Longest bull streak....

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Muddy

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I have never had a really long bull streak in the calving season. Out of 18 calves born this year, only two calves are heifers and we need heifers to replace the cows we're selling in fall. Just have 10 more cows to calving yet, so maybe they will give us heifers?
 
We calved our AI cows first. I choose my AI cows and the AI sires hoping to get replacements, but it seems we usually get a high percentage of bull calves from AI. This year it was 9 bulls and 4 heifers. We have now begun calving the rest of the herd hoping for bulls to turn into steers for the commercial market. We started out with two heifers, a bull, three more heifers, another bull and then 8 heifers in a row. It was looking pretty bad at that point with 13 heifers and only 2 bulls, but it is starting to even out. We now are at 15 heifers and 8 bulls out of the commercial cows for a total of 20 heifers and 17 bulls. We always seem to get more heifers early in the calving season and more bulls towards the end. I think that may be due to slightly shorter gestation on the heifers.
 
When one sex is over represented I find the later calving ones seem to balance it out a bit so it doesn't end up as bad as it would seem. Doesn't help when you want to keep heifers and would prefer the early ones.

Ken
 
We planned on keeping heifers this fall but we are at 13 bull calves and 4 heifers... We only have three left... 2 of the four heifers are out of an angus bull so we won't be keeping them... Ugh...
 
Well, same here.. I have 14 bulls and 8 heifers, 1 left to go.. Only 3 heifers I consider replacements, and the one cow left hasn't made a nice one yet, don't have high hopes for her this year either
 
At the moment 21 bulls/16 heifers. 5 bulls and 8 heifers were born before December, so the score of winter-spring calving is 16/8. Will have 9 more calvings before June. It's good that have more bulls than heifers born now. However, would like that most of AI calves would be heifers. The first ones due in October.
 
Finally, the remaining cows gave us the heifers and three calves showing some promise as replacements but we will see in the fall.
 
It cycles here. The year the drought started ending and we started keeping heifers we were way high on bulls. Then the last few years it has been the other way. This year it seems to be swinging back. Won't know for sure until we work them. But cows that always have a heifer has a bull this year. The other thing I've noticed is the crippled bull we sold in December always ran 65-75% bull calves and the last ones are arriving now and no change. His heifers are very good and we wanted to keep all we could but it has always been very few.
 
"Vegas" whom I got from Hill Country is continuing to be a heifer sire. 12 heifers and 6 bull calves in 2018. 2017 he sired a very high % of heifers as well. Dad is teasing me to switch bulls all the time to get more bull calves or at least limit the amount of cows he covers. I've bred a few to other bulls but right now he's the only breeding age bull on the place. Used the Driver bull I'd purchased from Reality Farms and got a huge bull calf from him. Kind of glad we didn't use him more, although that bull calf is gonna be a whopper. I hope to keep Vegas around for several more years and figure the total percentage. I usually know what I'm gonna find when I'm looking for a cow and a newborn. Most likely a solid black 65-75 lb. heifer. Surprised occasionally with a bull or a gray calf.
 

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