Risk vs Reward, does calf size really matter?

[Amo]

Interesting thread. Going to a bull sale tomorrow and calculating this.

Small live calf is always better than a big dead one. With that said, I also think its silly to use a heifer bull on a 5th calving cow, etc. I guess I don't think you just gain the 20#'s from 80-100 at birth and only add 20 to your ww. How many times have we heard don't do single trait selection? A person don't want to be stupid, but why over emphsise bw on a mature cow? Yes there are curve benders. I personally think that that a good curve bender is higher maintence genetics. Throw your feed costs into your profitability equazation.

I also agree that people don't realize what they weigh until they weigh them! This is my 3rd year of weighing every calf. Its not that time consuming. Ive had anywhere from 70-118. Do I like over 100, not really. I read somewhere that universtiy of missouri did a study. Said that a cows genetics will try to have a calf that is about 7% of its mature wt. Id guess the bulls bw would go into the equaztion.

Guess I watch bw, and proably going to pay a little more attention to it. If its for cows, I will look at other things like IMF, or WW etc and the bw won't be as big of a decesion factor as it is on heifers.

 

[Supa Dexta]

And as I mentioned before - you can also get a cheaper bull in that sense, since everyone is chasing the low BW numbers and competing for those bulls.

 

[bball]

That's exactly what happened to me earlier this year at a bull sale. Picked up a bull with top ww numbers and marginal bw numbers for $800 less than the low bw bulls. I was pleased to buy him too as he will be used on 3-10 year old cows. WW was a trait we were trying to improve, just hope I don't end up pulling a bunch of calves. Having said all this, a live calf is the priority for us. Btw, we had to pull three calves this year; all heifers bred to a low bw bull..go figure. I was wondering if we didn't get all caught up in low birth weights and ended up with smaller pelvic openings on our replacements.....?

 

[Red Bull Breeder]

Seems to me the middle range of bw is where I want of be. LBW bulls over time will lead to heifers that can't have a tom cat.

 

[talltimber]

That could be why I've heard to never keep a heifer out of a first calf heifer? I always assumed it was because maybe it wouldn't have had a real good opportunity for quality colostrum, care, milk (maybe) to grow out like she should...

 

[Supa Dexta]

That could be taken a couple of ways. If using a low BW bull and then raised by an avg heifer it may be smaller. But if you have good heifers raising good calves, bred to good bulls, there's no reason not to keep them - You're getting those genetics that much sooner.

6 calves here in the last 24 hours and avg'd 103 lbs. And a snow storm again - go figure.

 

[dun]

Seems to me the middle range of bw is where I want of be. LBW bulls over time will lead to heifers that can't have a tom cat.

Not if you keep an eye on maternal calving ease instead of just direct calving ease.

 

[Lucky_P]

Right, dun. I see that 'constant selection for ow BW will lead to calving issues' comment, and don't buy it.
Some folks use Jersey bulls for calving ease on heifers. Low BWs have been a fact of life for Jerseys for centuries. Jersey cows can squirt out some big ol' calves with no problem.
f you pick through 'em right, there are plenty of high CED bulls with good to great MCE.

I almost never use a bull with MCE less than breed average - and prefer them to be in the top 10-20% of breed. It's one of the more important criteria I look at when picking a sire.
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[Red Bull Breeder]

I have seen plenty of calves pulled out of jersey cross cows. Seen quite a few of them never get up from it. EPD is only as good as the people reporting them.

 

[dun]

Right, dun. I see that 'constant selection for ow BW will lead to calving issues' comment, and don't buy it.
Some folks use Jersey bulls for calving ease on heifers. Low BWs have been a fact of life for Jerseys for centuries. Jersey cows can squirt out some big ol' calves with no problem.
f you pick through 'em right, there are plenty of high CED bulls with good to great MCE.

I almost never use a bull with MCE less than breed average - and prefer them to be in the top 10-20% of breed. It's one of the more important criteria I look at when picking a sire.
I

We've got a heifer soon to calve that is generations of calving ease stacked up. She's out of a first calf heifer who was out of a first calf heifer who was out of a first calf heifer. Her yearling pelvic was 181. Sure don;t foresee any problems with that.

