Supa Dexta
Well-known member
So I posted this picture the other month - I paid a bit of money for this embryo cow as a heifer, she's a 2014 model, and Im just getting some data back on her first heifer she had in 2016.
This cow herself is always a fat pig, with a nice big udder - but always has a bad edema from her back teats to her vagina every time she calves. And then last year she was almost dried up by mid to late summer it looked. So overall I'm not too happy with her. But I kept her first heifer calf from 2016 because the genetics should be in there, and frankly I wanted to get atleast a few calves out of the cow to pay back some of what I feel owed.
The cow always has poorer looking calves, that end up around 2.0 lb a day at weaning (I would usually cull for this). However her heifers first calf just went thru the scale at 203 days @ 670lbs and thats after being weaned a week, so it would have went backwards some there also, so Im happy with seeing that from a first timer - the cows calf was 210 days @ 522lbs to compare. Back in 2016 the heifer weaned at 480lbs @ 196 days! But I gave her a chance and she was up for the challenge.
All in all I think I'll hopefully get some females out of her to make it worth while in the long run.. Can't say for sure whats wrong with the cow herself, possibly fed too hard when she was young and ruined her udder - looks deceiving though, as she has a nice large udder, but that edema always looks bad.
Yet another reason scales will tell you the real story of whats going on - this red calf doesn't look too bad in the photo, but isn't where it should be compared to its herd mates.
This cow herself is always a fat pig, with a nice big udder - but always has a bad edema from her back teats to her vagina every time she calves. And then last year she was almost dried up by mid to late summer it looked. So overall I'm not too happy with her. But I kept her first heifer calf from 2016 because the genetics should be in there, and frankly I wanted to get atleast a few calves out of the cow to pay back some of what I feel owed.
The cow always has poorer looking calves, that end up around 2.0 lb a day at weaning (I would usually cull for this). However her heifers first calf just went thru the scale at 203 days @ 670lbs and thats after being weaned a week, so it would have went backwards some there also, so Im happy with seeing that from a first timer - the cows calf was 210 days @ 522lbs to compare. Back in 2016 the heifer weaned at 480lbs @ 196 days! But I gave her a chance and she was up for the challenge.
All in all I think I'll hopefully get some females out of her to make it worth while in the long run.. Can't say for sure whats wrong with the cow herself, possibly fed too hard when she was young and ruined her udder - looks deceiving though, as she has a nice large udder, but that edema always looks bad.
Yet another reason scales will tell you the real story of whats going on - this red calf doesn't look too bad in the photo, but isn't where it should be compared to its herd mates.