First calves this year

[lithuanian farmer]

Finally after two unsuccessful heifers calvings we've new alive calves this year. Had two heifers calved in January, but both had dead heifer calves. Both heifers are around 1300lbs. One had 112lbs calf, ~285days gestation, found the half of the calf stuck, but already dead. The second had 111lbs calf, 288days gestation, I have pulled the calf in ~25minutes, but it was too slow and calf died during calving, also heifer's uterus has fallen out and it was 10.40pm. Now both heifers are in the herd again and hope that they'll get incalf soon.
Now about the new alive calves: one is a heifer(the black one), 98lbs BW, out of 1/2Angus, 1/4Salers, 1/4dairy cow, very easy calving. The second(the red)is a bull calf, BW is ~98-100lbs, out of Angusxdairy cow, which is the dam of the first cow, very easy calving too.

Now going to have two more heifers sired by the same bull to calve, one in April and one in May, so going to keep a very close eye one them. They are a bit smaller and one is out of BBxdairy cow, which sometimes has a bit harder calving if calf is over 110lbs.

 

[cowgirl8]

What age do you breed your heifers?.... We're calving out 50 heifers this year. Had 5 so far, pulled one dead..so 4 on the ground. Last year we lost our first 4. We breed our heifers at 14 months and use bulls for average of 50 pound calves.

 

[lithuanian farmer]

Mainly at 20-24months age. For this calving season had five heifers to calve, three already calved, one had 75lbs bull calf, two had dead calves, so left only two more. These heifers were lighter at the breeding than we'd like, only ~1000-1100lbs. In calf to a pure Limousine bull. Last year calved 12 heifers with that bull's calves and no one needed any help, all calved easily, average BW 70-90lbs, so were quite confident about these heifers too. Any meal were given, only on grass at the summer and on the hay at the winter time.

 

[Nesikep]

Sorry to hear about your losses, but the calves look nice, and hopefully the other two behave.

My Mega is at 288 days today.. getting really close to seeing my first Limousin calf and I'm excited

 

[SPH]

Nice looking calves. I'm not trying to be negative by saying this but those are some heavy birth weights for heifers to be calving in my opinion. Not sure what kind of bull you are using but even for our mature cows I'd have some concerns if he's consistently throwing 110+ lb birth weights especially with first calf heifers. A live calf is always better than a dead one

 

[lithuanian farmer]

Sorry to hear about your losses, but the calves look nice, and hopefully the other two behave.

My Mega is at 288 days today.. getting really close to seeing my first Limousin calf and I'm excited

Thanks.
Hope everything goes well for you.

 

[lithuanian farmer]

Nice looking calves. I'm not trying to be negative by saying this but those are some heavy birth weights for heifers to be calving in my opinion. Not sure what kind of bull you are using but even for our mature cows I'd have some concerns if he's consistently throwing 110+ lb birth weights especially with first calf heifers. A live calf is always better than a dead one

I agree. Don't like such heifer calves myself too. Don't mind such calves from cows, but for heifers better to have calves max 95lbs. We use a pure Limousine bull. This year he'll work for the third season in our herd. He's a young bull, three years old in January. Not a big bull, only ~1900lbs. From all his calves( we'd ~40 already) probably just four calves were 110lbs+, two dead from heifers, one 117lbs bull calf out of BBxdairy cow and one bull calf out of huge Herefordxdairy cow. We helped for the BBx cow, but doubt if it was necessary, Herx cow calved in a couple minutes, but she is very easy calver, never had any calving problems, so we used to like using Char bulls for her. Lets not forget that last year there was one very young heifer in calf to that Limo bull. She calved at 15 months, but calf alive and is growing quite well. The biggest problem with those heifers calves was that both had muscular bodies, especially rear part like a week old calf. If they had less round-shaped rear, heifers would have managed to calve on their own. However, there might be one more thing that caused harder calvings like that they are lighter boned heifers. Their sire was light boned and was lighter in weight than others bulls.

 

[WalnutCrest]

Lighter bone leads to harder calving?

Thanks for the pictures and narrative.

 

[glacierridge]

Lighter bone leads to harder calving?

Thanks for the pictures and narrative.

Double muscle usually have lighter bone, double muscle usually have more calving issues.

Sorry about the losses, I hope the rest go smooth.

 

[WalnutCrest]

Lighter bone leads to harder calving?

Thanks for the pictures and narrative.

Double muscle usually have lighter bone, double muscle usually have more calving issues.

Sorry about the losses, I hope the rest go smooth.

Ok ... so the comment was more about the double muscling than the lighter bone.

And, I concur ... sorry about the losses. Good luck w/ the coming calves.

 

[lithuanian farmer]

Lighter boned heifers and cows have more calving problems, because that they have more narrow pelvic bones. It's in the Belgian Blue and Piedmontese breeds. They calve okay until the calf gets wider. Lighter boned cattle usually has low BW. A friend of mine has a small beef farm, always used only low BW bulls and left their daughters as replacements and then used low BW bulls on them too. Now his heifers can't calve naturally, always needs to do c-section, and only about one quarter of cows can calve naturally even that bulls he use produce small calves. Now he's going to slaughter all his cattle and then buy new cows or heifers. Our heifers also were born quite small, guess ~75-85lbs, so deliver 110lbs+ the first calves were a problem. Don't worry much about their another calves, despite that girls will get in calf to the same bull.

