Mostly Heifer calves

[GoWyo]

Was there a difference in forage and/or supplements/minerals just before breeding occurred, a month or so before breeding?

Well last spring was a SOB. March-mid-May was cold, windy, no pasture due to 2022 drought, feeding grass hay one day and alfalfa the next (which I usually do, but had to feed twice as much $250/ton hay with no pasture to speak of), cows were skinny. Mid-May things perked up with a bunch of rain, but slow to grow since it was cold. Grass was washy when it finally came on around May 20. Cows just started to pick up condition about the end of May when we put CIDRs in then AI bred June 5-9 on observed heats. Summer pastures were generally good, but with all the rain from about May 10 til 4th of July grass still didn't have its usual kick. AI rate was only about 60% and I only sync'd up about 60% of the cows for AI. Several must have lost pregnancies at around 6 weeks because I had a few cows cycling in mid-July to August. With 40% of the cows going directly out with the bulls, they are still slow calving, so it appears a lot of cows didn't settle until June 20-July 20. Pulled bulls on one pasture in early August and had several opens. The pastures that I didn't pull bulls even had a couple opens. With all the culled opens, I kept 4 later calving cows (May-June calvers) just because economically they will pull their freight under these calf prices. Best answer is these cows were under quite a bit of nutritional and weather stress in the spring of 2023 and I think we had some herd improvement on fertility in tough times.

 

[crossbreed]

Averages need to be figured over more than one year to be accurate.

Well, you are correct. Of course I don't want to wait two more years for this discussion.

 

[mwj]

Well, you are correct. Of course I don't want to wait two more years for this discussion.

Just use the previous years,it works just as well.

 

[Texas G@l]

With 30% calved out, it's all heifers!

 

[crossbreed]

Just settled into the chair from the farm. Had to pull a calf from a 10-year-old cow who has head calves, black clockwork. Big calf, a man who came out and helped said there are a lot of calves being pulled this year and a lot of problems because the ryegrass has come in so thick early And the calves are gaining a pound a day. We save this calf and it was a big calf. I'm going to call it a good Friday for a second reason now. Hope everyone has a great Easter and remember the reason for the weekend.

 

[fnfarms1]

In our recent Ai class the vet told us that in the near future you will go to pick a bull from a pen for heifer making bulls or steer/bull making bulls. The tech is already there just not widely used. I've had this myself. Key being good relationship with bull supplier who knows their cattle. Select bull calf from cow family that only throws bulls or heifers depending what you want. Luck the first time I had 80% bulls, second time thought first was fluke. Just bought bull I liked not considering history, 75% heifers.
Even genetics professors from OK State said there's science behind certain genetic matings producing bulls vs heifers but they wasn't there yet. Ai vet says it's there but not exactly "approved", that's why it still a bit of a ways off

 

[kenny thomas]

In our recent Ai class the vet told us that in the near future you will go to pick a bull from a pen for heifer making bulls or steer/bull making bulls. The tech is already there just not widely used. I've had this myself. Key being good relationship with bull supplier who knows their cattle. Select bull calf from cow family that only throws bulls or heifers depending what you want. Luck the first time I had 80% bulls, second time thought first was fluke. Just bought bull I liked not considering history, 75% heifers.
Even genetics professors from OK State said there's science behind certain genetic matings producing bulls vs heifers but they wasn't there yet. Ai vet says it's there but not exactly "approved", that's why it still a bit of a ways off

Very interesting. I almost never keep a heifer so i definitely would buy.

 

[TCRanch]

I ended up with a few more heifers than bull calves this year. But not necessarily a bad thing because I'm trying to build back the herd after selling so many (from the drought). This was the first year for calves out of Shaft and all the first calf heifers had heifers.

 

[GoWyo]

I ended up with a few more heifers than bull calves this year. But not necessarily a bad thing because I'm trying to build back the herd after selling so many (from the drought). This was the first year for calves out of Shaft and all the first calf heifers had heifers.

