Does Calf Size Matter?

[ALACOWMAN]

Cows usually have a calf that will weigh around 6-7% of her bodyweight on average according to how her nutrition was managed.

Ollie's big calf was under that figure. Normal.

yeah but a calf during that last trimester can starve a cow to death and still be to big for a easy delivery. if it were all according to a cows weight. no dought you don't want them over conditoned especially heifers. but it not a exact indicator of the calf size.

 

[ALACOWMAN]

course im talk'in from a comercial stand point only. from dealing with crossbred cows and different breeds of bulls over the years.

 

[BRG]

I have a neighbor that ussually doesn't have much trouble, and he uses all Red Angus bulls. He buys heifer bulls for his cows and cow bulls for his cows. A few years back it was dry and hay was expensive, so he was supplementing extra protein to them to get by. He did not do a protein check on his hay first so he did not know what what happening. When calving came around he was in a hurt bag. He had several huge calves out of his heifers and had some zipper cows before it was all over. Him and I both know it was not the bulls because he used the same bulls before and after this without any trouble.

I guess what I am saying here is that management plays a big role in birthweights.

Also, cow size and breed most definetely does play a big role in birthweight, as a 1600 lbs char cross or Gelb cross will ussually throw a bigger calf than a 1350 lbs Angus/ herf. But that does not mean you will have more problems with the bigger cattle either as their pelvic will most likely be bigger as well.

 

[randiliana]

You are right about protien. We had the same thing happen one year. My husband was working for a seed plant, and they would give us the split chickpeas to feed the cows. Of course we never even considered the high protien, but that year we had numerous calves over 130#. 1 c-section out of a cow, and several hard pulls. Never had the same problem before that year or after with the same bulls.

 

[MikeC]

Birthweight is about 30% genetic and 70% decided by other factors.

 

[ALACOWMAN]

Birthweight is about 30% genetic and 70% decided by other factors.

the original question was would someone use a bull that weighed 118 at birth when his siblings weighed considerbly less. what was the factor in the calfs weight. if not the moma? if your talkin bigger birth weights leads to higher weaning weights. ive seen humans babie born 10-12 pnd turn out shrimps as adults. guess what im saying the outside factors aint figuring in with a true geneticaly large calf as opposed to just being fat birth. by the way what percent is it. i forget is just water anyway

 

[ollie?]

Bull calf number 5 was born this morning. 86#
What are the odds of 5 bull calves from the same flush and no heifers.

 

[ALACOWMAN]

Bull calf number 5 was born this morning. 86#
What are the odds of 5 bull calves from the same flush and no heifers.

yeah imagine that. just what are the odds.

 

[Tod Dague]

Bull calf number 5 was born this morning. 86#
What are the odds of 5 bull calves from the same flush and no heifers.

Pretty dang good. We are running about 90% bulls out of our ET's since we started.

 

[ollie?]

Or is it ignorant like Brandonm says to use a bull that weighs over or under (X)? What I find interesting is the epd's are the same yet the calves have a 44lb bw range so far. How well are epd's predicting the difference between the bw of these calves,which should be none? BTW frankie, he's the only bull I have any interest in so far, a friend I sell some bulls to said not to cut him, he might like to use him (after hearing the whole story.) :lol: Brandon, I'll give you my friends number so you can tell him how unethical it would be for me to take his money and let him have the calf with his manhood in tact. He's kind of a nieve fella that runs about 600 cows.

I never said it was unethical too not cut the bull. I just said that I would NOT buy the bull or advise anyone else too buy the bull. Not every calf in even the best herds SHOULD be used as a bull and the ethical breeder does have some selection criteria; but if you sold him, GREAT....more power too you. Now next year when the guy has a cow that dies delivering a moose of a calf out there......hopefully the guy will remember that you told him what the birth weight was before the purchase.....and not just dawg you and your herd all over town for years.....like they like to do around here.

