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Breeding / Calving Issues
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<blockquote data-quote="IL cow man" data-source="post: 846852" data-attributes="member: 16742"><p>Calving size is a 50/50 situation. The cow or heifer has as much to do with calf size as the bull. The best way to explain it is if you breed a horse to a donkey you get a mule. You are breeding two largely different sized animals with success. It sounds to me like your Charolais are throwing big calves which is their natural tendency. Breeding to an Angus bull doesn't necessarily mean easy calving. EPD's are a tool. You can take a high birth weight cow and breed her to low birth weight bull and lower the birth weight EPD, however that calf has 50/50 chance of either throwing heavy calves or lighter weight calves. It's about like drawing straws. There are also bulls that their calves tend to come sooner in gestation than others, also. I don't know anything about your heifers. In the past Charolais had a problem with double muscling. The real problem was the calves were double muscling before birth and created large problems with distocia( calving difficulties). No matter what you decide I would get rid of both the bull and the heifers. You can induce them to calve earlier, but you need to know the breeding dates. I believe you can induce them up to 10 days early. Each day is equal to 1lb in calf size the last 30 days. I'm not a vet or reproductive specialist but these are things I've heard over the years.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="IL cow man, post: 846852, member: 16742"] Calving size is a 50/50 situation. The cow or heifer has as much to do with calf size as the bull. The best way to explain it is if you breed a horse to a donkey you get a mule. You are breeding two largely different sized animals with success. It sounds to me like your Charolais are throwing big calves which is their natural tendency. Breeding to an Angus bull doesn't necessarily mean easy calving. EPD's are a tool. You can take a high birth weight cow and breed her to low birth weight bull and lower the birth weight EPD, however that calf has 50/50 chance of either throwing heavy calves or lighter weight calves. It's about like drawing straws. There are also bulls that their calves tend to come sooner in gestation than others, also. I don't know anything about your heifers. In the past Charolais had a problem with double muscling. The real problem was the calves were double muscling before birth and created large problems with distocia( calving difficulties). No matter what you decide I would get rid of both the bull and the heifers. You can induce them to calve earlier, but you need to know the breeding dates. I believe you can induce them up to 10 days early. Each day is equal to 1lb in calf size the last 30 days. I'm not a vet or reproductive specialist but these are things I've heard over the years. [/QUOTE]
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