The difference a day makes

[Muddy]

I've always had more important things to cull so far.. the 5 cows I shipped in the fall had to go, 3 for prolapses and 2 for repeated poor performances. Apparently I gotta get rid of everything short and everything tall too? The one replacement heifer I didn't post a picture of is a shorthorn Limo... she is taller than most as well, looks pretty good, but is a freak, and I just found she's still looking at teats... she's been weaned 4 months so she might be a perpetual offender... she may need to go.

Should had kept two poor performers. I don't believe that you should cull that mini cow tho, but in my experiences is that leggy heifer calves usually meant poor performers.

 

[WalnutCrest]

Keep the mini cow; keep her daughters but not her sons. Based on the rest of the herd, her genetic size is probably bigger than her phenotypical size.

 

[uplandnut]

That is some beautiful country! Do you feed small squares all winter?

 

[Kingfisher]

What's the deal with the big greenhouse frame?

 

[Nesikep]

Cotton1, Yes, the bull is the daughter of Caddy, not a small cow, but seems to stay in good condition without being a pig, and raises a good calf while doing it... exceptional calving ease (several calves were born in the blink of an eye.. from feet/nose showing to licking the calf was less than 3 minutes... She also has an exceptional udder.. balanced, good teats.. her mother and great grandmother lived to 18 and 14 years old and still had perfect teats.. good hooves too. The bull has 2 full sisters Chroma and Prada, Chroma was a 'slow starter'.. her first (heifer) calf was well built but nothing to write home about, the second was average in size and beautiful (Tifa) and she's going to have her first calf this spring (bred to that bull). Chroma's 3rd calf (steer) wasn't as pretty, he kinda had 'bug eyes'.. but he was the biggest steer of all.. ~640 lbs at 170 days.
Prada, the other full sister... well.. she's got a strike against her... She got bred late her first time and calved in August, I've always had more important things to cull, so I made a deal with her... she catches up by a month each year and raises a good calf, and I'll keep her around a while longer.. She's not a very full bodied cow, but she's always had to milk through the winter on less-than-ideal feed, so her hips and ribs show a little more, but her calves are thick and wide.. If she keeps breeding back on the first try I'll chalk the lateness on the first one to a slipped calf early in first trimester and just plain bad luck.
I have 2 other cows closely related to the bull, Cenci and Kama have the same sire, and their dam is his mothers dam as well... Cenci is expecting her 4th calf, she's only had steers so far, all of them 'picture perfect'.. the last one in particular was probably the nicest all-around steer I've ever raised, great muscle, length and conformation (He was the 4H hopeful I posted a thread about here http://www.cattletoday.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=99959). *REALLY* hoping she has a heifer that looks like that steer this time around.

Kama is expecting her 2nd calf, she did pretty well on the first at expense to body condition, I think hers was around 500 lbs @ 180 days, and now she's regained her condition and then some, and grown in size a lot.. Kama and Cenci don't have the perfect udders that Caddy's line has.. some extra/bigger teats, but I don't think they'll get worse with age. I think this coming year I'll shake the tree and be breeding the whole bunch of is 1/2+ sisters to him and see what falls out of it.

Walnut crest, I have 2 'mini' cows.. One (shown) is linebred father/daughter out of Mega, the second is 3/4 sister to Mega (different grandmother, same sire, same grandsire).. she's darker but the same size and build. I don't plan on keeping any bulls from Mega's line because of high birthweights anyhow, you are right that I think her genetic size is bigger than her phenotypical size.. probably by about 1 frame score.

Uplandnut, yes, I feed small squares all winter.. All said and done right now I'm feeding about 12-13 x 70 lb per day

Kingfisher.. We had 2 greenhouse frames, one fall the wind blew the plastic off one of them, and that winter we had a record snowfall and it smashed the other... We were too busy clearing snow off all the other roofs around here to bother with it.. we kinda totally forgot.. otherwise we'd have sliced the plastic to save the frame... Oh well

 

[cotton1]

Nesikep, I think I asked you about your bulls kinship in another thread but I see my answers here. You will probably like the new bull. It would be interesting to see the results I think.

 

[Nesikep]

I've always had more important things to cull so far.. the 5 cows I shipped in the fall had to go, 3 for prolapses and 2 for repeated poor performances. Apparently I gotta get rid of everything short and everything tall too? The one replacement heifer I didn't post a picture of is a shorthorn Limo... she is taller than most as well, looks pretty good, but is a freak, and I just found she's still looking at teats... she's been weaned 4 months so she might be a perpetual offender... she may need to go.

Should had kept two poor performers. I don't believe that you should cull that mini cow tho, but in my experiences is that leggy heifer calves usually meant poor performers.

Nah.. it was time for them to go.. they had enough chances (they were about 6-7 years old and had never made anything decent).. I only kept them because I had the feed, until this winter. The 2 mini cows, I'll give them a few years... by their 3rd calf if I'm not impressed I might have something better to replace them with.. I am glad I didn't judge Chroma by her first calf, she made up for it with her 3rd, the two minis might do the same. I saw my best heifer calf (8X, Katima) beside Sofa 2V and except for width and depth that comes with age, they're darned close to the same size.

Though it's not my goal to have higher frame score cows, once I've decided to keep them and they grow taller than expected I won't cull them for that alone.. I have a 12 year old shorthorn cow that's built about like a Holstein... She milks like one too though and raises nice calves.. she's mean as heck at calving, but her heifers have all been good, and one is exceptional.

Tera, 1X, the leggy one comes from Mega, who's anything but leggy.. and maternal sister to Sofa the short and fat "mini"... sometimes you just don't know how the genes will line up.. She also is shy at the feeder, so she doesn't get as much to eat, compounding the problem.
The other heifer Katima, 8X is taller than average. Perhaps the pictures don't show it, but she actually does have the stoutness to go with it... she's a 7/8th sister to Tera! (different great-grand dam).. Their mothers are 3/4 sisters and are very similar.
I will try to dig up pictures of the Limo bull's mother. I know I have one somewhere from when we went to look at him.. she was a nice cow. I'll also look for a picture of my bull from when he was a month old.. I could see he carried himself like a bull should from an early age... I have a picture of a full brother to him as well that I sold, but didn't pass his BSE due to a crooked penis, which was terribly unfortunate.. he was more impressive in build than his brother