Calving ease bull question

[Rafter S]

I'm bored. The TV is broken, and my wife isn't home, and I saw a few Discussions that got me to thinking (and yes, I'm being careful not to hurt myself). I often see calving ease referred to as a desirable quality for bulls. Do any of you have problems with mature cows having calves, or know someone that does? And I don't mean some of the exotic breeds like Belgian Blue, but common breeds. While I agree that calving ease is a big concern for first-calf heifers, I never give it a thought for older cows. Is this a trait that may be getting more attention than it really needs or deserves, possibly at the expense of other, more important traits?

And I'll be the first to admit that I know next to nothing about selecting a bull by EPD's. Just trying to get a discussion started and maybe learn something.

 

[kenny thomas]

I will be the first to admit that I do not chase calving ease bulls. I think we as cattlemen have chased the calving ease at the expense of good growth. Saying that I have in the past AI'ed to some of the top bulls in the breed and then cleaned up with a bull that I use on my mature cows without any issues. If a heifer or a mature cow will not have a calf from a breed average Angus bull or now days most of the other breeds we need to look at our management instead of EPD's. Most of the major breeds have almost no calving problems now if you buy the middle of the road EPD's or less.

 

[gizmom]

My TV isn't broken but this topic is more interesting than anything on TV. I believe in using a low birth weight bull on heifers, but I do have concerns. If you keep stacking low birth weight genetics don't you think you could run into an issue of heifers with such small pelvic areas they can't have a calf?

We use some moderate to high birth weight bulls on our mature cows, but have a lot of customers that want low birth weight bulls so we have to have a good mix to supply our customers.

gizmom

 

[dun]

If you keep stacking low birth weight genetics don't you think you could run into an issue of heifers with such small pelvic areas they can't have a calf?
gizmom

That one is a simple answer but it has an "if" attached. Just because a bull sires smallish claves it doesn;t mean that his daughters will have small pelvic size. The "if" comes in concerning selecting for maternal calving ease. If properly sloected there should be no issues. We wouldn;t think of breeding heifers without first having a plevic measurement made.
The reason we use calivng ease bulsl on heifers isn;t because they can;t have a larger calf. It's because we want her to calve real easily and be up and tending that calf as soon as it's born. Although some of those calving ease bulls calves grow a little slower then larger BW bulls, by the time they reach 2 years old there really isn;t much weight/frame difference between them. By 3 you can;t tell the difference unless one bull is a smaller frame bull then the other. We use bulls that are around a 6 to 6.5 so the mature size is pretty close.

 

[Muddy]

I tends to avoid using any bulls that has a BW of 35-55lbs.

 

[Lazy M]

Last fall I pulled 17 of 40 first calf heifers that were bred to a gelvbieh bull with just slightly above average ce numbers. Most were HARD pulls. Ended up losing 4 calves but saved all the heifers. The gentleman that I bought them from had used this bull for the previous 2 breeding seasons with heifers and claimed to never had had to assist one..The heifers all scored really well for pelvic measurement. After that I definitely put value in the ce numbers when breeding heifers. And for cows I try to stay at our slightly below average bw numbers..I'm not going through that crap again.

 

[gizmom]

Dun

You do a pelvic measurement on all your heifers? I confess we don't. I have the tool to do it just one of those things we have never got in the habit of doing. We don't have calving issues with our heifers, we have had a few heifers having 80 pound calves with no issues but like you, would rather for the first calf keep the size between 60 and 70 pounds. When do you recommend taking the pelvic measurement?

gizmom

 

[kenny thomas]

Dun

You do a pelvic measurement on all your heifers? I confess we don't. I have the tool to do it just one of those things we have never got in the habit of doing. We don't have calving issues with our heifers, we have had a few heifers having 80 pound calves with no issues but like you, would rather for the first calf keep the size between 60 and 70 pounds. When do you recommend taking the pelvic measurement?

gizmom

Not Dun, but I would think you should take the pelvic measurement when you are culling at weaning. If it doesn't make the grade then it doesn't deserve the cost of keeping.

