Getting ready to head to the farm to work calves the next couple of weeks are gonna be busy and with lots of noise.
Gizmom
Gizmom
Spring herd work
- Thread starter gizmom
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Wish i was goin to help... i love working cattle.
jscunn
Well-known member
be safe, try not to let them get too loud, you might mess up my nap that i like to take at the barn on the afternoons. 
OP
OP
We worked 41 calves today we will work their mammas on Friday. Our son Jacob has been eyeing a calf out of a Sinclair Excellency 5X25 daughter and OCC Juneau 807J for a future herd bull the calf is nice his adjusted weaning weight is 631 frame score 5.19 weaning ratio 110. It was a beautiful day to work calves. Scott I will tell them to keep it down we don't want to disturb the neighbors.
Gizmom
Gizmom
OP
OP
We palpated 41 head on Friday I am not going to shout out the results yet because we still have two groups to palpate. I will say I hope the trend continues, and hopefully that doesn't jinx us.
Gizmom
Gizmom
inyati13
Well-known member
Happy to see you enjoy your cattle and hope your good luck and joy continues. I love to work cattle too.
OP
OP
Finished palpating the bred heifers today that wraped us up for this year. Out of 120 cows palpated we have four opens. We will be sending a total of 8 head to town the four open and then four smooth mouth cows. I hate to see the old girls leave they have been with us for a long time and have done a great job for us. This is the hardest part of the cattle business having to send old friends to town. The old girls are all bred so hopefull someone will pick them up to try to get the calf they are carrying, the calves should be good ones.
We have also been busy getting new fences installed trying to be better grass managers. The calves all weighed out really good and overall I would say this is one of our best calf groups. It looks like our ET work went really well again this year looks like about 18 of the eggs stuck. Of course that is just a wag at this point based on manual palpation, we wi
ll know more at calving time and then we will DNA all possible ET calves. But as of now it looks promising.
Gizmom
Gizmom
We have also been busy getting new fences installed trying to be better grass managers. The calves all weighed out really good and overall I would say this is one of our best calf groups. It looks like our ET work went really well again this year looks like about 18 of the eggs stuck. Of course that is just a wag at this point based on manual palpation, we wi
ll know more at calving time and then we will DNA all possible ET calves. But as of now it looks promising.
Gizmom
Gizmom
3MileRanch
Well-known member
gizmom":159ssu1a said:
Im just curious, Are you guys palpatating them yourself?
jscunn
Well-known member
congrats on that conception rate..
OP
OP
3mile
Yes we palpate them ourselves. Thanks jscunn we were happy with the results of course we would have loved 100% but that was probably asking for to much!
Gizmom
Yes we palpate them ourselves. Thanks jscunn we were happy with the results of course we would have loved 100% but that was probably asking for to much!
Gizmom
Fire Sweep Ranch
Well-known member
How many embryos did you stick in? Our first wave, we put in 6 and got three to stick (we know because we do not run a bull, so they came back in). We have another set of three coming up in the next few weeks, hoping for better conceptions...
OP
OP
firesweep
We put in 24 based on the palpation 18 are 120 days or better the problem is the bull could of bred them as soon as they went out, we waited a little to long palpating to really be certain on the ET work. 18 are possible six were short 70 to 80 days so they for sure didn't take an egg. We DNA test all calves that come two weeks either way of the ET due date so we really won't know for sure til next fall. It would be nice if all 18 are carrying eggs but I don't hold out a whole lot of hope for that lol. 50% is pretty much the norm using frozen eggs, I don't think is is a much higher with fresh were you using frozen or fresh eggs? Will you try again on the three that didn't stick or just breed them?
Gizmom
We put in 24 based on the palpation 18 are 120 days or better the problem is the bull could of bred them as soon as they went out, we waited a little to long palpating to really be certain on the ET work. 18 are possible six were short 70 to 80 days so they for sure didn't take an egg. We DNA test all calves that come two weeks either way of the ET due date so we really won't know for sure til next fall. It would be nice if all 18 are carrying eggs but I don't hold out a whole lot of hope for that lol. 50% is pretty much the norm using frozen eggs, I don't think is is a much higher with fresh were you using frozen or fresh eggs? Will you try again on the three that didn't stick or just breed them?
Gizmom
Only 4 open of 120 is an incredible conception rate! Congrats! The the drought here in the midwest last year was really rough on some herds. We were hearing of some people having as much as 20% of their herd come up open because of the extreme drought conditions.
Fire Sweep Ranch
Well-known member
gizmom":3667fnif said:
We only use frozen, since we buy most of our eggs. Of those three, two were one cow; we put two eggs in her and neither stuck. So we AI'd her the third cycle. She is one of the most fertile of the group, so I was surprised when the first AND second egg did not stick. She is the dam to the heavy muscled red bull calf I pictured yesterday in the "Some Simm Pics" thread, so it is not a heartache that she did not keep her egg since she has nice calves. She raised an embryo heifer calf for us last year, and does a great job. The other cow that did not stick, we had the vet out for embryo number two but she had no CL, so we let her cycle. She came into heat Tuesday, so we will try again for a second embryo. On the second go around, we always put in a cheaper egg, just in case it is the cow and not the egg. That recip is a half blood angus/simmental, and she is NH positive so I would like her to raise an embryo each year so I do not have to test her calves for NH. In our breed, ALL embryo calves have to be DNA'd if you do not own the dam. I like that, if I was buying an embryo calf I want to know for sure that is what I am getting!
Last fall, we put three in and got three to stick, the first time! We felt lucky. They are sexed as two heifers and a bull, so pretty happy there also!
OP
OP
Well we didn't palpate the four old cows so they could have all been open as well, they were really loseing condition with big ole calves pullling on them. When we checked teeth we just called cull before palpating. To be honest I would be suprised if they were bred so it is more likely that we had 8 open out of 120 I am having a senior moment so I can't remember how to figure % to save me right now lol . We didn't have a drought to deal with either, our water table is low but we were blessed with enough rain to keep the grass growing. We also had a good stand of winter oats and rye grass so the cattle were in really good shape during the breeding season, they are falling off some now but were on a real good nutritional plain during breeding season. Firesweep I wish you good luck on your next ET work, I am always excited to see the ET work turn out good it is alot of work to get cows set up so it sure is exciting when they take the egg!
Gizmom
Gizmom
