Low Birth Weight Question

[bird dog]

My low birth rate angus bull calves out 65lb calves out of 1000 -1200 lb mama's. These are what I want. I don't have the luxury of watching these cows calve or helping out. They are on their own. I have very few problems and I do believe that these cows can deliver some calves that have a bad presentation. I honestly do not see much difference in 85 lb and 65 lbers. If they are on good forage, they all wean out with close to the same daily gain. I will gladly sacrifice 20 lbs of weaning weight for very little calving problems.
Another of my beliefs is that the cows that calve easily also breed back easier. This is worth a lot to me and I have very few culls because of not breeding back on time.

 

[cowgirl8]

LBW does not mean small and weak. When i first came to this forum there was a discussion just like this. And i believe i pointed it out then too, small does not mean sickly. We use young angus LBW bulls on our heifers. Depending on the bull, we hope to get anything from 40 to 60 pounds and nothing over. One year we had an average of 30lbs out of some new lbw bulls. They came out standing up, were very vigorous and it was a very wet cold frozen year. We didnt lose a single one. On the other hand, if one of our mature cows bred to a lbw bull has a 40 pound calf, there may be a problem with that calf. LBW bulls dont do the same size on a mature cow. In fact, if you put the same bull but older on mature cows, their calves will be a good easy birthing size for that cow.
There is no point in trying to get the biggest calf a heifer can handle that first year. You can drop a 70 pound calf and if that first year that heifer doesnt give much milk, that hard birth wasnt worth it. And, if you have a heifer calve during the night and its a long hard birth, sometimes those heifers dont stand right away. If the sack is still on the calf, it dies. The longer and harder the birth, the more calves you'll lose if you are not around with heifers.

 

[Red Bull Breeder]

A heifer that can't 70 lb calf here is a cull.

 

[cowgirl8]

A heifer that can't 70 lb calf here is a cull.

Your point is they better and if not they are gone, you'll be culling a lot of really good productive cows. As a commercial rancher, i dont want to push my heifers to the limit. You'll lose too many calves if you have this attitude. Since we've been buying lbw angus bulls and making sure our heifers get bred to one, our pulling issues are almost 0 with the first calf and then on down the line when bred to the mainstream bulls. A heifer is only going to grow depending on the amount of milk she makes. Doesnt matter if she starts out with a dink or a clunk....push your heifers with a hard birth and a calf that starts out needing more than she can provide, you may not get a calf the next year...

 

[ANAZAZI]

A heifer that can't 70 lb calf here is a cull.

Your point is they better and if not they are gone, you'll be culling a lot of really good productive cows. As a commercial rancher, i dont want to push my heifers to the limit. You'll lose too many calves if you have this attitude. Since we've been buying lbw angus bulls and making sure our heifers get bred to one, our pulling issues are almost 0 with the first calf and then on down the line when bred to the mainstream bulls. A heifer is only going to grow depending on the amount of milk she makes. Doesnt matter if she starts out with a dink or a clunk....push your heifers with a hard birth and a calf that starts out needing more than she can provide, you may not get a calf the next year...

I seriously doubt that Red Bull Breeder has to cull any heifers for not calving 70 lb calves.
90 or 100 lbs is "pushing to the limit" for a 1100 lb heifer. 70 lbs is a walk in the park for any heifer over 950 lbs. BTW, 950 is a very small heifer in most systems. :2cents:

 

[Brand]

Birth weight or birth shape....
The smallest bw calves seem to be not fully developed (small weak hearts lungs etc)
as most will agree bw has some to do with environment and/or feed and management of the female

 

[cowgirl8]

Just to clarify, LBW can mean two things. The LBW bulls people buy to put on heifers do not produce weak thin calves. LBW bulls small calves are hearty and spunky, a good bull will produce a calf that is standing when it hits the ground. A LBW calf out of a grown cow, can be weak and sickly. There is a problem when one out of a mature cow is small whether it be a preemie or not formed right...

 

[TexasBred]

Just to clarify, LBW can mean two things. The LBW bulls people buy to put on heifers do not produce weak thin calves. LBW bulls small calves are hearty and spunky, a good bull will produce a calf that is standing when it hits the ground. A LBW calf out of a grown cow, can be weak and sickly. There is a problem when one out of a mature cow is small whether it be a preemie or not formed right...

Wrong again. It's not uncommon at all for 1500 lb. cattle to give birth to 70-75 lb. calves and they hit the ground growing. It helps to have cattle that have good milk production but you'll see more large calves drag a$$ around and be problem calves than you will the small active ones. If you do happen to have a cow give birth to a small sickly calf it probably has more to do with poor nutrition (that would be management).

 

[Taurus]

I've used a low BW bull on mature cows and still gotten spunky small calves. Tho in this particular bull, the WW in his calves were OK for mature cows. I know someone used a high BW bull on their mature cows and got crappy WW in the calves. That bull went to sale barn along with his calves.