 

[dun]

Dun

You do a pelvic measurement on all your heifers? I confess we don't. I have the tool to do it just one of those things we have never got in the habit of doing. We don't have calving issues with our heifers, we have had a few heifers having 80 pound calves with no issues but like you, would rather for the first calf keep the size between 60 and 70 pounds. When do you recommend taking the pelvic measurement?

gizmom

Not Dun, but I would think you should take the pelvic measurement when you are culling at weaning. If it doesn't make the grade then it doesn't deserve the cost of keeping.

Since after weaning our heifers are just on pasture with the bred cows we keep the ones that we are interested in (the others go to the salebarn as feeders) and do a RTS and pelvic at spring woekup when they are around 12-13 months old. We haven;t had one not make the pelvic size cut in a lot of years. It's like the elephant repelent, may not be really needed but ti's darn cheap insurance in case something crops up. We like heifers to have 70-80 lb calves, we haven;t used a really extremely low BW bull in more then 10 years. Our minimum pelvic adjusted to yearling is 161, most run in the 168-174 range.
Wednesday is selection day for the heifers from this year. Those that don;t make the cut will be at the salebarn on thursday along with the steers.

 

[wbvs58]

Back to the original question in the 8 years I have been calving on average 30 Angus cows I can't recall having to help a mature cow, of those 30 about 6or 7 will be heifers and I keep them close and will usually help 1 or 2 each year. Whether I really need to help them I don't know I suspect they are just trying to put off the inevitable for as long as possible before getting down to serious business but because they are in handy I would rather deal with it and get a good nights sleep.
My neighbour on the other hand has a herd of very nice large crossbred cows of about 30 and he will be there morn and night for a couple of months and will have to help mature cows with Dr Toyota and most years will lose one cow and a couple of cows. I think his herd started out as Murray Greys and since has used Romagnola, Limosin, Senepol and currently Speckle Park bulls plus a couple of others I can't think of but always big bulls so cow herd is pretty big. He will usually use one of his brothers Angus bulls on his heifers and won't have much trouble there.
It takes two to Tango and with big frame cows and big frame bulls the calves are big and there is no margin for error.
Ken

 

[bse]

University of TN has brain washed everybody on this LBW stuff and there winning.
If your gonna sell bulls here they are gonna need to be LBW, most folks have 15 to 20 cows keep 2 heifers every year, so there convinced LBW is the only way to go, and give up so much just to get the 2 heifers bred.

I told a guy a few weeks ago, I give Im gonna breed everything AI to one LBW bull. UT wins, but after a few more weeks, not gonna do that totally, will do some, and all heifers to LBW bull but the rest will get bulls that are more moderate BW.

My vet has quit worrying about pelvic measurment, he says size of the heifer and body condition is more important. I just listen to him, it does make sense to me smaller underconditioned heifers smaller pevic measurement. I can tell size and body condition, but never done a pelvic measurement, so it has saved a vet bill on that.

 

[bball]

University of TN has brain washed everybody on this LBW stuff and there winning.
If your gonna sell bulls here they are gonna need to be LBW, most folks have 15 to 20 cows keep 2 heifers every year, so there convinced LBW is the only way to go, and give up so much just to get the 2 heifers bred.

I told a guy a few weeks ago, I give Im gonna breed everything AI to one LBW bull. UT wins, but after a few more weeks, not gonna do that totally, will do some, and all heifers to LBW bull but the rest will get bulls that are more moderate BW.

My vet has quit worrying about pelvic measurment, he says size of the heifer and body condition is more important. I just listen to him, it does make sense to me smaller underconditioned heifers smaller pevic measurement. I can tell size and body condition, but never done a pelvic measurement, so it has saved a vet bill on that.

