Red Angus Udders

[twabscs]

Hi All,

I've been at this now about six months have have learned a lot with the 10 pairs that I purchased back in February. Back then I purchased a rag-tag group of older cows with BA, Herford, BWF, and even a Gert. They're all doing fine and are now bred to calve in March. I plan to sell the current calves in a couple of weeks.

Now that I've got my facilities together I'm ready to purchase "quality" cows as I continue to build my herd. Today, I drove 4 hours (round trip) to look at some Registered 2nd calf Red Angus cows. I'm not ready to calve out heifers yet and it is hard to find 2nd calf cows, etc.

Anyway, I really wasn't impressed with the udders on these cows. To me, they looked worse than the udders on my 10-year-old junk cows. The teats seemed to be "compartmentalized" where each teat was independent of the other with very distinct boundaries, etc. Also, each independent tit pointed in a different direction. The picture below looks somewhat like what I saw, but the teats weren't as straight.

Oh, and the calves were taken off these cows 5 days ago so they are in the process of drying up. Maybe that's why they looked so "bad." Not sure.

Question: Is this what udders look like on young cows? Have I just looked at old cows too much? Are there some websites with lots of udder pictures so I can learn more?

Also, if anyone knows where I can get some quality (and young) cows (BA, RA, Herf) in the NW MO area, let me know.

Thanks!

Tom

 

[dun]

That sure looks like a strongly supported udder to me. I only saw the one udder, where does she have the others hidden?

dun

 

[twabscs]

You're right dun, my bad. I mean "teat" in the above discourse. The teats pointed in different directions, etc. Now fixed.

 

[dun]

As a cow drys off, each quarter will dry up at a different rate, the teats during that time frame may very well point in different directions. As long as it's not an accute angle there is probably not a problem. Would have been better to see the udders the day following weaning to get a real idea of the structure.
October 14th at Kirksville is the Mo Red Angus Association fall sale

http://www.missouriredangus.com/fallsale.htm

 

[twabscs]

ok, that makes sense. Yes, I'm thinking about going to the RA sale in Kirksville. Just requested a sale catalog.

 

[Farmgirl]

As a cow drys off, each quarter will dry up at a different rate, the teats during that time frame may very well point in different directions.

Dun,

Does the same hold true for a cow/heifer that is about to calve? We have a heifer due in about 10 days. Her quarters are different sizes. Looks like her back qtrs are fulling out before the from ones. Udder looks funny now. Teats pointing in all directions.

Thanks,
Farmgirl

 

[randiliana]

Does the same hold true for a cow/heifer that is about to calve? We have a heifer due in about 10 days. Her quarters are different sizes. Looks like her back qtrs are fulling out before the from ones. Udder looks funny now. Teats pointing in all directions.

Thanks,
Farmgirl

Depends on the animal, some fill up evenly, some don't, some get really full and others don't.

As for the picture of the red cow, her udder looks pretty good to me. Looks like one that will last in the long haul.

 

[msscamp]

You're right dun, my bad. I mean "teat" in the above discourse. The teats pointed in different directions, etc. Now fixed.

With a cow that has recently weaned a calf, her tits will usually point in different directions due to a turgid udder. :?

 

[msscamp]

As a cow drys off, each quarter will dry up at a different rate, the teats during that time frame may very well point in different directions.

Dun,

Does the same hold true for a cow/heifer that is about to calve?

Thanks,
Farmgirl

I'm not dun but, generally speaking, yes.