Brandon take a look at this bull if you think mine was bad. BA told me about this one. He weighed a bunch and was an ET calf. http://old.redangus.org/cgi-bin/extped.4ge?552940

 

[Brandonm2]

Or is it ignorant like Brandonm says to use a bull that weighs over or under (X)? What I find interesting is the epd's are the same yet the calves have a 44lb bw range so far. How well are epd's predicting the difference between the bw of these calves,which should be none? BTW frankie, he's the only bull I have any interest in so far, a friend I sell some bulls to said not to cut him, he might like to use him (after hearing the whole story.) :lol: Brandon, I'll give you my friends number so you can tell him how unethical it would be for me to take his money and let him have the calf with his manhood in tact. He's kind of a nieve fella that runs about 600 cows.

I never said it was unethical too not cut the bull. I just said that I would NOT buy the bull or advise anyone else too buy the bull. Not every calf in even the best herds SHOULD be used as a bull and the ethical breeder does have some selection criteria; but if you sold him, GREAT....more power too you. Now next year when the guy has a cow that dies delivering a moose of a calf out there......hopefully the guy will remember that you told him what the birth weight was before the purchase.....and not just dawg you and your herd all over town for years.....like they like to do around here.

Brandon take a look at this bull if you think mine was bad. BA told me about this one. He weighed a bunch and was an ET calf. http://old.redangus.org/cgi-bin/extped.4ge?552940

Doesn't mean a thing to me. We all play the percentages or there would be no reason to record individual performance at all. ~16 months ago, somebody showed me a highly proven sire who was in the Angus's top 20% for weaning wt EPD. His adjusted weaning weight was only ~476 pounds. He submitted that as evidence that we should not castrate sub-500 lb BEEF bulls. Does the fact that he weaned off a dink; but grew into a PERFORMANCE sire change MY MIND that his nuts should have come off??? NOPE, not at all. Most dinky little toads sire mostly dinky little toads. Granted there may have been some kind of bizarre production reason for his horrid pre-weaning performance; but how do we improve if we do not put selection pressure on the cattle? Likewise a calf who is too large at birth is more likely too sire large calves. THAT does not mean that EVERY single MOOSE is going to sire a disproportionate share of mooses. Some could become the low birth weight king in their breed; but it would be less risky to get rid of the outliers. I don't think anybody who performance tests has any problem sending a bull that gained 1.2 lbs a day on a test where the other bulls averaged 2.85 lbs a day to the stockyard. Genetically there PROBABLY is nothing wrong with that poor doing bull. In fact, it probably WAS just a little pneumonia or acidosis or he got rode hard by the other bulls in the pen, or he missed his mommie and he will work perfectly fine out there siring commercial calves; but if you routinely ignore poor ADG, low scrotal circumference, low weaning weight, a poor milking cow, coke bottle teats, poor rear leg set, and kept breeding those animals because otherwise the animal looks good, has a nice pedigree, and studly EPDs then EVENTUALLY some of it is going to have a realworld genetic correlation and you are going to get a reputation for selling cattle with problems.

You and Mike are PROBABLY right. The EPDs are good, the calf looks good, the pedigree may be the best in the breed, and it PROBABLY was not the calf's fault that he grew much bigger in the womb than any of his contemporaries. It could be the recip's fault. She might have eaten too much protein. Jupiter was aligned with Mars...whatever. All that is possible, even likely; but how do you weed out flaws if we have no standards? Have we reached a point where any bull with the right EPDs and pedigree gets to sell semen no matter what his actual performance is?

 

[ollie?]

but how do we improve if we do not put selection pressure on the cattle?

You'll never catch me advocating not putting selection pressure or even reducing selection pressure Brandon. I'm all for it. We need better bulls and cows. I'm just saying God give you and me a brain. We can use it and don't have to just go by an arbitrary number. I just thought the Milk Creek bull backed up the thought that this calfs BW could have easily came from the recip. Nothing more.

 

[preston39]

Mississippi State University

7. How can I get cows to have low-birthweight calves?
The objective for any producer should be to have as large a calf as possible born to the cow without complications.

I have tremendous respect for my friends at Mississippi State; but I completely reject that statement. If a breeder can not supply me with bulls which will consistently give me a calf crop with average birth weights in the 80s AND weaning weights in the high 500s....I will find a new breeder.

========
I too disagree with the statement. Good genetics are telling us we can end with the same product with less stress and demands on dam.

Brandonm,

How about BW in the 60-70 range and 205 Adj. WW 650-700. Acceptable?

