Mystery Calf! Where did he come from?

[Anne_C]

So, here's the backstory:

We're new to cattle. We have a few hereford and hereford X semital cows. The neighbors' Angus bull escapes into our pasture on a regular basis. So far, all calves resulting from his visits have been black with white markings on the face.

Last week, we were surprised by a day-old calf in our pasture. We couldn't identify any of our cows as the mother. He tried to nurse off all of them, and they all rejected him equally. The calf is COMPLETELY BLACK, no white markings at all. We were hoping one of our cows would accept him, but we had to start bottle feeding him since he started to weaken due to lack of food.

It may be feasible that this calf is NOT from our cows and is a lost calf from our neighbor's -- however, his entire herd is in their far pasture, acres and acres away from ours with several fences in between.

What do y'all think? Is this a rejected calf from one of our cows, or an escapee from our neighbors?

 

[WichitaLineMan]

Sounds like he is a calf from one of your neighbor's highly maternal Angus cows. LOL.

 

[alacattleman]

un accepted twin? cause moma should be bawling on the neighbors side

 

[snickers]

how many cow's are you waiting on to have their calves? or did you have one that would be close to the mystery calf's age? if yes then it most probably was a twin because our cow had twins and she didn't even momma talk to the one stuck in the mud and she actually tried to ram him into the fence so no one would of assumed she was his momma.

 

[hillsdown]

I am curious as well as to how many head you have in that pasture .. Did you call and ask your neighbor if they are missing a calf ?


Last week when you found him had anyone else recently calved ?

 

[Keren]

I think its a rejected calf from one of your cows ... as you say you are new so you may have missed the signs that say that one of your cows was close to or had calved. I have also seen the oddball calf come out completely black, when they should have been black with the white on the face.

good luck with your bottle calf ... may I suggest some pics?? :mrgreen:

 

[jerry27150]

have seen some herefords have one calf & about three months later drop another calf. i too at the time could not figure where this calf came from so i asked my vet & he said this happens some times

 

[Anne_C]

Thanks for the advice so far, everyone!

When I say we have "a few" I literally mean "a few!" We have two cows, both with calves from last spring/summer still nursing a bit, and one heifer of breeding age -- I have not seen her in heat lately so I'm assuming she was bred during one of the neighbor bull's visits last fall. At first my husband thought it was the heifer's calf -- he said he *thought* he saw afterbirth on her backside - but when I asked him again he said he "wasn't sure." (How you can be unsure I don't know). She also has not bagged up AT ALL.

The neighbor's bull seems to be able to get over our 4' high electric & barbed wire fence any time he pleases, so we can't be sure of any exact dates. We don't really mind, he's very nice and we get our cows bred for free, it's not like they're for show or anything.

We generally check our cattle just once a day. More when we notice signs of an impending calf.

My husband talked to the neighbor yesterday, he has about 50 head and said he had 12 calves born last week, but didn't notice any upset mamas or absent babies.

I guess the reason I posted this in the "breeds" section is I was hoping the white facial markings (or in this case, lack thereof) might be a surefire way to know if this calf was pure angus or angus X hereford/semital. I guess that's not a telltale sign?

 

[WichitaLineMan]

Don't be misled. The white face is a pretty tell-tale sign of Hereford parentage. It is a dominant trait. Maybe Randilina will see this and post.

 

[dun]

Don't be misled. The white face is a pretty tell-tale sign of Hereford parentage. It is a dominant trait. Maybe Randilina will see this and post.

In the first cross yes, second cross it's a crap shoot. We have a couple of F1 Hereford Red Angus that dpending on the Red Angus we've bred them to they either are brockle faced or solid red.

 

[snickers]

just accept the calf as a freebie I wish I would get some of those extra calves. oh wait I did I forgot about the twins. lol

 

[rockridgecattle]

Thanks for the advice so far, everyone!

When I say we have "a few" I literally mean "a few!" We have two cows, both with calves from last spring/summer still nursing a bit, and one heifer of breeding age -- I have not seen her in heat lately so I'm assuming she was bred during one of the neighbor bull's visits last fall. At first my husband thought it was the heifer's calf -- he said he *thought* he saw afterbirth on her backside - but when I asked him again he said he "wasn't sure." (How you can be unsure I don't know). She also has not bagged up AT ALL.

The neighbor's bull seems to be able to get over our 4' high electric & barbed wire fence any time he pleases, so we can't be sure of any exact dates. We don't really mind, he's very nice and we get our cows bred for free, it's not like they're for show or anything.

We generally check our cattle just once a day. More when we notice signs of an impending calf.

My husband talked to the neighbor yesterday, he has about 50 head and said he had 12 calves born last week, but didn't notice any upset mamas or absent babies.

I guess the reason I posted this in the "breeds" section is I was hoping the white facial markings (or in this case, lack thereof) might be a surefire way to know if this calf was pure angus or angus X hereford/semital. I guess that's not a telltale sign?

I am sure i missed something here. Did you say that you have two cows who are still nursing yearlings and getting ready to, or have calved?

 

[djinwa]

Yeah, what are the dates your cows calved last year?

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

Poster is missing.

 

[3waycross]

Poster is missing.

They always are :frowns: They find this site, pose a question, and then bug out seldom if ever to return.

 

[backhoeboogie]

Calves can crawl through tiny holes in the fence. They'll go through 6 strand barbed wire fences stretched taught.

One of the neighbors to the south of me has had calves in my bunch a few times. Last week it was a WF eared heifer calf that was pretty wild. Calf was probably 2 to 3 weeks old. Dam was bawling away across the fence. I kept crowding the calf to the fence and it kept wanting to run with some of mine. At one point it looked like a couple of mine wanted to go home with it. It finally went back thru.