heifers / calf birthweight

[denoginnizer]

How do you determine the maximum actual birthweight of calves that will be safe for your first calf heifers? Is there a rule of thumb you like to follow?
When choosing a bull for heifers what influences your decision the most heifer breed type, size, weight, etc. Obviously you will choose a bull that you believe will give you little or no problems with birthing. A low birthweight charloais bull and a low BW angus bull will likely have a lot of difference in the actual birthweight of the calves. So just because a bull is a low birthweight bull doesnt neccesairly mean its the right bull in your situation. I am thinking that actual birthweight will be very important am I right?

 

[Frankie]

How do you determine the maximum actual birthweight of calves that will be safe for your first calf heifers? Is there a rule of thumb you like to follow?
When choosing a bull for heifers what influences your decision the most heifer breed type, size, weight, etc. Obviously you will choose a bull that you believe will give you little or no problems with birthing. A low birthweight charloais bull and a low BW angus bull will likely have a lot of difference in the actual birthweight of the calves. So just because a bull is a low birthweight bull doesnt neccesairly mean its the right bull in your situation. I am thinking that actual birthweight will be very important am I right?

The Angus Association used to recommend using a bull with a BW EPD of less than 3 on first calf heifers. I have always assumed that's for Angus heifers. We use bulls with BW EPD of around 2 on our heifers and have very little problem. They've added the Calving Ease EPD now but I haven't seen what the recommendation there is for heifers. If I were crossbreeding, I'd look at an even lower BW EPD.

Birthweights, weaning weights, yearling weights, etc., are all influenced by the environment and management. Calves born in the spring are usually heavier than those born in the fall after a hot dry summer. My neighbor creep feeds his calves; I don't. His weaning weights will usually be heavier than mine, even though we use similar genetics. I do pay attention to actual birthweights and wouldn't use an Angus bull with a high birthweight on heifers. But I don't think it's more important than a BW EPD. It's just more information to throw into the pot to make your decisions.

 

[denoginnizer]

What is a "high " birthweight?

 

[dun]

"high" "low" it's all relative. I consider any calf over 75 lbs to be a high birthweight. But we run smaller crossbred cows. They can have calves heavier then that, but why when there are bulls that will give you low BW and high (again it's relative) WW and YW.

dun

 

[Farmgirl]

Somewhere I read/heard that a heifer could safely deliver 7% of her own weight. So for example, a 1000 pound heifer could safely deliver a 70 pound calf.

 

[milesvb]

I've been pondering this question lately myself. I have some 3/4 Brahman heifers that I would like to expose to our Red Angus bull at 12 to 14 months instead of breeding them to a Jersey bull for their first calf like we do the Limos and CharX heifers. This Red Angus bull has a BW EPD of 1.8 but we haven't had him long enough to see any calves yet. I'm wondering if the majority of Brahman blood would reduce the chances of calving problems.

Not to hijack this thread but.... any opinions?

 

[Scotty]

I've been pondering this question lately myself. I have some 3/4 Brahman heifers that I would like to expose to our Red Angus bull at 12 to 14 months instead of breeding them to a Jersey bull for their first calf like we do the Limos and CharX heifers. This Red Angus bull has a BW EPD of 1.8 but we haven't had him long enough to see any calves yet. I'm wondering if the majority of Brahman blood would reduce the chances of calving problems.

Not to hijack this thread but.... any opinions?

Sounds like a safe bet to me. I would use him on the limos and char. also.



Scotty

 

[jerry27150]

low birth weight is what they tell you when they are selling you a bull. high birth weigt is what you have when you are pulling every calf from that bull. been there done that. your 3/4 brahman heifers should be alright to breed to most bulls, i hear the brahman influence will make calvesabout 10 lbs less than other cows

 

[dun]

I've been pondering this question lately myself. I have some 3/4 Brahman heifers that I would like to expose to our Red Angus bull at 12 to 14 months instead of breeding them to a Jersey bull for their first calf like we do the Limos and CharX heifers. This Red Angus bull has a BW EPD of 1.8 but we haven't had him long enough to see any calves yet. I'm wondering if the majority of Brahman blood would reduce the chances of calving problems.

Not to hijack this thread but.... any opinions?

For what it's worth, average Red Angus BW EPD for active sires is .5, cows is .7, calves born in 2004 is .3. For our heifers with a Red Angus we stick with minus BW Epds.

dun

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

John Pollak, Prof at Cornell who is in charge of the Simmental EPD's, thinks we shouldn't even look at the bulls actual birth weight or the BW EPD's. (He would like to drop the BW EPD's) He feels the Calving Ease EPD is the most important factor in choosing a calving ease bull. I can understand using the CE EPD over using the BW EPD, because the CE already takes in consideration the BW factors - BUT - I don't know if I could ignore the actual BW of the bull.

