How much trouble should I expect?

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Lbass

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I have 9 heifers, Had a Black angus bull with a nice Calving Ease number. That bull blew out a joint in his back hip 5 days in. I couldn't find a bull I liked so I moved them into the cow herd and the 4 bulls there. 2 of those bulls were young and weren't intended to be used on heifers. As they have matured their calving ease numbers have got even worse. Checked today.

Now they sit at CE of 9 and 10.
Breed average is 12.

Birth weight is 0.0 and 0.5
Breed average is -1.3

They are bred to calve at a little over 24 months. I'ld like to be giving them a little grain because I've not been happy with their growth, but I don't want to make things worse. 5 are 3rd stage, 3 are 2nd, 1 caught me sleeping when I was sorting.

I don't like calving heifers anyways, Now I feel I've really screwed myself. Any words of wisdom is appreciated.
 
I consider a CED 7 and up to be calving ease enough for heifers. Bred 5 heifers to Southern Charm last year when he was CED 7 or 8. Had to do the T handle tug on all of them to get the calf head out then they came easy. Southern Charm is now CED 3, which I would only use on cows. You will probably be fine with CED 9 or 10.
 
Were the heifers pelvic measured? If they checked out alright I don't think you have anything to worry about. If the young bulls are Angus, I'd consider the CE and BW values to be heifer acceptable.
 
Ahh. Tried to be careful to provide details. Heifers are black angus. All 4 of the main herd bulls are red angus.

No pelvic, just pregged with the rest of the cows. I was culling so many for other things, never even crossed my mind when he was here.

I guess the good news is, this year they are next to the house and corral and won't get going until 3/14... Compared to last year where it was late January down the road a few miles trying to rope them and tie them off to trees... And there were 36 of them.

Sorry about that.
 
GoWyo said:
I consider a CED 7 and up to be calving ease enough for heifers. Bred 5 heifers to Southern Charm last year when he was CED 7 or 8. Had to do the T handle tug on all of them to get the calf head out then they came easy. Southern Charm is now CED 3, which I would only use on cows. You will probably be fine with CED 9 or 10.
Click to expand...

What were you charm BW. By the time I had ordered him almost of his numbers changed haha really didn't want to use him any more but I didn't anyway and every cow I used him on stuck
 
I used a +9 on my heifers one year but they were also pelvic measured (Angus). Had to pull one with a leg back. Threw an average 75 lb calf, long & tall. That said, I never used him on my heifers again because it just made me nervous. And there was the unfortunate Oops Baby when he nailed a heifer prior to weaning - hard pull and a 93 lb calf. So the bulls CED is clearly a huge factor but some cows/heifers just grow big babies.

I'd definitely keep a close eye on them and good luck!
 
LJCB said:
GoWyo said:
I consider a CED 7 and up to be calving ease enough for heifers. Bred 5 heifers to Southern Charm last year when he was CED 7 or 8. Had to do the T handle tug on all of them to get the calf head out then they came easy. Southern Charm is now CED 3, which I would only use on cows. You will probably be fine with CED 9 or 10.
Click to expand...

What were you charm BW. By the time I had ordered him almost of his numbers changed haha really didn't want to use him any more but I didn't anyway and every cow I used him on stuck
Click to expand...

They were in the mid-70s range. But they had bigger heads and feet and bone than the higher calving ease calves. Feet would show then heifer would stall out for 45 minutes so on went the chains and worked them out with the T handle. Once head was out they slid right out. We had really good success with the semen. Think it was 5/5.
 
Biggest question - what do you think the heifers weigh now? Are they grown out well? That determines their ability to calve more than most things.
Calving in poor body condition is worse for CE than having to feed them some in late gestation. Don't feed high protein. Plain ole whole shell corn would be good to put some condition on them.
 
I raise black Angus, so was unfamiliar with the Epd's on the Reds. I had to look it up and what I saw was that breed average BW was indeed -1.3. The birth weight Epd you show as .5 would be equivalent to a +3.1 in Angus, so yes, that is pretty high, but more important than birth weight is the CED. That stands for Calving Ease Direct and compares the ease of calving a bull's calves. You said they were 9 and 10's and breed average was 12. I found a link to a Red Angus chart that said 5 was average and 10 was in the top 10% for calving ease. If that is correct, I would still call them heifer bulls. Where did you see breed average is 12? The following information was from the RA website which showed a breed average CED of 5.
https://redangus.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Ranchers_Guide_to_EPDs_2-15.pdf

I also found information on a fairly recent study that compared the calving ease of bulls with CEDs of -5, +6 & 17.
Bull A with a CED of -5 had 599 observed births and 87% unassisted
Bull B with a CED of +6 had 698 observed births and 93.6% unassisted
Bull C with a CED of +17 had 1558 observed births and 95% unassisted
https://redangus.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Red_Angus_EPDs_8-2017_web-1.pdf

Hopefully this information should be encouraging. Of course your heifers are more than 1/2 the equation. If they are in good shape with sufficient pelvis size, I doubt there will be a problem. I would not cut back on their nutrition in hopes of reducing calf size. That will just leave them in poor condition for delivering a calf. The heifer's body will likely short her own nutritional needs before shorting the developing calf.
 
Lbass this is good advice:
Hopefully this information should be encouraging. Of course your heifers are more than 1/2 the equation. If they are in good shape with sufficient pelvis size, I doubt there will be a problem. I would not cut back on their nutrition in hopes of reducing calf size. That will just leave them in poor condition for delivering a calf. The heifer's body will likely short her own nutritional needs before shorting the developing calf.
Click to expand...
Can you post the registration #'s of the RA bulls your BA heifers were exposed to? I'm guessing this would be their first crop so likely you've no history of their proclivity/history of the their bwts.
 
They lost quite a bit of weight in the last week or 2, before i got a tractor in there to drag the trailer out and bring them home. They are definitely thinner than I want, but i'm afraid to grain them.
Jeanne suggested something high in energy but not protein.
Dont pay attention to the sale tags...





 
They lost quite a bit of weight in the last week or 2, before i got a tractor in there to drag the trailer out and bring them home. They are definitely thinner than I want, but i'm afraid to grain them.
Jeanne suggested something high in energy but not protein.
Dont pay attention to the sale tags...
Click to expand...
Agree with Jeanne's suggestion. Generous daily access to high quality hay will help.
 
If they're good big heifers I wouldn't worry. Worst that can happen is you're going to have to break out the calf puller. Just keep an eye on them. Not much you can do now.
 

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