Heifer is 7/8Limousine. She was a bit confused what to do with the newborn. Haven't even licked it and walked away to the herdmates. Brought the steel pen. Put both in it. She was calling for the calf. Nursed the calf well, haven't lifted the leg even once. Then let both out. She started licking him and both walked to the herd.

The next one due is the limoxbbxdairy heifer we bought from a neighbour last year. 282 days today, but still hasn't prepared yet. One more heifer should be due this month too. Then later in September the first AI calves will arrive from heifers.
And just for fun. Took a couple photos early this morning when went to check heifer. It sure was a nice view.

 

[lithuanian farmer]

Counting the last calves until the AI group. Today had a heifer born. 289days gestation. Around 95lbs or so. Cow's calves has a very good growth, so maybe this girl will be added to the herd later. Plan about culling the cow, as she is naturally skinnier than almost all our cows (maybe even all) and it's harder to keep a condition for her sometimes.

Have a yearling heifer by the same bull as the little one.

And have a first calf heifer, but sired by another bull. Lost her first calf due to the size. The calf was 112lbs. The heifer has grown quite alot since then, so I'm pretty sure she'll be able to handle bigger calves in the future on her own.

Pretty good line. Tend to have bigger calves at birth, but rarely needed assistance and always has a good growth. Also very good mothers.

 

[lithuanian farmer]

The first AI calves from cows are due in less than a month. 285days on 6th and 7th of October. Both sired by the same Charolais bull. One is Charxdairy, another is 75%Char, 25% dairy.

And that's the bull they are incalf to... Fingers crossed that everything goes well.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

OMG - he is gross looking - freaky. Sorry, but he is UGLY in my mind. For as massive as he is, he looks short compared to the man holding him.

 

[lithuanian farmer]

OMG - he is gross looking - freaky. Sorry, but he is UGLY in my mind. For as massive as he is, he looks short compared to the man holding him.

I believe he's around one year age in the photo. It's quite a common look for a BB bull here. Have used BB only on dairy cows, so decided that it's be nice to try on beefx this time.
http://www.netbbg.com/netbbg.site/index.php/bull/sorcier/?lang=en

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

Oh yeah. Total ugliness to me!!! I realize that muscle is the most important thing to your market. They are just grotesque to me.

 

[lithuanian farmer]

Oh yeah. Total ugliness to me!!! I realize that muscle is the most important thing to your market. They are just grotesque to me.

I can understand why you think so! I like them until a certain point. This one doesn't look too bad for me, but have seem many photos, of the ones which isn't for my taste too.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

You are more used to looking at them. And, I'm sure you admire the muscling. Not to me.

 

[lithuanian farmer]

You are more used to looking at them. And, I'm sure you admire the muscling. Not to me.

Only in photos. Haven't seen a purebred in the real life... I like when it's proportional and the animal is able to move and breed well without any concern. Have only few which could be considered as more extreme muscled animals. Trying to breed something, which would calve well, but also would be able to produce some top priced commercial calves here.
I have chosen these cows for this bull, which are taller and longer, so the bull can add some muscles and it should make quite a nice calf.
Your cattle are what I would consider top quality even if they aren't extremely muscled, but still they a very nice. I want that our animals would earn us top prices as it's already getting harder to make a profit with lower quality. Have felt that a lot this year with a slight drop in quality and selling them at smaller size.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

You started with dairy cattle and have come a long way producing really nice muscled cattle. You shipped some "finished" bulls that would make any breeder proud to sell as breeding bulls.
Yes, the market here is also poor. Even though I raise PB cattle, the feeder/carcass price affects everything. Half my calf crop is basically sold as feeders and low price for feeders brings down the price of the bottom end of my heifers.

 

[lithuanian farmer]

Thanks.
Yeah, it looks that everybody had it rough for the past couple years. The feed price is growing here alot, while the cattle price is the same...
Have to admit that we had some bulls during the years, which I would have loved to use as a herd bull, or if we could find such looking bull. Even this year have a young bull calf, which looks just great and it'll be very hard to sell him as a weanling...
We bringing in some fresh blood with AI to improve the herd abit. Now it's a very high % Limo, so want to bring other breeds in, that later could use Limo bull and get more heterosis. So basically I want as many heifers as possible from AI, especially bbx. There will be just these two and one more calving with bb calf. We like our bbx cows alot, as their and their daughters calves always are in the top of the herd.

 

[lithuanian farmer]

Probably the last calf before the AI group. Heifer out of the "2nd calver". The cow has aborted her first calf last year. This year it's alive calf. To be fair, not sure where her udder came from. Her dam has a pretty small one. Her granddam and greatgranddam increased in milk during years and have developed big udders at around 9-10years of age, but still abit smaller and prettier looking.

Last year just after abortion.

Her dam after calving.

Have her full sister calving with her first calf in November. Hopefully, not as milky. I believe this girl won't stay here for long. We like milkier cows, but until they are not causing any trouble.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

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

 

[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..

 

[lithuanian farmer]

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

Hopefully. The calf should grow quite well. I was quite disappointed in the milkness of this girl's group. There are few individuals which could hardly raise a decent lamb. But if they'll improve like this one, it won't be a problem.
We had one cow with very small teats. Most of the time calves managed to find it on their own. The shape of the udder was very similar to this one too.
I joked with my mum that we could switch to dairy farming quite easily with such girls!

 

[Muddy]

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.

 

[frieghttrain]

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..

To each his own




This bull does alot of things right in my opinion