Ken I couldn't tell you how far apart they were, but she had milk right away and lots of it . I did a final check at midnight and when I went out first thing the next morning they were there, already cleaned off and walking around. I knew she had something big in her because she walked like she had a pinched nerve in her rear right leg for a few weeks before she calved, just didn't know it was 180lbs of twins. I have never had twins born more than a couple of hours apart and every year even with the smaller numbers after dispersing ,we see at least a couple sets born.
It was brutally cold that night , -30 c which is around -26f so one came in the house ,and the other went into my calf box in the shop until they were dried off and warm again. They were both sent out with "toques" on as moms cannot leave those darn ears alone for the first few days and like Hoss said they would have frozen. That little girl without one kept losing it so I just left it off and thank goodness they did not freeze. Some of the challenges calving in a country that winters have horrific temps at times. I actually pushed my season back a month because of it next year ,that and the high birth weight we have been getting because of the extra feed consumption when our temperatures drop to below seasonal for weeks at a time . Last winter was interesting to say the least around here and was grateful for it to end . :help:
Her daughter Royalty that had twins as well this year were assisted ,the first a bull calf was born on his own and the second a little heifer was backwards so I just had to give it a little pull. That calving was interesting ,I didn't expect her to calve so soon as she must have bred the first day I moved the bull in and on her first heat after calving so I still had her in the dry lot pasture and of course what better time to calve than during one of the worst blizzards all winter. :roll:
Her 2 yr old daughter Lola had only one calf this year ,unassisted and is doing very well . I lost another really nice daughter of Lisa's in 2009, she broke her femur and had to be put down . She had calved at 21 months old and was already AI'd to a really nice bull ,sad as she had a 2 and a 1/2 month old calf at side that wouldn't take a bottle but he did mange to steal enough to grow out quite nicely and ween at a decent weight.
The yearling daughter ,Lady Ideal was AI'd to Pure Power this year, and Lady Lola to Sir Arnold . I let our clean up Bull breed Lisa and Royalty as I thought with both raising twins they would have a better chance of catching on time by him than AI.
Lady Lisa is an SLC cow that I started the foundation of my purebred registered GV herd with, along with 6 others back in 2004.
