Trusting you guys

[Nick Wagner]

I wonder if Nick's 'familial correlation' to uterine prolapse might be because those cows brought big birthweight and/or small pelvic area to the equation.
What Bigfoot said...you've already fed her for 2 years...you're gonna feed her for another year and a half before she makes a payment on her keep. But...if it's a hobby, and not a business, no reason not to keep her if she breeds back.

Full disclosure...I've got a pet heifer that we pulled a big calf out of a month ago...calf died before I got it all the way out. She'll get another shot at it...but she's a pet, and the only cow I now own...a hobby...no less than the two horses standing in the pasture with her.

Dad wasn't afraid to pull calves and I learned from it, today I pull one every few years. Could have been part of the equation. They were Polled Herefords. Grandpa had angus, was not afraid to pull calves, and to my knowledge never had a prolapsed uterus. My philosophy today is everything has a genetic component, sell your problems and eventually you have less problems.

One time I castrated a baby calf that tipped the scale at 100 pounds, dad was upset because he might turn into a nice calf, exactly why the little bugger got castrated. Grandpa used a +7 birthweight bull one time, wild turkey I think was the bull's name, I could have shot him when I found out. Raising cattle is much less work than it used to be, but I miss them both.

 

[RDFF]

We used to have a bunch of sheep (I'm not a sheep fan, but my wife had them when we got married). She was aiming at triplets... and was pretty successful at it, including grafting that third one or a quad onto a singlet ewe. But we had a number of prolapses, finally wised up and sold everything that ever did it, AND their babies. Prolapses ended. I think breeding for that many multiples was a big part of the genetic predisposition. Long story short, you'll breed in whatever you keep, IMO. In nature, these issues would have a way of self-elimination.

 

[76 Bar]

wild turkey I think was the bull's name

Likely Hart's Wild Turkey. A mammoth bull who was competitive at major shows during the frame race & known for producing huge Bwt's.

 

[Lee VanRoss]

RDFF> Although it may be preaching to the choir I totally agree. I would also suspect that a high percentage of those encouraging retention
of prolapses have the advantage of outside income from sources other than cattle or even farming. This will hold true for many of the other
reasons to cull including, late calvers, heavy milking hard keeping and any orher profit robbing problem that can be genetically brought into
a cow herd. In most cases I fully realize that a lot of hard work and planning went into that extra source of income and they are entitled
to the fruits thereof. To wear the hat just because they can and to offer feel good advice contrary to sound business principles does
have the effect of a fly in the ointment. LVR You breed what you keep! I could not agree more!

 

[Lucky_P]

RDFF,
The heritable nature of most VAGINAL prolapses in cattle and sheep has long been known. Culling offenders and their offspring is the way to eliminate it.
Uterine prolapses, on the other hand, are a different matter.

Nick's anecdotal 'correlations' aside, there's been no documented evidence that I've ever seen that uterine prolapses are anything other than a postpartum 'accident', with repeat performances no more likely than for any other cow in the national herd, and no suggestion of it being a heritable issue.

I probably replaced at least 100 uterine prolapses during my veterinary career; most survived and bred back. I never recommended culling uterine prolapse cows unless they failed to breed back or the calf was dead.
Cattle population during my early practice years in southern middle TN was heavily predominated by Beefmaster cattle... I saw way more vaginal prolapses in those old gals than I ever did uterine prolapses in all breeds combined - but they probably got the 'prolapse gene' from both the Hereford & Shorthorn in their makeup. Always recommended the producers cull them... but "it's a registered, high-dollar cow!"... so they often stayed... as did their daughters and sons.
I still remember... one of the very last calls I went on before I left practice was to replace a vaginal/cervical prolapse in a Beefmaster cow that was easily as big as a 5 gallon bucket hanging out the old gal's back end.

All that said, from a pure economic standpoint, culling any cow that doesn't deliver a live calf, or raise it to weaning... no excuses... is the way to go. If I had an orphan calf to graft onto one, and she'll take it... fine, she's redeemed herself... but I'm not gonna go buy one - to put on her... especially not a dairy calf... the risk of introducing diseases like rota/coronavirus, Salmonella, Johnes, etc. into the herd is just too great to keep an 'unlucky' cow around.

But... we often make excuses for them... I know I have done my share of it. But... I do admit that mine is now just a hobby.

 

[RDFF]

Lucky, totally agree that "from a pure economic standpoint, culling any cow that doesn't deliver a live calf, or raise it to weaning... no excuses... is the way to go." And I'm sure you would agree as well that it should go beyond just delivering and raising a live calf to weaning... if she's a "hard keeper", or has poor feet and legs, or a bad temperament, etc. I include in that pretty much all "issues", as a "principle"......... which of course, often gets violated for a good number of our justifications . But I would be willing to bet that if you ruthlessly culled for every problem, you might have a fairly small herd, but I'd bet they'd be able to work for themselves, instead of us working for them!