 

[cowgirl8]

Just to clarify, LBW can mean two things. The LBW bulls people buy to put on heifers do not produce weak thin calves. LBW bulls small calves are hearty and spunky, a good bull will produce a calf that is standing when it hits the ground. A LBW calf out of a grown cow, can be weak and sickly. There is a problem when one out of a mature cow is small whether it be a preemie or not formed right...

Wrong again. It's not uncommon at all for 1500 lb. cattle to give birth to 70-75 lb. calves and they hit the ground growing. It helps to have cattle that have good milk production but you'll see more large calves drag a$$ around and be problem calves than you will the small active ones. If you do happen to have a cow give birth to a small sickly calf it probably has more to do with poor nutrition (that would be management).

A 75 pound calf out of a mature cow is not LBW....a 30 pounder is. You're reading more into what i'm clarifying. Just like humans, you can have a 5 pound healthy baby, but when a suppose to be 8 pound baby is born at 3 pounds because they were a preemie, thats not a good LBW. But in a LBW bull, his calves are suppose to average smaller full term. People new in the business could read this whole thread and wonder why anyone would sell a bull who produced LBW babies..

 

[Taurus]

Actually a 75 lbs calf out of a mature cow is considered as a low birth weight. 80-90lbs calves are moderate BW and 100-120+ lbs calves are high BW. A 30lbs calf??? Its too extremely low even for a normal sized beef cow of all breeds! What kind of bulls you're running with? A mini zebu?

 

[Taurus]

A heifer that can't 70 lb calf here is a cull.

Your point is they better and if not they are gone, you'll be culling a lot of really good productive cows. As a commercial rancher, i dont want to push my heifers to the limit. You'll lose too many calves if you have this attitude. Since we've been buying lbw angus bulls and making sure our heifers get bred to one, our pulling issues are almost 0 with the first calf and then on down the line when bred to the mainstream bulls. A heifer is only going to grow depending on the amount of milk she makes. Doesnt matter if she starts out with a dink or a clunk....push your heifers with a hard birth and a calf that starts out needing more than she can provide, you may not get a calf the next year...

I seriously doubt that Red Bull Breeder has to cull any heifers for not calving 70 lb calves.
90 or 100 lbs is "pushing to the limit" for a 1100 lb heifer. 70 lbs is a walk in the park for any heifer over 950 lbs. BTW, 950 is a very small heifer in most systems. :2cents:

didn't cowgirl8 just mentioned that many of her heifers have trouble giving birth to 30-40lbs calves somewhere in one of these threads?

 

[cowgirl8]

Actually a 75 lbs calf out of a mature cow is considered as a low birth weight. 80-90lbs calves are moderate BW and 100-120+ lbs calves are high BW. A 30lbs calf??? Its too extremely low even for a normal sized beef cow of all breeds! What kind of bulls you're running with? A mini zebu?

If you get a 30 pound calf out of a mature cow, you have a problem... not sure why yall are arguing that. We dont have 30 pound calves out of our mature cows unless its a preemie, and then its low birth weight. You arent going to find any commercial guys who want average newborn size anywhere near 100 pounds. Are commercial guys going to have 100 pounders, yes....do we want 100 pounders, no.... Maybe you guys have to start your calves out that big to even out the weaning weights, but we dont. We breed for easy births and high weaning weights. Been there done the hard births with the old school sims...back then we did have lots of big calves and amazingly our weaning weights are more with the smaller than sim calves now..
And no i did not say our heifers had trouble with 30 pound calves. We breed to LBW angus for small first calves. If you read back, since we've been using the LBW bulls, we have almost 0 pulling of first time calves.. I said one year we had very small heifer calves and every one of them was spunky and healthy. Last year they averaged 50.....and i'm sure they'd handle 70 pounds like RBB, but, go for a bull that throws a bigger calf and you dont know who is going to have trouble until they have trouble. Loose a few calves, cull some heifers because they had to have one pulled or lose a calf makes it expensive for those 70 pounders who probably are going to wean out the same because their mothers wont milk enough....getting a LBW bull just makes that first year easy on them.

 

[cowgirl8]

My low birth rate angus bull calves out 65lb calves out of 1000 -1200 lb mama's. These are what I want. I don't have the luxury of watching these cows calve or helping out. They are on their own. I have very few problems and I do believe that these cows can deliver some calves that have a bad presentation. I honestly do not see much difference in 85 lb and 65 lbers. If they are on good forage, they all wean out with close to the same daily gain. I will gladly sacrifice 20 lbs of weaning weight for very little calving problems.
Another of my beliefs is that the cows that calve easily also breed back easier. This is worth a lot to me and I have very few culls because of not breeding back on time.

At least someone gets it..... :wave:

 

[Taurus]

Pretty 100% sure you did said you had to pulling 30-40lbs calves out of heifers because you tried to blame on the bull's conformation. Also your post is full of ignorance and misinformation as usual. There are lot of folks will use high BW bulls on their mature cows, usually for terminal calves and I do not know any commercial folks would using a low BW bull that throws 30-40lbs calves.