 

[Red Bull Breeder]

I see you didn't just take the EPD for it.

 

[dun]

I see you didn't just take the EPD for it.

We also used the Maternal Calving Ease EPD CETM for Red Angus). That's what it's there for.

 

[bball]

So would you say that the idea of "low bw bulls tend to throw smaller framed calfs and said smaller framed heifer calfs will, by default, have a smaller pelvic opening due to the smaller nature of their skeletal system" is erroneous? This is how a few of the big breeder outfits around here explained it to me. These fellas are calving 400-450, 80-100 first calvers with minimal intervention. Thanks for bringing up MCE too. Good call.

 

[bball]

Of course, the above statement is a generalization.. just as in humans, there will always be outliers, smaller framed cattle with large pelvic openings. I was just asking, genreally speaking, do yall find this idea to be true?

 

[dun]

Not necesarrily eroneous as much as over blown. Our cows run around 5.6-6 FS our heifers when they mature are in the same ballpark. This year we did have a heifer born 13 days early from a heifer and she is going to be smaller framed I think. But it's pretty academic as she won;t be retained anyway. 54 lb BW is too small for my tastes.

 

[Nesikep]

I came to the conclusion this morning that my Limo bull is for cows only.. Kama, a very well developed heifer had a not-so-fun time delivering a 108 lb bull calf.. head came out OK, but was hiplocked, and she's from a good maternal calving ease family.. The testament to that is the calf is good and strong, and she got up after and wasn't even wobbly (I gave her 2cc Dex anyhow).. Before calving I figured she was pushing 1200 lbs, which means she's probably in the 1050 lb range now, but she'll be filling up on hay again here.

So that makes 3/3 heifers needing significant help with this bull, but 0 of 15 cows.. I found some bulls throw light calves from the heifers, and heavy calves from the cows, the idea scenario, this guy they're all similar weights, regardless of the size of the cow.. not so nice. It's made me make a firm decision that my home raised bull is going to be getting my heifers and 2nd calvers in his own pasture (at least for the first 3 weeks of breeding), and then they might get all tossed together depending on pasture management constraints. Truth is my yearling bull has a higher BW than the Limo, but he's one of the lightest calves from a mature cow for my herd, as opposed to a bull that's lighter, but on the heavy side of herd average.

Either way, I'm still at 0% loss from too high a BW over the last 150 animals born here

 

[bball]

Nesikep, of the 150, how many would you say you had to intervene? Just a ball park?

 

[Andyva]

In all of the discussions on birth weight on here, I've never heard anyone mention the impact of timing of calving season on birthweight. I've weighed calves, I can usually judge pretty close, I've kept some records and have a pretty good memory of the stuff that I didn't write down. I wonder how many people, go out and bid up the low birthweight bulls and spend top dollar on them, and then, using the "live calf is the most important thing" idea, time their calving season for late spring. If you have a cow that spends the last couple months of gestation eating hay and melting snow, her calf will weigh less when it is born, than the same cow spending the last couple months not melting snow and standing in grass up to her belly. Running half stocking densities and offering year round free choice grain will make them bigger, too. So you might loose all of your low birth weight mojo if you delay calving season, or you might need extra low birthweight mojo, because you delay calving season, or over condition, or whatever. Most wild critters are at somewhat of a low point when they give birth, and time their birth to about the time things start picking up. It helps udder health when they start more gradually, too, as food becomes available, instead of coming in on 10 gallons a day for a newborn calf.

 

[Son of Butch]

instead of coming in on 10 gallons a day for a newborn calf.

Beef cows with 86 pounds of milk per day? Where's that B.S. flag...found it :bs:

 

[Andyva]

Well, with some of the outcrossing that goes on you never know. If your going to cross on Holstein you might as well cross on a good one. I was using an exaggeration to illustrate reality, by the way. It's a southern thing.