The best cow in the herd is the one that you can barely even know who she is or that she's out there... she's never given you any reason to look at her suspiciously, and she just did her job, every day, without your help or intervention. "But"... is probably one of the most dangerous and costly words in the English language when we are making culling decisions.

 

[Silver]

RDFF> Although it may be preaching to the choir I totally agree. I would also suspect that a high percentage of those encouraging retention
of prolapses have the advantage of outside income from sources other than cattle or even farming.

To wear the hat just because they can and to offer feel good advice contrary to sound business principles does
have the effect of a fly in the ointment. LVR You breed what you keep! I could not agree more!

I would suspect that you have no idea what you are talking about, and likely have far less experience in the matter at hand than many who have freely given their advise based on years of experience and sound science.

 

[Lee VanRoss]

Silver: I had the chance to get my own first calf as payment for shocking 40 acres of oats for a neighbor the summer I turned 15.
I appreciated the opportunity and still do some 65 plus years later. Unknown to either of us the calf was a chronic bloater so I was
compelled to keep it isolated or run the risk of losing it. (I fully expect you wil bring my meager teenage intelligence to task for not
having thought of the myriad of yet uninvented cures.) Even with Buck agreeing with you, giving advice to keep a prolapsed heifer
with a dead calf is poor advice. She would be 3 years old before she has a chance to calve and 4 years old before returning a dime.
(providing one sold the calf at a year) You also cannot assure me or anyone with a modicum of common sense that you would not
have some concern about the heifers ability to bring the calf to world unassisted and you or old Buck would be keeping an eye on her.
There is no doubt your railroad is longer than mine, however: it is not any wider ! LVR

 

[Silver]

The way I look at it is this. Grass is cheap. It's not far to grass and bull turn out. If it were me and the choice was to spend money to buy a replacement or keep her the choice is not difficult. Particularly if I can get her to raise a calf this year. If she doesn't breed back at preg check in the fall then off she goes. I don't feed open cows. I do graze a few that suffered losses in the spring. Driving to market is a 5 hour round trip. I don't buy replacements.
Buck and I very likely would keep an eye on her and every other expecting cow as per good husbandry practices. But I would not be concerned that she would repeat.
So the only real question is: Is it good practice to summer a cow that has lost her calf.
This is a question who's answer is dependent on knowing the cost of carrying her from the time of the loss of the calf until weaning / shipping time. After that she is just another bred cow. For me it costs about $3.22 per AUM to graze her. A little hay for a month or two. These are not the major costs of carrying a cow. Others costs will vary and each operator will have to determine whether it's worth it or not.

 

[Rydero]

That's the thing. It's not the same as wintering an open cow, you don't know she'll prolapse so she's already wintered. I don't expect many prolapse cows lose the calf either - my situation seems far more likely. I try to graft a calf in any instance (if I can find a calf) that a cow loses her own. If it's a luck of the draw, non genetic thing where the offending cow isn't more likely to do it again - Graft, summer and if she's in calf keep her.

 

[SBMF 2015]

The way I look at it is this. Grass is cheap. It's not far to grass and bull turn out. If it were me and the choice was to spend money to buy a replacement or keep her the choice is not difficult. Particularly if I can get her to raise a calf this year. If she doesn't breed back at preg check in the fall then off she goes. I don't feed open cows. I do graze a few that suffered losses in the spring. Driving to market is a 5 hour round trip. I don't buy replacements.
Buck and I very likely would keep an eye on her and every other expecting cow as per good husbandry practices. But I would not be concerned that she would repeat.
So the only real question is: Is it good practice to summer a cow that has lost her calf.
This is a question who's answer is dependent on knowing the cost of carrying her from the time of the loss of the calf until weaning / shipping time. After that she is just another bred cow. For me it costs about $3.22 per AUM to graze her. A little hay for a month or two. These are not the major costs of carrying a cow. Others costs will vary and each operator will have to determine whether it's worth it or not.

The way I'm figuring it; I've got $1,800 invested in a hfr by the time she drops her first calf. It will cost around $300 to keep her another year. Last year was heavy to the bull calf side so I don't have as many quality yearling hfrs to choose replacements from. There's a reason I chose to keep this hfr in the first place. Whether I rerun this hfr or save back a crossbred hfr to replace her, I'm still short a calf to put in the feedlot this fall.

Either directly or indirectly cattle pay my bills. Period. Sometimes you have to minimizing your losses one year to maximize your profit the next year.