 

[Muddy]

Sounds like someone needs a bull with better CE, not a bull with low BW.

 

[WalnutCrest]

Sounds like someone needs a bull with better CE, not a bull with low BW.

+1

 

[lithuanian farmer]

Here in bulls info you rarely can find it's birth weight, but it's written if he's an easy calver and suitable for heifers or harder calver and suitable for only matured cows. So when you use a bull, which is an easy calver, you think that he'll produce only smaller calves. But here we call small calves under 90lbs. 66lbs are already very small, that rarely appears in beef farms if cow has only one calf. Normal calf weight is 90-110lbs, but in some breeds, like Charolais or Maine Anjou, 110-120lbs is an average BW for calves. Over 120lbs it's already big calf and above 140lbs it's already a huge calf. But a couple days ago one my friend had a heifer calved, SimxLimo. She was incalf to Sim bull, harder calver, used his straw by an accident. Calf's BW was ~143lbs. Pulled the calf with a calving jack, but both heifer and calf are okay. The 1st calver's weight is ~1650lbs.
If to return to the calves birth weights, you can't be sure about it even if bull you use is an easy calver, because only a half of calf's weight depends from it's sire. Another half comes form it's dam. We used one AI Angus bull on one heifer, he's a normal calver, but from Angus you won't expect more than 100lbs, but we'd a 120lbs bull calf. :shock: Let's not forget that the heifer herself was Angus sired, so the calf was 3/4Angus. Calf has stuck and died, heifer even didn't managed to pull it's head out.

 

[Nesikep]

Something many people don't realize is I think you breed your heifers at about 2 years old as well, which helps them get a bigger frame, right?

 

[lithuanian farmer]

Something many people don't realize is I think you breed your heifers at about 2 years old as well, which helps them get a bigger frame, right?

Yes, close to 2 years, starting from 20 months age. Depends from heifers weights. Always want that heifers were bigger at the breeding time.

 

[Nesikep]

We used to, but gave up on it, they are bred around 14 months here now, they are around 500kg/1100 lb at calving time, their first calves are usually around 80 lbs. Our herd average birthweight is right around 100 lbs as well

 

[glacierridge]

Lighter boned heifers and cows have more calving problems, because that they have more narrow pelvic bones. It's in the Belgian Blue and Piedmontese breeds. They calve okay until the calf gets wider. Lighter boned cattle usually has low BW. A friend of mine has a small beef farm, always used only low BW bulls and left their daughters as replacements and then used low BW bulls on them too. Now his heifers can't calve naturally, always needs to do c-section, and only about one quarter of cows can calve naturally even that bulls he use produce small calves. Now he's going to slaughter all his cattle and then buy new cows or heifers. Our heifers also were born quite small, guess ~75-85lbs, so deliver 110lbs+ the first calves were a problem. Don't worry much about their another calves, despite that girls will get in calf to the same bull.

I always understood it that the muscling was the bigger culprit, tho I could be wrong.
That is why I think the DM breeds have been selected for calves that show the muscling after birth, weeks after being born, over sires that have thrown calves displaying the "double muscling" at birth.

I thought it wasn't just the dam's pelvis, but the structure of the calf the dam grew in her womb.
We've seen some problems before we started crossing with breeds for better calving. The high percentage blood that we had used in the past (15-20 years ago) before better selection was in place often had a heavily muscled cow birthing a heavily muscled calf.

My understanding is that now the calves develop more of the muscling after the birthing process, that is one of the sire selection traits?

 

[Nesikep]

With the Gelbvieh over shorthorns, we had a couple calves get a bit hiplocked from the big fatass calves.. Though the calves were all rather big to begin with.. with sanely sized calves we've never had a problem.. though Gelbvieh isn't DM, they just have a lot of it

 

[lithuanian farmer]

We used to, but gave up on it, they are bred around 14 months here now, they are around 500kg/1100 lb at calving time, their first calves are usually around 80 lbs. Our herd average birthweight is right around 100 lbs as well

Have seen many farmers here calving heifers at 24 months age, but heifers weigh over 1300lbs .It's not possible for us yet, because of our feeding system. During winter after weaning heifers get hay and ~2-4lbs of grain, but they don't grow much. After around four or five months in the barn they gain ~300lbs. Then heifers are 10-14months old, but their weights are only 750-900lbs. Definitely not suitable for breeding yet. Until next winter they are grazing in the fields, but get the same amount of grain for the better growth and to compensate the winter time. At the next winter heifers already are ~1100-1400lbs(18-22months old) and the replacements go to the cows herd with the bull, while not replacement heifers still keep getting grain until we'll sell them to the meat factory. have noticed that each year our heifers get bigger at the breeding time. The heifers which calve now are around 1320lbs, while one year younger heifers, which will start calving in October, now are 1300-1400lbs or even heavier. They'd calve at ~1500-1650lbs weight. We don't mind having big cows, they can deliver bigger calves without help and usually wean bigger calves too. And our heifers very often have heavier first calves than our cows, so better when girls are bigger at the calving time.

About calving heifers at 24months age:
http://www.progressivegenetics.ie/Blog/Post-Detail/24-Month-Calving-with-Sucklers