Triplets

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Eddy

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I am Eddy. Have 33.6 acers and 2 Herfords and now 4 calves. Want to share and get some feedback on what to do. Thank you.
On August the 25th 2023.My herford was able to birth 3 caves. First 2 seemed to be twins (black/white face) #1 was a heifer and #2 a bull. #3 was (brown/red) heifer. The #2 bull's hoofs were turned in but the vet fixed them with braces. Because the bull could not stand I have bottle fed him from birth. The other 2 are fine. They all 3 made the cover page of the Lampasas Dispath Record. The Vet Dr. McBride has continued to give me directions. Kind of worried about bringing him back to the field and the mom herford hurting him. On Cristmas the triplets will be 4 months old. Any suggestions on my next steps would be greatly appreciated. Thank you all. The bull was an Angus
 
I would have no problem with getting them back together if the cow doesn't get aggressive... It would be less likely the bottle calf would go back on the cow since that is not where he associates milk coming from but sometimes they do. At 4 months, they should all be eating grain or some sort of creep feed and to me that would be the key... provide a creep feeder for them and a creep gate for them to go through to get in to eat without the cows pushing them around... the cow could probably use some extra groceries, but if the calves will start eating/ or continue to eat, some grain/feed, they will not draw her down so bad. And they will up their intake as the milk supply dwindles...

You do realize that the heifer that was the "twin" to the bull calf will most likely be a free martin.. a non-breeder... but there is a possibility the other heifer was produced from an egg from the other horn, and grew along for a bit so might not be a non-breeder. One dairy here close had several free martins actually turn out with a functioning reproductive tract and they were in the herd milking... it is 90% or so that they will not have a fully developed reproductive tract when twin with a bull...

I guess after losing her first 2 calves she figured she needed to make up for it with the triplets... Congrats on them being basically healthy and you taking care of them.
If the cow is not bothered by the reintroduction of the calf... he will actually be good for teaching the others to come in through a creep gate to eat grain if they are not already doing it... you can get him to come in just by his association with you being one of the "good guys" ....
 
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farmerjan said:
I guess after losing her first 2 calves she figured she needed to make up for it with the triplets... Congrats on them being basically healthy and you taking care of them.
Click to expand...
Kinda like the cow that I gave to a friend because she wasn't productive enough... then she went and had 3 sets of twins for him!

Good advice there
 
farmerjan said:
I would have no problem with getting them back together if the cow doesn't get aggressive... It would be less likely the bottle calf would go back on the cow since that is not where he associates milk coming from but sometimes they do. At 4 months, they should all be eating grain or some sort of creep feed and to me that would be the key... provide a creep feeder for them and a creep gate for them to go through to get in to eat without the cows pushing them around... the cow could probably use some extra groceries, but if the calves will start eating/ or continue to eat, some grain/feed, they will not draw her down so bad. And they will up their intake as the milk supply dwindles...

You do realize that the heifer that was the "twin" to the bull calf will most likely be a free martin.. a non-breeder... but there is a possibility the other heifer was produced from an egg from the other horn, and grew along for a bit so might not be a non-breeder. One dairy here close had several free martins actually turn out with a functioning reproductive tract and they were in the herd milking... it is 90% or so that they will not have a fully developed reproductive tract when twin with a bull...

I guess after losing her first 2 calves she figured she needed to make up for it with the triplets... Congrats on them being basically healthy and you taking care of them.
If the cow is not bothered by the reintroduction of the calf... he will actually be good for teaching the others to come in through a creep gate to eat grain if they are not already doing it... you can get him to come in just by his association with you being one of the "good guys" ....
Click to expand...
Wow! Great! You have given me a lot to make sure this works out. Thank you for all the information.
 
I have a group of heifers that calve pretty close together...every year.... we raise them together and they stay in a group to calve out and then they might get split up into different groups as they get a little older for various reasons... but have had several of them "co-mother" calves and let more than one nurse them... so your other hereford allowing them to nurse also is probably not a bad thing as they will all get a little more to eat this way and neither cow will ever get mastitis that way either...
The only down side is that once you wean them... you cannot let the calves go back with the cows when they have new calves... it seems more often that calves that have been raised on "co-mothers" tend to also be more likely to go back to stealing off a cow after they have been long weaned and you do not want them to go back to nursing a cow that has a new baby. Mine get weaned and whoever we keep for replacements, will not see another nursing cow until after they have their own first calf.
I will calve out first calf heifers with others of the same age, and then they might get moved to another pasture with other cows. They are unlikely to try to go back to nursing "their mother" at that time, since they are all grown up and have their own baby to take care of....

I have had 2 to go back to nursing another cow while their own baby is sucking them... nose rings didn't work and one got moved to another place and those cows did not tolerate it, she got rammed by a cow that was not tolerating it, and learned the hard way.... and she was low man on the totem pole so quit... the other would not quit and got shipped because she would try to suck any/every cow in the field... pi$$ed me off when I caught her at it, and the next time I got her in the catch pen, she left....

Have you moved the bottle calf back out there? How is that working?
 
I have not moved the calf back yet. Really worried he would get hurt. He will be 4 months old on the 25th and I may try to put him in a pen so the others could be nose to nose and maybe get used to him.
 

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