I could not agree more with your post. I see this very thing amongst the cattleman around me... and you can not barely have a discussion about it with them. Mindset is fixed.

 

[TCRanch]

We use LBW/calving ease bulls on our heifers & cows & heifers are pelvic measured when they get their BANGS. I personally think it depends on the cow. Last year we didn't pull a single heifer; the calves we lost were from "seasoned" cows (pulled 1 calf this year, a "gift" from our neighbor's bull but didn't lose a single calf). A 4 year old (around 1300 lbs) had a mal-placed, 87 lb bull calf that was dead by the time we were able to re-position & pull it. Had a 2000 lb 7 year old cow that went into labor late one evening, wouldn't let us near her but we figured it wasn't her 1st rodeo so left her alone, found her with a dead 117 lb bull calf the next morning. We sold a 5 year old cow that consistently spit out dinky calves & she clocked in at 2068 lbs at the Sale Barn. Some of our smallest cows raise the biggest calves but all are in good body condition. So my point is, awesome EPD's (including WW, docility, milk, etc) are desirable but subjective.

 

[crimsoncrazy]

I personally think a 2 year old heifer should be able to calve a breed average birthweight angus calf without too much trouble.

 

[wbvs58]

I find that when selling bulls to the producers that have the size herd to need multiple bulls their line of thought is that the new bull will go in with the heifers just due to their smaller physical size and that they will graduate to the main herd in subsequent years so they always seem to be after low birth weight bulls as replacements so they can sleep easy.
Ken

 

[cow pollinater]

It's hard to sell bulls that aren't calving ease. Even when a customer uses them on cows they really like to see lots of yellow "trait leader" in the catalog. In reality, there are lots of perfectly acceptable two star calving ease bulls... we're talking a pound or two difference between them and the four stars. Once they hit about 75% reliable they're good to go. There are very few angus bulls that I wouldn't use on a predominately angus heifer in my own cattle. A plus three on BW is still better than most continental sires when you adjust the numbers to an angus base and I've bred hundreds of heifers to char bulls for customers without calving problems.
Breed plays a factor as well. Some breeds are more resilient than others and can have a big calf and recover from it. On the dairy side of things about fifteen years ago there was a study where they put a bunch of jersey embryos into holstien heifers and holstein embryos into jerseys... The jerseys still didn't have many calving problems and the holsteins still did. Resilient cattle can handle more stress.

 

[Lazy M]

I find that when selling bulls to the producers that have the size herd to need multiple bulls their line of thought is that the new bull will go in with the heifers just due to their smaller physical size and that they will graduate to the main herd in subsequent years so they always seem to be after low birth weight bulls as replacements so they can sleep easy.
Ken

Good response. Most that retain heifers don't want to separate the heifers for breeding and want a bull that will be able to service cows and heifers with no expected problems. Plus they don't want to spend the money for an extra ce specialist bull just for heifers, or invest the extra time and expense for ai

 

[Till-Hill]

In our operation we watch CED more than BW. Our calves this year on heifers mainly SimAngus were 72-93# cows were (few clubby calves) 56-103#, 56# is a very small cow and same bull the 103# calf..

Last year we had 4 calves on first calf heifers 91,92,93,95#. Pulled the 93# calf but she was one with little clubby behind her and a 100# calf herself.

We use sexed semen hard on our heifers and have a heifer to calve this spring that is 5th generation heifer out of a heifer. I find the more CED we put in while keeping an average BW is where we will stay.

My grandpa used to say a long lean 100# bull will slid right out but a 50# one shaped like a sink plug in no good to him and I guess we stay with that.

 

[Jake]

My grandpa would only use heifer bulls if it was up to him. The big hard calving chars and simmies of the 70s and 80s soured him on anything not calving ease.

IMO it's a waste of a breeding to use a light birth weight bull on cows. Heifers need it sure. But I want some BW in my bulls that I'm using on cows.

 

[polledbull]

maybe your wife will be home soon. LOL