heifer question

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sporder

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i have concerns about a heifer of mine as to weather she can be breed. can a heifer show signs of heat but not be sexualy mature enough to conceive. i know a breeder that breeds by weight not age. is there a chance she is not big enough. she is of mainly traditional hereford bloodline and her mother is not as big as the other 3 females i have. both mother and sister are breed so there sould not be an inherent problem. we ai'd her at 15 months and again at 17 months. took her as breed but put the bull in to clean up in case. bull has been with her for 3 weeks and this is first time she has shown heat since 2nd ai 2 months ago. could it be bad ai or problem heifer.
 
Sometimes it can be difficult to catch first time heifers AI. Their cycle isn't exactly regular meaning they don't release the egg when you think that they should.

They also can show signs of heat after conceiving. That is when the egg implants usually several weeks after being bred.

She may not have been mature enough when you bred her the first time. Did you palpate her to see if she was bred or open?
 
no did nt palpate her. the other times she was showing heat she would try and mount others as well as others mount her. this time the other females show no interest and she is not trying to mount others but the bull keeps trying to mount and follows everywhere. she is also rubbing heads playfully. signs i have seen in other cows in heat.
 
Not by any chance born twin to a bull was she? Heifers can occasioanlly have enough hormones to be in heat but either not ovulate a viable egg or have enough hormones to maintain the pregnancy. My old mentor refered to them as "functionally freemartins".
Before I went too crazy about it I would have her preg checked. I hhave one cow that every 17 days if she's bred or not still attracts a lot of attention and acts strangely. Since her heat cycles year after year have been 17 days I figured she just has a hornmone issue that allows her to still exude some hornmones even when she's with calf.
 
thanks i ll get her scanned as soon as i can. thought i would see if anyone else had come across this or if there may be an answer other than market. oh and she was nt born a twin but the answer you gave for it possible for the heifer to be breed and still attract attention was probably the one i was hoping for.
 
tncattle467":27utktjk said:
Seeing as how on an average cow ai success rates are only in about the 60% range, which would be 1 out of three I think i would say ai problem.


BS, if it was that low no one would do it. If your can;t hit a minimum of 75% getsomeone tht knows what they;re doing. If heat detection is right if your tech can;t hit mid to high 80s at a the lowest he/she probably needs to find another line of work
 

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