regolith
Well-known member
The baby heifers left for their grazier on Friday:
on the truck that brought the in-calf heifers back to me
Nine of these heifers are from my own cows while they were on lease. Twenty I bought from a retiring farmer; a high index, "Premier Sires"-bred line of exceptionally well grown calves at four months old.
Now this one pictured is something a bit different. She was born on one of the farms I'd leased cows to, and they told me she was a Simmental and out of a cow I'd put in calf to shorthorn. Unless I was pulling random straws out at mating the previous year, or she's out of one of their own cows... I think she's a Montbeliard out of my cow 31, who was due at around the same time as the other cow. I DNA-profiled 31 last spring so I can get a sample off this heifer to match. If she's not 31's calf... well, I haven't a clue.
She weighed in at 580 kg last Thursday at the grazier's, the whole group averaging 450 kg at 21 months old. She might be the heaviest they've ever raised... but they look at her and call her Hereford, which would mean she wasn't related to any of my cows (the farm she came from does use Hereford, both AI and natural). I had Simmental and Montbeliard in my AI bank, don't think any Hereford bulls could have got close enough to my cows to have babies.
on the truck that brought the in-calf heifers back to me
Nine of these heifers are from my own cows while they were on lease. Twenty I bought from a retiring farmer; a high index, "Premier Sires"-bred line of exceptionally well grown calves at four months old.
Now this one pictured is something a bit different. She was born on one of the farms I'd leased cows to, and they told me she was a Simmental and out of a cow I'd put in calf to shorthorn. Unless I was pulling random straws out at mating the previous year, or she's out of one of their own cows... I think she's a Montbeliard out of my cow 31, who was due at around the same time as the other cow. I DNA-profiled 31 last spring so I can get a sample off this heifer to match. If she's not 31's calf... well, I haven't a clue.
She weighed in at 580 kg last Thursday at the grazier's, the whole group averaging 450 kg at 21 months old. She might be the heaviest they've ever raised... but they look at her and call her Hereford, which would mean she wasn't related to any of my cows (the farm she came from does use Hereford, both AI and natural). I had Simmental and Montbeliard in my AI bank, don't think any Hereford bulls could have got close enough to my cows to have babies.