First calves this year

[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.

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?

Dam's pelvis was just one of the culprit. But neither of heifers aren't heavily muscled(I'll post later pics of them). One is tall, long bodied, but light type, another is shorter, but has long body and is round-shaped, but not very muscled, Angus type. The calf of the taller heifer had longer more narrow body, longer legs, but more muscled rear than the shorter heifer's calf. Both calves had very big heads and big legs. Have one very muscled 3/4Limo cow, but all her calves weren't muscular at birth.

 

[Muddy]

I didn't think that being light boned are the problem. Sounds like these animals have crappy calving ease. Have you done some pelvic measurements on the heifers before?

 

[lithuanian farmer]

I didn't think that being light boned are the problem. Sounds like these animals have crappy calving ease. Have you done some pelvic measurements on the heifers before?

Not really. Have measured only width of pelvis for a few heifers this year.
Never had any problems with heifers dams calving or their sire dam and granddam.

 

[lithuanian farmer]

Heifers last summer.

 

[lithuanian farmer]

This morning has arrived a new calf. A limousine sired bull calf out of 3/4Charolais 2nd calver. Birth weight should be ~100-110lbs. 287days gestation.

 

[ANAZAZI]

A beauty! This cross has some serious growth and thickness to it.

 

[Nesikep]

yep, looks nice again!... I just got my second calf tonight

 

[P.A.L]

Nice calves. You don't have much snow. We have about 50cm-80cm.

About the calving, I think dairy and continental breeds doesn't work well in cow herds. I prefer Angus x Hereford cross cow with terminal bull. Continental breeds need too much time to develop for breeding. Belgian blue is forbidden here north, because it's terrible CE.

 

[WalnutCrest]

<snip>

About the calving, I think dairy and continental breeds doesn't work well in cow herds. I prefer Angus x Hereford cross cow with terminal bull. Continental breeds need too much time to develop for breeding. Belgian blue is forbidden here north, because it's terrible CE.

Not all continental breeds. Aubrac and Saler are known for having good calving ease and early maturity.

 

[ANAZAZI]

<snip>

About the calving, I think dairy and continental breeds doesn't work well in cow herds. I prefer Angus x Hereford cross cow with terminal bull. Continental breeds need too much time to develop for breeding. Belgian blue is forbidden here north, because it's terrible CE.

Not all continental breeds. Aubrac and Saler are known for having good calving ease and early maturity.

Tarentaise and Gascon to give more examples.

 

[lithuanian farmer]

Nice calves. You don't have much snow. We have about 50cm-80cm.

About the calving, I think dairy and continental breeds doesn't work well in cow herds. I prefer Angus x Hereford cross cow with terminal bull. Continental breeds need too much time to develop for breeding. Belgian blue is forbidden here north, because it's terrible CE.

Thanks. This winter is a way warmer than usual here. Had more snow at the beginning of the week. The weather forecast shows spring coming already.

We started from zero, so all xbred or even dairy better looking and for a normal price cows and heifers were good for us. I more prefer continental breeds for their growth, bigger weights, size and more muscles. Our market need all of it. Used Angus semen before, but bulls and heifers weights at the selling time were too small. Also we don't like very early maturing cattle as had already some problems when heifers start cycling at ~5-6months age. We wean calves at 7-9months age. Belgian Blue in some countries has much better CE. Have seen a 24 months old pure BB heifer delivered 119lbs pure BB heifer calf on her own. In different countries you'll find different cattle. In England, for example, BB are easy calving, almost always calving naturally, but in all breeds can appear c-section due to many things. One friend from Denmark recently have bought a BB bull from UK for his pure Blue cows, due to the easy calving. His older bull died, but all his calves were delivered naturally too. At the moment we've three BBxdairy cows. Have Charolais calves delivered easily by them. Of course, those cows tend to have bigger calves, but the biggest out of them was 119lbs calf so far. Cows are 7-9years old.