Our avg BW ..fall '06 was 67#. Those guys are approaching
600. (eye check to date). Anxious to see the weights here in a few weeks...around April 15th....will try to remember to share the results. We will be disappointed if they dont average 675+#. These are mixed/angus/commercial with angus sire.

One set of twins will almost match mom's weight(4/15)...we expect.
(I have a little wager with one of the guys..if not he and his wife gets a cruise) :help: ( He deserves it anyway)

 

[Northern Rancher]

Well seeing as alot of our cows calve in the bush unobserved I'd pass on him-I'm sure there are lots of guys that barn calve and babysit who'd lap him up in a minute. When we select bulls they better have an acceptable BW and BW E.P.D-in the last 1500 calves out of mature cows we've never had a single assist-dead calves have a terrible growth rate and cows that die in the bush calving don't rebreeed very well. I don't have the labour or inclination to push the BW envelope-back in our Charolais days we ran some bigger BW bulls and got by with it-we get some fairly hefty Angus and South Devon calves even now but so far so good as far as calving troubles.

 

[DOC HARRIS]

A friend of mine had 3 bull calves in the last two days. He's in the purebred business. One calf weighed 74, one weighed 83, and one weighed 118. They all have similiar epd's and were fairly close to the correct gestation.

Would the heavier calf's BW deter you from buying him?


Just want some opinions......................

YES

DOC HARRIS

 

[MikeC]

A friend of mine had 3 bull calves in the last two days. He's in the purebred business. One calf weighed 74, one weighed 83, and one weighed 118. They all have similiar epd's and were fairly close to the correct gestation.

Would the heavier calf's BW deter you from buying him?


Just want some opinions......................

YES

DOC HARRIS

WHY?

 

[ALACOWMAN]

What if I told you the cow spit this calf out in about 5 minutes after her water bag broke? Totally unassisted

I don't care if she delivered a calf that weighed 125# in two minutes - I would breed the cow to a LOW BW bull and 'feedlot' the calf. Anything that weighs over 100#s is too big for a breeding herd. We have just discussed, on the Forum in the last week or so, the problems of brood cows getting too big, and this is an example of it. The old argument that "we sell POUNDS" is true, but keeping cows that produce calves that weigh over 100# is NOT the way to manage a successful Beef operation! What goes around - comes around, and sooner or later the Genetics of TOO LARGE seedstock will COME AROUND and your Mortality rate will soar, and your $Profit will drop like a lead balloon!

DOC HARRIS

this must be why. I know its been a week and ya'll have slept since then but surely yall aint that forgetful

 

[BRG]

Doc,

I too wander why you would not use him, when you are the one that ussually talks and pushes epd's.

 

[jnowack]

Doc,

I too wander why you would not use him, when you are the one that ussually talks and pushes epd's.

EPD's are computed using ratios. When this calf ratio's high on bw, then his EPD will go up. At this point he will still be an unproven bull with little accuracy. And any cattleman worth his salt will look at the actual bw, along with the epd and make his decision based on that. There are undoubtedly some people out there who would buy the bull but there are a lot more who would pass on him for that reason. As purebred breeders we need to produce cattle that will work for our customers and that are marketable. The high bw would make him unmarketable for me. Even if I had a customer who wanted him, I would be reluctant to sell a bull with that kind of BW because if he turns out to be a hard calver I would likely not only lose that customer but other potental custmers that come in contact with the unsatisfied one. For me it is not worth risking your reputation on a potential train wreck.

 

[MikeC]

Doc,

I too wander why you would not use him, when you are the one that ussually talks and pushes epd's.

EPD's are computed using ratios. When this calf ratio's high on bw, then his EPD will go up. At this point he will still be an unproven bull with little accuracy. And any cattleman worth his salt will look at the actual bw, along with the epd and make his decision based on that. There are undoubtedly some people out there who would buy the bull but there are a lot more who would pass on him for that reason. As purebred breeders we need to produce cattle that will work for our customers and that are marketable. The high bw would make him unmarketable for me. Even if I had a customer who wanted him, I would be reluctant to sell a bull with that kind of BW because if he turns out to be a hard calver I would likely not only lose that customer but other potental custmers that come in contact with the unsatisfied one. For me it is not worth risking your reputation on a potential train wreck.

All the calves will have the same EPD for BW. He's an ET calf with a different breed dam.