Stunted growth question

[Roseys girl]

Ok I first must say I don't like to use forums for the simple fact that someone always needs to be mean to the person asking the question but we are having an issue on the farm that I can't seem to find much information on. So please I'm looking for helpful responses and not people telling me that I don't know what I'm doing.

I would say that every two years our Farm will end up with one calf that won't grow. They have no other defects and generally end up living happy healty lives. I am trying to find the cause of this. The farm has 75+ cows. Hereford angus and beefalo breeds and every year we breed with a new bull that we will purchase so there is in no way that it could be from imbreading. The cattle is grass fed only. The firs one that had this issue was 100% Hereford male, the two most recent ones were female angus Hereford cross. We started having calfs in April and stopped in July and just about all of the calfs are bigger then the one we have left that was born in March of 2011. At this size the females end up being pets because they never grow large enough to breed. I'm just looking for any helpful responses to why this is going on. Thank you

 

[dun]

At one time there was a stray dwarf gene floating around which leads me to the question were any of the parents of these calves related? If not, then you get to the calves that just aren;t aggresive eaters or the ones that just geneticly are poor doers. If I had a problem like that the first thing I would do is not breed the mother of the calf and send her to slaughter. Unless the cow is very young or very old there isn;t any excuse for breeding those types of cows.

 

[Anonymous]

Are you buying bulls from the same source every year

 

[greybeard]

and what breed is the bull?

 

[Taurus]

and what breed is the bull?

Well the OP stated a 100% hereford calf bull assuming that the OP is using hereford bulls.

 

[Bigfoot]

I doubt there's a hard and fast answer. We all have poor performers from time to time Best to cull aggressively cows that don't wean big calves if weaning weights are your top priority. You have too many head for this to be an out and out hobby.

 

[Nite Hawk]

You said that you have maybe 1 calf every 2 years out of 75 cows that doesn't grow properly.By doing the math that is one calf out of 150 calves that is a poor doer.
It is frustrating to have even one calf that does not do well, but 1 out of 150 calves probably isn"t a bad statisic if you looked at other farms with a similar number of animals. They possibly might have a similar number of calves that are poor growers.
With that said, a number of years ago the Hereford breed had problems with a dwarf gene, and if I remember right it was fairly widespread, so there is possibly a genetic connection.
Are you breeding for easy calving?( low birth weights?)
Some low birth weight bulls will throw small calves that once they are born will grow incredibly, but some low birth weight- blood lines are born small and stay that way, never picking up after birth and really growing.
Also, is it possible that there is a mineral deficiency in your soil that may be contributing to the problem? as you said they were all grass fed, so I asume that means no grain at all.
Some breeds / bloodlines do better on a straight grass diet than others. Some animals /breeds require more care than others to maintain body condition and growth.
Also, what kind of milkers are the mothers to the poor growing calves? Its not always the volume of milk but the quality that can also make a difference in growth.
Also, Some animals will get in and just mow the grass down, and others are picky, finicky eaters and want only certain types of grass, and the fincky eaters are usually hard to keep the weight on, so they probably won't grow as good as other cattle.
Growth rate is basically summed up between genetic and nutritional. If its not genetic then something is lacking either in the quality or volume of feed, or the animal is picky and won't eat properly, or are getting shoved out of the hay stack.
Hope you solve your problem..
Nite hawk

 

[cow pollinater]

Dwarfism occurs in both angus and hereford. It could be that at some point in the past bulls that carried the defect were used and daughters were kept and then you purchased another bull that carried the defect and increased the odds of the progeny having dwarfism. Since all three of them had a white face I'd be looking closely at your hereford bulls pedigrees for hints.

 

[jerry27150]

are there any oak trees on your place?

 

[Beefy]

the calves probably arent getting enough milk. make sure the dams of the afflicted calves are milking adequately. you cant really tell without actually milking the cow out some. ive seen udders that looked fine be completely nonfunctional. sometimes cows just dont come into their milk like they normally do. im' not sure what causes this but i suspect leaving the previous calf on too long can affect this some. and possibly stressors such as parasites and mineral deficiency. also sometimes a cow that calves prematurely wont come into her milk like she normally would. sometimes they pick up on milk production later on and sometimes not.

the calf could just be wormy. do a fecal. not all wormers kill certain types of worms. coccidiosis could also be a possibility.

mineral deficiencies can really stunt a calf as well. and then there are a number of diseases that could do this. but i would lean towards inadequate milk (maybe didnt get colostrum for several days?) or parasites, first.

