Calving ease calculations

Help Support CattleToday:

Aaron

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 26, 2005
Messages
5,277
Reaction score
170
Location
Stratton, ON, Canada
Typing up some records. Went back and looked at calving ease over the past decade.

Calved 393 calves. Assisted 38 in some way. All others born unassisted. Giving an unassisted calving percentage of 90.3%. Not sure how that compares to other people's figures. Majority of the ones requiring assistance had calves less than 100 lbs, with a percentage being due to twin messes. Over 100 lb calves are a normal occurrence for us.

Kind of reinforces the notion that we have bred for cows that can handle big calves (whether by purpose or accident) without intervention. :cowboy:
 
13 of the 38 were heifers. 53 heifers of the 393. So heifers calved unassisted 75.4% of the time. Cows calved unassisted 92.6% of the time. :cowboy:
 
Aaron":2j29qtg3 said:
13 of the 38 were heifers. 53 heifers of the 393. So heifers calved unassisted 75.4% of the time. Cows calved unassisted 92.6% of the time. :cowboy:
I cannot comment on what is good or bad (calving ease %)with any European breed but was wondering did any of the cows have the problem as heifers? How do you intend on improving on the calving? Different bull or culling cows?
Personally I think that having to pull almost 10% of the calves is unacceptable.
 
Aaron":228yntva said:
13 of the 38 were heifers. 53 heifers of the 393. So heifers calved unassisted 75.4% of the time. Cows calved unassisted 92.6% of the time. :cowboy:

10% assist seems high to me, about the only time we assist is if things are not progressing as they should, I trust my gut instinct on that as almost always it is a malpresentation or twins. Last year we only assisted one heifer (and she was culled), barely saw a calf born and had 2 sets of live, unassisted twins. In the registered herd we've had 7 assists in 4 years including 3 sets of twins, last years heifer and a rather large bull calf out of another heifer. Total of 128 calvings. That's not to say we haven't had a couple cows that had stillborn calves or slipped a calf at 7 or 8 months.
 
novatech":dhjeuwkn said:
Aaron":dhjeuwkn said:
13 of the 38 were heifers. 53 heifers of the 393. So heifers calved unassisted 75.4% of the time. Cows calved unassisted 92.6% of the time. :cowboy:
I cannot comment on what is good or bad (calving ease %)with any European breed but was wondering did any of the cows have the problem as heifers? How do you intend on improving on the calving? Different bull or culling cows?
Personally I think that having to pull almost 10% of the calves is unacceptable.

I looked back at a decade to give a big picture. If I go even more recent, the numbers improve.

In the past 5 years, 203 calves. Assisted 8. 1 was a heifer, 7 were cows.

Resulting in a unassisted rate of 96.2% in the cows and 92.8% in the heifers.

Improvements have largely been made in culling cows that required assistance and lost their calves. Not going to cull those requiring assistance, but have a live calf. May not select the calf as a replacement, but won't ship the cow.

Of the 8 that required assistance in the past 5 years, all are gone except the heifer, which will be leaving in the spring due to other reasons.

But I would be interested in other people's numbers. Don't count slips or premies. Count light pulls, hard pulls, malpresentations. :cowboy:
 
We have been using low birth weight BA bulls on heifers and cows. The cows run small by some people's standards - - most are 1000 to 1200#. We are building the herd so we calve about about 1/3 heifers and do worry about them a bit. But, it would be unusual to get a calf weighing over 75# except for couple exotic cross cows. They had large slow floppy calves that could not get up and nurse. The last exotic cross will go to McDonalds next fall. :D

We can buy red bred heifers for $650 to $750 so I look for reasons to cull. Anyone that has any attitude, calving, or mothering issues is gone. We tend to cull about 15% or attitude or mothering issues. Have not assisted a calf the last two years. Hope our luck holds. Cow herd was 37 head this spring, 49 head right now, and there are 52 6 wt. heifers in the pipeline. :cowboy:
 
Aaron
since the fall of 2006 I have calved out 498 calves, each yr I had no less than 20 hfrs and the first yr I had 85 hfrs I have pulled 7 calves out of the 498, 6 of which were hfrs and 1 this yr out of a 5 yr old cow it was breech
of the 6 on the hfrs 1 was a hard pull and a large calf around 95lbs, 5 were light pulls 2 of which I never even chained just pulled by hand
so my average on these is a little over 1.2%
 
Your post got me curious, so I went back over my records. Since 2003 we have had 272 calves. 7 have needed assistance 2.6%. Two with one front leg back, two came backwards, one of which required the calf puller, two were hip locked and required turning, and one was a C-section on a 13 month old heifer whom I didn't realize was pregnant until too late. That one is all my fault. I mistakenly believed since the bulls are out by the time the oldest calf is 5 months, that there was not a danger of heifers getting pregnant. This heifer was bred at 4 months and had a full term calf at 13 months. I also lost 3 calves who had been a twin to a surviving calf. Had I been there to assist I might have saved them. Of the 7 who needed assistance, 3 were heifers (including the 13 month old "mistake", one calf with a foot back, and one hip lock), and 4 were cows.
From 1993 to 2002 we lost two of 97 calves to dystocia and two suffocated when the cow failed to lick the placenta from his nose. It was the same cow, and yes I was actually stupid enough to give her a second chance when it happened to her as a heifer. She was so pretty. The second time I was down checking her about an hour earlier and came back to find her peacefully grazing several hundred feet from her suffocated calf. Some of us just have to learn everything the hard way. In 2002 I had been talked into using a Simmental bull who was supposedly calving ease. Four of 22 adult cows needed assistance. I had used an unproven Red Angus on my heifers and 4 of 8 needed assistance. The next year I went back to Black Angus bulls.
 

Latest posts

Top