 

[P.A.L]

I need to send you some real good baldies. you'll never go back. In Finland we had Continental boom in 90' . Most of the new herds are now heading back to British based. Some do believe in continentals, but they work hard at calving season. Also all the restaurants have Angus on their menu as a premium beef. Tables have turned.

I think they call BB in Britain British blue. Better CE than limousin.

 

[lithuanian farmer]

I need to send you some real good baldies. you'll never go back. In Finland we had Continental boom in 90' . Most of the new herds are now heading back to British based. Some do believe in continentals, but they work hard at calving season. Also all the restaurants have Angus on their menu as a premium beef. Tables have turned.

I think they call BB in Britain British blue. Better CE than limousin.

lol Only if they are really very good.
We don't have many problems with calving. Mostly with heifers, but usually only 2-3 in a couple years. A lot of new farmers here buy purebred Limousin and in general here are very few British beef breeders. Meat factories don't pay more for the better meat here. They pay more if you sell muscular cattle.
In the future we think to buy Charolais or even BB bull for some cows. For heifers would use easy calving Limousin or Angus. As for commercial herd we need more frame and muscles.
Near us are three beef cattle breeders. Two have Limousin, one Simmental. Have heard from vets that they all have a lot calving problems with both heifers and cows, especially Simmy breeder. In my region vets don't do c-section, so that one pulls calves using Bobcat. He used Simmy bull on Simmy heifers and fed them like he used to feed his dairy cows.
Yes, in UK BB are called British blue, they have been developed from the Belgian blue breed, but improved CE, better feet, a little bit less muscles(especially on females), bigger height, bigger bones.
For example, this pure BB cow is a forth calver and had only one calf born by c-section, because that the calf was coming backwards.

Limousin in UK and Ireland are very impressive cattle. Some look like BB, but not all are hard calving. Most of them were born small and not muscled, but developed quickly in a few weeks. Some are hard calving, but usually those a bulls are used only on big easy calving cows or used for crossbreeding.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cKdlvtpLqU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bgDDDMBxbE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kppZIoJZ0yE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_Jl1G3GDiw

 

[glacierridge]

That's an impressive cow. I like her a lot.
Her legs look set well, impressive meat yield on her carcass and nice bag I think she's a meat factory with that calf she produced.

 

[Muddy]

Wow look at that butt!

 

[lithuanian farmer]

I like her a lot too. Wish we'd at least one like her.

 

[lithuanian farmer]

Have two new calves arrived. Both Limousine sired. Both were born unassisted.
This one is a heifer out of BBxdairy cow. 285days gestation. This cow has never had bull calf yet.

This is a bull calf out of 3/4Limousine cow. 280days gestation. Last year his dam had a black with white rear legs and a few white spots Limo x heifer.

 

[Nesikep]

I like the face of that BBxDairy cow there.. she's pretty.. The calves do look a lot like our Limo calves too.

I have a cow that's going to have her 6th calf.. hasn't had a heifer.. yet. She's due in a couple days

 

[lithuanian farmer]

I like the face of that BBxDairy cow there.. she's pretty.. The calves do look a lot like our Limo calves too.

I have a cow that's going to have her 6th calf.. hasn't had a heifer.. yet. She's due in a couple days

Thanks. All that cow's daughters have pretty faces too. The most interesting thing is how calves will look later at 3-4months age.
Yeah, we've a few cows which usually have either bulls either heifers. There is one Charxdairy cow, which when we used AI Char bulls for her she used to have a white bull calf one year, next year light red bull calf, next time white heifer and when again white bull calf, light red bull calf and finally white heifer. Everything has changed when we used not Char bull for her.

 

[lithuanian farmer]

Have another nice calf. This time a heifer. She's very possible future replacement. I wish that she'll make a nice cow one day. Also I love those white legs
She's out of Limoxdairy cow( the granddam of the bull calf which was born a coupe days ago).