His comments were that too many producers were castrating great bulls just because they have a high BW - which is what we do. He says you should first look at his CE EPD's before you castrate. But, like I told him, that's all well and good, but I can't SELL a bull with a high actual BW.

By the way, +10 CE in Simmental is what is recommended to SAFELY use on british heifers.

 

[dun]

When CE or CED or whatever a particular breeds call direct calving ease, it's all well and good to use that. But some of the breeds are just getting started having EPDs for it and the accuracys are pretty low yet.
It's just alwasy hard to determine, partly because of the female influence and mangment.
I'ld rather err on the side of over caution then take a risk. Took enough of those (with most everything) in my younger years.

dun

 

[denoginnizer]

Ok, what are good calving ease numbers?

 

[1848]

The bull is not the only determining factor when it comes to BW. Most ranchers would love to see calves from first time heifers in the 60's and 70's. This allows for easy calving, rapid recovery of the heifer following calving, and a calf that is not weary from birthing stress upon arrival. Feeding, type breed, stacked genetics, and size of pelvis can all play a part in how easy or big the calf comes in first time heifers. In general they will always be smaller in first time heifers, and second timers anyway. A rule of thumb which will help, is getting your heifers to a size "before" breeding, which will allow them to continue to grow and be large enough at calving to prevent most calving problems. Most commercial cattlemen use a minimum of 60%. That means if you expect the animal to reach a mature weight of 1,000lbs (based on breed, frame, previous generations, etc) then breed them when they reach 600lbs. This means you may have to either cull some if you want to keep them all in the same season or calving window based on size, or you will have to feed the heifers to get them all up to size. Many ranchers feed their heifers to assist in this growth so they will be of sufficient size when the time comes (14 to 15 months for british breeds). If you are not concerned with the type calf from first time heifers, I would recommend a Longhorn, or Brangus bull for small calves.

 

[1848]

Ok, what are good calving ease numbers?

It's all about "confidence". The better and more accurate the calving numbers are, the more confidence exists that a particular animal will have a tendency to give smaller calves compared to other bulls "in that bulls breed". Crossbreeding requires different considerations, and both Sire and Dam must be considered.

 

[dun]

Ok, what are good calving ease numbers?

We've been using a bull that's pretty much bullet proof, his CED is 15 and a -5.5 for BW EPD .86 accuracy. He's a bit light on WW and YW, but don;t tell his calves. They wean at high 4's and low 5's. That's from both straightbred Red Angus and F1 Red Angus Polled Herefords. Our heifers typically run around 900 at calving.

dun

 

[milesvb]

low birth weight is what they tell you when they are selling you a bull. high birth weigt is what you have when you are pulling every calf from that bull. been there done that. your 3/4 brahman heifers should be alright to breed to most bulls, i hear the brahman influence will make calvesabout 10 lbs less than other cows

I've read that the reason for reduced birthweight from brahman females is reduced blood flow to the uterus. The majority of our cattle have a beefmaster foundation and most will calve small. Some hit the ground appearing almost premature though they are most often extremely energetic once they get their legs under them. Most of these calves were sired by Limousin or Charolais bulls and I can only think of a couple times in many years of calves having to be pulled.

 

[denoginnizer]

In Ced + is better than - Right ? If you are talking about 1100-1200 pound crossbred cows what ced numbers do you like if you are using angus or charlaois bulls ? + in angus +? in char. ?

 

[dun]

In Ced + is better than - Right ? If you are talking about 1100-1200 pound crossbred cows what ced numbers do you like if you are using angus or charlaois bulls ? + in angus +? in char. ?

I know nothing about charolais, actaully what I know you don't want to hear.
For Red Angus in cows I like around 6, but we used a bull on some big easy calving cows that was a 3 with no problems. We just try to stay with zero or less for BW on everything.

dun

 

[milesvb]

In Ced + is better than - Right ? If you are talking about 1100-1200 pound crossbred cows what ced numbers do you like if you are using angus or charlaois bulls ? + in angus +? in char. ?

Make sure you're sitting down before you read on, but the Charolais bulls we used to run came from a local breeder and were not registered. We had no epd data to go by. They were bred to throw smaller calves and many folks in my area continue to use the bulls from this particular breeder. I've got some dropping right now from the last Char. bull we sold and a couple are downright tiny. However, a Char. bull from any other source I'd be nervous about. I've decided to get away from continental breeds for awhile, hence the red angus.

 

[TheBullLady]

I would think a decent calving ease bull on Brahman influenced heifers would be fine. We routinely get 10 -15 lb. less birthweights on our Brahman and Simbrah heifers then we do the purebred Simmentals.