 

[W.B.]

Bump your Calcium by feeding 2-4 lbs of average alfalfa will eliminate most uterine prolapses. It is induced by environment. Difficult birthing and or combined feeding of distillers grains, corn silage or other grains. We calve more than a few cows and our uterine prolapse rate is less than 1 per 2000 births.

 

[Buck Randall]

People who cull every animal that doesn't raise a calf aren't nearly as sharp with a pencil as they think they are. It's a better policy than keeping every problem animal, but the most profitable strategy is somewhere in between.
If a calf gets struck by lightning and dies, do you throw the cow on the trailer? Assume this is a young cow with no other problems. Culling that cow is the most expensive thing you can do. You're going to sell her at a steep discount, then raise her replacement at full price, or go out and buy a decent replacement that will take years to pay you back.
Keeping the prolapse heifer around and pregnancy checking her in six months is a low risk venture.

 

[Caustic Burno]

People who cull every animal that doesn't raise a calf aren't nearly as sharp with a pencil as they think they are. It's a better policy than keeping every problem animal, but the most profitable strategy is somewhere in between.
If a calf gets struck by lightning and dies, do you throw the cow on the trailer? Assume this is a young cow with no other problems. Culling that cow is the most expensive thing you can do. You're going to sell her at a steep discount, then raise her replacement at full price, or go out and buy a decent replacement that will take years to pay you back.
Keeping the prolapse heifer around and pregnancy checking her in six months is a low risk venture.

Don't raise replacements way to costly. There is no genetic advantage in the commercial herd.

 

[SBMF 2015]

Don't raise replacements way to costly. There is no genetic advantage in the commercial herd.

The advantage is that they are used to your environment. The feed stuffs available, the strains of diseases, already trained to the type of fence you have. And you aren't getting someone else's problems.

 

[Caustic Burno]

The advantage is that they are used to your environment. The feed stuffs available, the strains of diseases, already trained to the type of fence you have. And you aren't getting someone else's problems.

I know everyone else cattle has problems. That is an excuse to me. Like the salebarn is evil and nothing but bad cattle there.

 

[SBMF 2015]

I know everyone else cattle has problems. That is an excuse to me. Like the salebarn is evil and nothing but bad cattle there.

There are only two reasons cattle ever end up at the sale barn: their a problem of some sort, or money. Besides the fact that we enjoy them the reason to have cattle is money.
Ten years ago, if a cow was sound I didn't care what her problem was. Cheap cows made money. Thanks to that line of thinking got me bounced, thrown, and rolled. Brought Johnes home from the sale barn. That took 4 years to clean up. Bought 20Hd out of heard dispersales and heard reductions 2 years ago. They brought Anaplasmosis, and Harjo Lepto with them. Still trying to clean that up.
I do a few one and done cows every year. Currently working redoing fence on a different farm so they have no contact with my good cows.
Sale barns are not evil. From time to time I sell heifer pairs at the sale barn. They are there to make me money.

 

[Buck Randall]

Don't raise replacements way to costly. There is no genetic advantage in the commercial herd.

That may be true for your herd, but it's definitely not the case for all, especially the more intensively managed herds.

 

[Caustic Burno]

That may be true for your herd, but it's definitely not the case for all, especially the more intensively managed herds.

In the commercial terminal calf operation raising replacements never pencils out. At today's prices that raised replacement might never make a profit.
Your have two years of inputs in the replacement and the dam with no return on investment. That's roughly 2K in expenses and your have another six months in both before you sale a marketable calf. That's roughly 2500 in the replacement. They are not free by any means.
I can buy replacements 1200 ready to be bred now and another 488 days till I sell a marketable calf bringing my inputs on that replacement to 1932. You can't manage more intensively than a pencil.
I can't raise replacements like this for 1200 dollars! I would have double that in the retained heifers.
The purchased heifers also have tax advantages over the retained.

 

[Buck Randall]

In the commercial terminal calf operation raising replacements never pencils out. At today's prices that raised replacement might never make a profit.
Your have two years of inputs in the replacement and the dam with no return on investment. That's roughly 2K in expenses and your have another six months in both before you sale a marketable calf. That's roughly 2500 in the replacement. They are not free by any means.
I can buy replacements 1200 ready to be bred now and another 488 days till I sell a marketable calf bringing my inputs on that replacement to 1932. You can't manage more intensively than a pencil.
I can't raise replacements like this for 1200 dollars! I would have double that in the retained heifers.
The purchased heifers also have tax advantages over the retained.

All of that is based on the assumption that you'll wean a calf of the same value from the purchased animal as you would from your home raised replacements. That's true of some farms, but again, not all.