 

[cowgirl8]

Pretty 100% sure you did said you had to pulling 30-40lbs calves out of heifers because you tried to blame on the bull's conformation. Also your post is full of ignorance and misinformation as usual. There are lot of folks will use high BW bulls on their mature cows, usually for terminal calves and I do not know any commercial folks would using a low BW bull that throws 30-40lbs calves.

That bull threw calves with buffalo shoulders. I did not pull the calves, i pulled on a leg to unstick the shoulder and the calves popped right out. It was the bulls fault, got rid of him and have never had that problem again. That years heifers are now 8 and have no problems with any bull we put on them since. You have a group of 60 heifers and 40% get a shoulder stuck and the heifers came from 5 different herds...not going to be a heifer problem.

 

[Taurus]

A worst heifer or cow can have a 40lbs calf no problems, regardless of what conformation the calf has. If a heifer or a cow can't give birth to a jackrabbit on their own, they are going to the sale barn and there is no excuse for that.

 

[Brand]

This is a great topic with some good posts
hear me out I have had cattle for 45 years and been selling a hand full of Registered Angus bulls for 15 years
Funny 95 per cent of all calls for a calving ease angus bull ( even though Angus have been considered a calving ease beef breed for 140 years) next question they want one to put on heifers and price ( but they never have calved their own heifers out)
kind of weird hardly any of them understand weights or sizes shapes of calves and even today very seldom they will let me finish to mention CED or BW Epds and never get to the subject or DNA of their sires etc. Even though I raise all my replacements .

the people that buy all there females from the sale barn are convinced they have the best in the world cause the trader at the sale barn said they were the best.

One traders son told me a sale barn sold a guy a load of heifers by the head. Sale ring guy said they sure looked like 1100 pound heifers to him
the trucker setting near the scales said the weight ticket was 800 pounds but not showed in the ring scale. The buyer said the sale barn guy said they weighed 1100 pounds and thought he got a good buy. the trucker delivered them and he had plenty of room in semi for them
to this day the buyer still is proud of the great buy he got on those 1100 pound heifers that really weight 800 he never knew the difference

There is a fool born ever minute and a crook around ever Connor

 

[bird dog]

For y'all to argue this question, there should be some parameters set. The man who posted about calf weight/ cow weight percentage is going the right direction.
Surely if your cows are in the 1400lb range they need to be calving larger calves than what most people are going to in this part of the country, which is 1100 lb cows. I would think a calf in the 6 to 7% percent range would be ideal.
This would make up the difference in 70lb and 90 lb that you all are arguing about. Some folks have been breeding a Longhorn or Corriente to their heifers to get a 50 lb calf and be done with it. Just to grease the canal as the vets will say.
Not really a dumb idea. You give up 200 lbs on the first calf to make it easier in the next 8.
Do what works for you. Its what you bring to the scales for the least amount of money is what counts.

 

[Lucky_P]

Except for this past spring, when we were calving out cows in a progeny-test breeding trial, and had to collect birthweights as part of the deal...I'd only ever weighed big dead calves.

I don't give a rat's backside what they weigh, so long as they get here alive. A dead calf has a distressingly low weaning weight.
I don't feel the need to brag about how big or small my calves are at birth. Alive is the most important thing.
I can't look at one and say, "Oh, that one weighs 75 lbs" or "That one weighs 50 lbs". Never been any good at guessing weights...and I suspect a lot of folks who claim to be spot-on would be embarrassed if they had their guesses compared to an actual weight taken with a scale.

I'm old enough that I don't care if I never have to pull another calf.
That said, I don't pay much attention to BW epds - or the bull's own BW. I do look at CED epds - and rely on them, if the bull has high accuracy. If the bull has a high CED, but BW above what's generally 'recommended' for heifers...I'm generally not too concerned - conformation is more telling than BW, IMO.
I even use relatively high CED bulls on mature cows (again, I don't want to pull calves)...but mainly look at WW & CEM epds on the old girls, as I'm almost always breeding for the potential replacement female.

Used an extreme calving ease/low BW Angus sire several years ago (NBPT D806) - they fell out of heifers, looking like drowned rats - jumped right up and went to nursing - swear some were reaching for the teat before they were all the way out - but if you disturbed them within the first day or so before they had a chance to really bond with the dam, they'd jump up and run a mile, like a spooked deer. PLENTY of vigor for a low BW calf - but sure didn't have much 'grow' to 'em.
But, those heifers got to calve out easily, bond well with their calves, and learn what they were supposed to do to be a good cow. Ol' hbrdv calls those tiny little calves a 'coupon' that gets that heifer a ticket to stick around for another year - and I like that idea... but, I'm probably not gonna breed all my heifers to a Longhorn bull to get that 'coupon'.