 

[Taurus]

the calves probably arent getting enough milk. make sure the dams of the afflicted calves are milking adequately. you cant really tell without actually milking the cow out some. ive seen udders that looked fine be completely nonfunctional. sometimes cows just dont come into their milk like they normally do. im' not sure what causes this but i suspect leaving the previous calf on too long can affect this some. and possibly stressors such as parasites and mineral deficiency. also sometimes a cow that calves prematurely wont come into her milk like she normally would. sometimes they pick up on milk production later on and sometimes not.

the calf could just be wormy. do a fecal. not all wormers kill certain types of worms. coccidiosis could also be a possibility.

mineral deficiencies can really stunt a calf as well. and then there are a number of diseases that could do this. but i would lean towards inadequate milk (maybe didnt get colostrum for several days?) or parasites, first.

I would bet my money on Hereford's dwarfism as the calves' dam don't have any problems to raising their siblings to the normal sized.

 

[snake67]

Ok I first must say I don't like to use forums for the simple fact that someone always needs to be mean to the person asking the question but we are having an issue on the farm that I can't seem to find much information on. So please I'm looking for helpful responses and not people telling me that I don't know what I'm doing.

I would say that every two years our Farm will end up with one calf that won't grow. They have no other defects and generally end up living happy healty lives. I am trying to find the cause of this. The farm has 75+ cows. Hereford angus and beefalo breeds and every year we breed with a new bull that we will purchase so there is in no way that it could be from imbreading. The cattle is grass fed only. The firs one that had this issue was 100% Hereford male, the two most recent ones were female angus Hereford cross. We started having calfs in April and stopped in July and just about all of the calfs are bigger then the one we have left that was born in March of 2011. At this size the females end up being pets because they never grow large enough to breed. I'm just looking for any helpful responses to why this is going on. Thank you

First off your opening statement is a bit judgmental - but as you can see it has been let go - so perhaps you are wrong - your apology is accepted in advance.

Second - dwarfism is a potential. So is lack of colostrum. While there are probably many other potential causes - as illustrated by Beefy who is no slouch when it comes to cows - these are the two predominant ones - at least in my opinion. (For whatever that is worth!)

A new born calf can make it for a couple days with no milk and do poorly forever thereafter - if it is a poor doer at birth and does not get colostrum it WILL be a failing animal - and usually not grow - so poor mothering at birth can be one cause. A 24 hour delay and it is behind forever.

Check your records and see who is related to who - despite the "bet my money" on the Hereford, both Herfs and Angus have been known to do the dwarf thing once in a while. Out of our mixed herd of more than a couple hundred blacks and red/whites and over the space of 30 plus years we have had two that dwarfed out - one was a black baldy and one was a pure black.

I personally have not seen one since the early 80's - I attribute this to killing everything in the herd that might even remotely be associated with that specific calf. That is what slaughter houses and sale barns are for. Just do not let it be sold for breeding.

Your problem is a less than 1% issue - seems to me that most folks raising cattle would like to have that as a statistic.

In fact my poor math shows the problem to be about .67 of one percent. I would bet you have more troubles with pulling calves, hoof rot or even deads than that.

Be that as it may it is very likely you could solve the problem if you keep accurate enough records - that will - in the end be the answer to your initial question

Dwarfism in Herfs now is very rare and can be solved by killing the mother and eating her. Do the same with the calf. The same can be stated for any cow - and to my knowledge there are several breeds that can (does not mean they will) throw a dwarf.

I did not see what bull you were using - but the quality of the bull comes to mind - especially as you buy one every year(?) - which I find to be a bit unusual and expensive. What type of bull and what quality are we talking about. Not all registered bulls are equal - and in my opinion, most bulls that I am seeing today should be ground up for burger rather than papered and used for breeding. He does equal half your herd and I am sure you know that.

Lots of questions in my mind - but your info is rather sparse.

Records - records - records - and cull - cull - cull

Check those records and after a time I bet you find a pattern

This problem can go away immediately if you do both - keep good records over time and cull hard - wish you all the luck in solving this one. You are not likely to get the complete solution here - but you might get an idea or two. Hope it works out well for you.

Best to you and have a great weekend

Bez

 

[glacierridge]

We have two in our herd as well, they are from the Sim bull Easy Money. The other two calves we have from him are average, and his EPDs look really good, but we are going with a simple solution.
We aren't going to use him anymore.
With our AI cows we haven't seen this degree of stunted growth to this severity with any other sire.
Don't know why tho.