Interesting on the weight debate. We have had heifers have some pretty big calves but not too often. Calve 10 to 20 new heifers every year, sometimes more sometimes less. We don't do pelvic measurements although it might be a good idea. Mostly we keep heifers out of the best producing cows, the ones that breed back every year, stay around forever, wean a good calf and are easy keepers. Also, DISPOSITION is a big thing to me. Gotta be good mothers without wanting to "get me". I am not their enemy and since I don't move as fast as when I was 30, don't want a cow to go nuts just cuz I am tagging her new calf. We use easy calving bulls on the heifers and mostly get smaller, 60-70 lb calves. When we do have trouble it seems to be more in cows and mostly breech birth. Maybe 1 or 2 at most. Have had to pull most breech that we see, but who knows who had a breech that just had it and we didn't see. Since we are commercial, cows that don't cut the mustard don't stay. We have bought some bred heifers over the years, and for us that is just headaches. Finally convinced my son that we are not buying heifers no matter how cheap. Raise our own, know the background and be a lot better off. We do buy and sell some cows, and have kept some nice heifers out of some of them. I like to calve my heifers in the 27-30 month range. Maybe a little old for some people, but we seem to have alot less calving problems, and they tend to know what to do a little better and come into their milk. We do very little supplemental feeding, want them to be grass cattle. This works for us, may not be what is best for anyone else.
Since I calve out the heifers, and check twice a day at least, I want to go find a calf on the ground, not the heifer on the ground with a problem. Because we rent many places, they are accustomed to getting on and off the trailer and being handled and around people, so are maybe a little more quiet than some places that don't do alot of groundwork with their animals. I don't even know how to start &drive the 4wheeler...use my old little ranger pu to check cows, and they are in fields that aren't too big, 5-10 acres; get them calved and move out to pastures. And when they go off to calve, I take a bucket of grain with me, as they are all trained to come in for grain so we can pen them to move them, and give momma a little grain on the ground as I am working with her calf. Usually get it done before any of the others figure out there's grain and the new mom takes the calf off a little and just looks at me like that's enough leave us alone. We spend alot of time on foot in the pastures with the heifers growing up and they do get supplemented with grain when growing so they are used to people in and around them. I talk to them alot so they are accustomed to my voice too. Seems some years it's the luck of the draw for problems...
