Heifer birth weight
- Thread starter Brad B
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greenwillowherefords
Well-known member
A heifer should actually have a lower BW than a bull, all else being equal.
By the way, what's the latest on those baldie heifers?
By the way, what's the latest on those baldie heifers?
Have 12 calves as of now. All are black baldy's. Very nice calves. Nine of them are heifers. One of them is a monster. I haven't weighed a calf in several years, but use to weigh a bunch of them. I would estimate the heifer's weight at 110 lbs. Momma didn't have any trouble spitting her out though, I watched the whole thing. The momma's a big girl herself. I was planning on keeping as many of the baldy heifers as would work, but after finding the Johnes, I guess I should sell all of this years crop. At least I guess I shouldn't keep any of them this year, since we had the positive cow when most were calved.
greenwillowherefords
Well-known member
What a loss! Wish for your sake you could keep 'em! Good luck.
Persoanlly I'm leery of high birth weights in heifer calves. It's just as important an issue as BW in bulls. The calves are influenced just as much (maybe a little more) by the cow as it is by the bull.
dun
dun
After all of that being said, there are times that the calfs shape helps to overcome weight to a certain degree. But a large calf still can;t easily come out of a pelvic opening that is too small for it. I've seen very large cows with small pelvic openings and smallish cows with huge openings. That's all in the genes too.
There is a formula for calculating the maximum size of calf that can be birthed based pelvic openings.
This link shuld take you to it
http://www.iowabeefcenter.org/pdfs/bch/ 02130.pdf
dun
There is a formula for calculating the maximum size of calf that can be birthed based pelvic openings.
This link shuld take you to it
http://www.iowabeefcenter.org/pdfs/bch/ 02130.pdf
dun
Thanks dun,
The cow that had the large heifer calf went from feet sticking out, to licking the calf in about 3 minutes. I would guess that info would also be of benefit in keeping replacement heifers. She should inherit her mothers hips. That's the way it works in, oh never mind. :lol:
The cow that had the large heifer calf went from feet sticking out, to licking the calf in about 3 minutes. I would guess that info would also be of benefit in keeping replacement heifers. She should inherit her mothers hips. That's the way it works in, oh never mind. :lol:
I agree that it works that way, but remember that her daddy has some influence on that pelvic size. And what a mature cow does and what a heifer does while important still doesn't necesarrily corellate to what happens with heifers. A 2 year old still has a significant amount of growing to do.
But we won't keep a heifer out of a hard calving cow. I figure that's just one more way of avoiding one more possible problem.
I would just as soon see a 1200 lb cow have a 70 lb calf, breed back and wean a 650-700 lb calf at 6 1/2 months. I don't really care how small they are as newborns, I'm more concerned with how big they are as weanlings.
dun
But we won't keep a heifer out of a hard calving cow. I figure that's just one more way of avoiding one more possible problem.
I would just as soon see a 1200 lb cow have a 70 lb calf, breed back and wean a 650-700 lb calf at 6 1/2 months. I don't really care how small they are as newborns, I'm more concerned with how big they are as weanlings.
dun
