please don't be, please don't be..........PICS

[Keren]

Keren - yes, twins "normally" come early - sometimes TOO early. And with early delivery & twins, cow more often than not - does not clean. If she doesn't clean or takes a long time to, I wait 10-14 days and give her a shot of Lutalyse.

:???: I didnt think I asked a question about that?

But yes, I agree, every set of twins we have had, came early, but only ever had one that I would have deemed tooo early - heifer was DOA and bull spent about 7 weeks coming back to the house at night to a bottle. We gave him back to mum during the day.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

Keren - sorry about that, it was Knersie.

 

[Keren]

OIC, thats okay, I got really confused I was like 'oh no ... I've forgotten something I wrote ... maybe Old-zheimers is coming on early'

 

[Onthebit]

I personally don't see why that cow can't raise both calves on her own. If you want to creep feed them then go ahead but the cow will have plenty of milk to raise them. Nature has a way of doing that you know?

 

[Keren]

hillsdown knows this cow ... we dont. Perhaps she should be the one to decide whether she will have enough milk for two, or not.

 

[randiliana]

I personally don't see why that cow can't raise both calves on her own. If you want to creep feed them then go ahead but the cow will have plenty of milk to raise them. Nature has a way of doing that you know?

No, nature doesn't always do that. More often than no the cow does NOT have enough milk to raise 2 decent calves. Usually you end up with 2 little runty calves. Far as I am concerned its better to have 1 600 lb calf than 2 300 lb calves. Personally I like having twins, providing they are both born alive. But we almost never leave them both on the same cow. We will either sell one, or transplant it onto a cow that lost her calf. With over 100 cows, it isn't unusual for us to need a calf at some point. I will bottle feed if it is early in the season, and in the end, we also have a couple of holstein nurse cows for any extra calves.

As for what to do with the extra calf, I would pull it off the cow, if I had any intention of trying to transplant in on to another cow in the future. Makes things a lot easier when the calf you are transplanting isn't looking for its 'real' mom. If you don't intend to do that, then it would depend on how good a job I think the cow would do with both calves. If I don't think she can raise them both up decently then, I would pull the smaller one off (or in this case, probably the heifer) and either sell it to someone else, or put it on the bottle.

 

[cypressfarms]

hillsdown knows this cow ... we dont. Perhaps she should be the one to decide whether she will have enough milk for two, or not.

Keren, you are right ofcourse, but I tend to lean torward letting the moma raise both if possible. Last year I had a commercial simmi have twin steers. She doesn't normally wean the biggest calves when she has one, but with the twins I brought her up to the front and supplemented her with feed. Although each individual calf only weighed about 400 at 205 days, that's still more combined than her normal single calves weigh. Same cow has re-bred (I think partially because I was proactive in feeding moma and trying to let her condition go down) and should be calving in the next week to two.

I actually made more profit with two 400 pound calves than I would have with one 800 pound calf.

To each his/her own.

 

[Keren]

Apologies, Cypress, my comment was directed towards Onthebit's comment:

I personally don't see why that cow can't raise both calves on her own. If you want to creep feed them then go ahead but the cow will have plenty of milk to raise them. Nature has a way of doing that you know?

I tend to do the same as you, just increase the feed, and most of my cows will do fine, but there have been cases where I have topped up both with the bottle.

 

[hillsdown]

Thank you for your advice everyone. I still haven't decided on what to do, the babies are already growing like weeds and mom seems to have tons of milk for them both as of now. Her condition is really good as well, but we are have really good feed so that may have something to do with it ,but that might change when she comes into heavy milk and the calves are demanding more as well. With the temps being +10 and a low of + 3 all week, this morning was a rude awakening it is -36 with the wind chill right now and supposed to get to -40 tonight. The twins were running around the shelter this morn I don't know if it was to play or to keep warm. My worries about Mandy have dissipated as her temp is the same and she is back to her normal self ,when I come around she just keeps on chewing her cud and lets me do my own ,it is now the twins that get up and run to mommy ;-) .

I just put a call in to fill the creep feeder and holy sh@t expensive to say the least, but bottle feeding is expensive as well so 6 of one and a half a dozen of the other. :roll: If things don't change soon in the market I will be making some serious changes as life is to short to work your @ss off just to give your hard work away for free even though I love what I do and all the animals; but as I get older I find it harder and harder to be out there at all hours in this ungodly weather.

Thanks again and will keep all posted on the twins as I am going to get a blood test done on her. New babies are due any day now so I have to worry about them instead.. :tiphat:

 

[CKC1586]

Glad to hear Mandy is back to normal self and that she is feeding the twins. Sounds like everyone is doing great. It doesn't sound like bottles will be necessary. My heifer (yup, first pregnancy) raised her babies just fine with some extra feed. I hope your little heifer turns out good. I sure was hopeful with mine she had allot of stuff going for her, two placentas, larger of the two, normal vulva and teats, and when the vet probed her she was just shy of the line...too close to call definitively. So the blood was sent off to GenMark and bummer of bummers she was positive Freemartin. But she is big and healthy and will be put to good use and will not be a total waste/loss.
We are actually getting some decent temps here, above zero and yesterday almost to 30+......Spring, it will come!