We were in a drought last year during breeding season and ran 58% heifer and 42% bull calves this spring. Last spring (2024) we were 60% bull calves and 40% bull calves after a wet summer during breeding season in 2023.

 

[Dave]

Mine are completely random as they are all purchased older cows. This year we are probably running 60/40 to bull calves.

 

[CowboyRam]

I branded calves last weekend, and ended up with about 80% bull calves.

 

[Travlr]

In our recent Ai class the vet told us that in the near future you will go to pick a bull from a pen for heifer making bulls or steer/bull making bulls. The tech is already there just not widely used. I've had this myself. Key being good relationship with bull supplier who knows their cattle. Select bull calf from cow family that only throws bulls or heifers depending what you want. Luck the first time I had 80% bulls, second time thought first was fluke. Just bought bull I liked not considering history, 75% heifers.
Even genetics professors from OK State said there's science behind certain genetic matings producing bulls vs heifers but they wasn't there yet. Ai vet says it's there but not exactly "approved", that's why it still a bit of a ways off

It's easy enough to influence what you get, male or female... A few simple options that influence the motility and survivability of the male sperm compared to the female sperm. Using the fact that the male sperm tends to be faster and the female has more staying power.
And yes, just like with humans some cows/bulls tend to have male offspring and some favor females... and for the same reasons as humans.

 

[mwj]

If it were simple to breed for sex of calves why has all of the money been spent to develop sexed semen?

 

[Travlr]

If it were simple to breed for sex of calves why has all of the money been spent to develop sexed semen?

There's lots of simple things that work... but people make "improvements" so they can sell you something. Nobodies making money doing the simple stuff. And granted, doing what I'm talking about only results in about 72% bull calves or roughly 68% females. Sexed semen gives better results if you AI every cow you own.

How many people do you know with all girls or all boys in their family? The odds are off if the chances are actually 50/50 chances. They're doing something that influences the outcome.

 

[chaded]

Being the OP, this was the calf crop before the most recent one I have. The recent one was completely flipped around and we had mostly bulls. It really chaps me because of course I was wanting to rebuild this go around. Conditions were pretty much the same, two different results. I am keeping the bull calf out of my best cow this go around and plan to use him to build the herd, if we get heifers out of him…

 

[snakegap1]

Only the male in any mammal species determines the sex. And over a life tme., a male will produce 50% male and 50% female sperm. Take your average back yard pool. Fill it with a gazillion red marbles and a gazillion white marbles. Then , while blindfolded,. .take them out one at a time. You won't get them out one red, then one white, then one red etc. Maybe for a while you mighty. But you may get 10,100, 1000 of one color before you get one of the other color. before you empty the pool. A bull, stallion, man, dog.,.. whatever..... will not sire 2 gazillion offspring but if he did, he'd end up with a gazillion girls and a gazillion boys.

I agree it is all about sample size. I bet some some of the larger producers don't see the huge difference that we smaller ones do. I have 19 calves on the ground and 15 are bulls. I have about 20 fall calving cows and I would be surprised if they followed suit or were the opposite.

 

[Nesikep]

Last year my friend's herd was ALL heifers except 1, plus one bull from my cow that he had

This year, he had nearly all bull calves, and my 5 calves were ALL bulls (Same sire for the last few years)

 

[lithuanian farmer]

Quite an interesting situation here. Two clients are having almost all bulls this year from my AI. Mom has quite an equal ratio of bulls and heifers. Might be just a few bulls more. On the other hand, so far all calves from my own and husband's herds are heifers. All calves are born from AI.

 

[GoWyo]

Quite an interesting situation here. Two clients are having almost all bulls this year from my AI. Mom has quite an equal ratio of bulls and heifers. Might be just a few bulls more. On the other hand, so far all calves from my own and husband's herds are heifers. All calves are born from AI.

Was there any difference in pasture conditions at time of breeding between the two sets of cows?

 

[Travlr]

Was there any difference in pasture conditions at time of breeding between the two sets of cows?

That's probably a better question than most people would think...