When are Big Calves a Good thing ?

[Stocker Steve]

I have a some mature Herf or SH cows that consistently throw "big calves" running 100 to 110 pounds without assistance. The cows range in size from about 935 to 1300 pounds.

I was reading through the 2012 bull catalog last night and of course they made a big deal out of calving ease. I would not use a 110# birth weight bull, but I am retaining heifers from this group of cows. I calved out a 950# heifer from one of these cows last spring and she had a 98# heifer calf without assistance...

Is low birth weight overrated or I asking for problems by retaining these heifers?

 

[Limomike]

Time will tell.

 

[hillbillycwo]

Can you have a pelvic measurement done? I remember reading a thread that was about replacement heifers and someone posted they had a culling criteria they used for determination on heifer retention and one of them was pelvic size but for the life of me I can't find it now. Maybe one of the Mentors can?

 

[Anonymous]

From what i saw yesterday: answer is when theyre black hided, drop at about 70 lbs, and grow like pigweed

 

[ANAZAZI]

I have a some mature Herf or SH cows that consistently throw "big calves" running 100 to 110 pounds without assistance. The cows range in size from about 935 to 1300 pounds.

I was reading through the 2012 bull catalog last night and of course they made a big deal out of calving ease. I would not use a 110# birth weight bull, but I am retaining heifers from this group of cows. I calved out a 950# heifer from one of these cows last spring and she had a 98# heifer calf without assistance...

Is low birth weight overrated or I asking for problems by retaining these heifers?

Keeping replacement heifers from cows that work is not wrong.
Calving ease and birth ease are far more important than calf weight.
For example our blonde sired calves always come out easy despite the fact that they are far heavier than other calves, they are long and have a good shape,
It is howeverer wise to select bulls with decent calf weights.

 

[Aaron]

I have a some mature Herf or SH cows that consistently throw "big calves" running 100 to 110 pounds without assistance. The cows range in size from about 935 to 1300 pounds.

I was reading through the 2012 bull catalog last night and of course they made a big deal out of calving ease. I would not use a 110# birth weight bull, but I am retaining heifers from this group of cows. I calved out a 950# heifer from one of these cows last spring and she had a 98# heifer calf without assistance...

Is low birth weight overrated or I asking for problems by retaining these heifers?

Keeping replacement heifers from cows that work is not wrong.
Calving ease and birth ease are far more important than calf weight.
For example our blonde sired calves always come out easy despite the fact that they are far heavier than other calves, they are long and have a good shape,
It is howeverer wise to select bulls with decent calf weights.

A big, block-shouldered bull with a pallet head won't help heifers, even if he has an 80 lb birthweight. Heifers can calve out 110 pounders, but they need to be built right.

Now big heifer calves will generally calve the same. But if they are built right, it shouldn't be a problem.

I've bred big birthweight 110-120 lb heifers to a proven calving ease bull with 82 lb bw and have them pop out well over 100 lbs. Just make sure you bred them to something with calving ease + low birth weight and that both are 'built right'.

The correlation between pelvis size and mature size is not 100%, but it is there. You can find curve benders in selection for pelvis size.

 

[Old_man_emu]

I have a some mature Herf or SH cows that consistently throw "big calves" running 100 to 110 pounds without assistance. The cows range in size from about 935 to 1300 pounds.

I was reading through the 2012 bull catalog last night and of course they made a big deal out of calving ease. I would not use a 110# birth weight bull, but I am retaining heifers from this group of cows. I calved out a 950# heifer from one of these cows last spring and she had a 98# heifer calf without assistance...

Is low birth weight overrated or I asking for problems by retaining these heifers?

Keeping replacement heifers from cows that work is not wrong.
Calving ease and birth ease are far more important than calf weight.
For example our blonde sired calves always come out easy despite the fact that they are far heavier than other calves, they are long and have a good shape,
It is howeverer wise to select bulls with decent calf weights.

A big, block-shouldered bull with a pallet head won't help heifers, even if he has an 80 lb birthweight. Heifers can calve out 110 pounders, but they need to be built right.

Now big heifer calves will generally calve the same. But if they are built right, it shouldn't be a problem.

I've bred big birthweight 110-120 lb heifers to a proven calving ease bull with 82 lb bw and have them pop out well over 100 lbs. Just make sure you bred them to something with calving ease + low birth weight and that both are 'built right'.

I agree with all the above!

The correlation between pelvis size and mature size is not 100%, but it is there. You can find curve benders in selection for pelvis size.

On this point ^ I thought the previous comment on pelvic measurement was in regards to calving ease i.e more room for the calf to come out through?

 

[Stocker Steve]

I did some pelvis measurements last year but did not learn much. Areas were all about the same.
I agree with the shape comments. The two BA calves I did have trouble with were smaller but real chunky.
I was concerned about big calf vigor but I now think that may be more related to calving ease than calf size?

 

[ANAZAZI]

I
I was concerned about big calf vigor but I now think that may be more related to calving ease than calf size?

Calf vigour is also a product of birth ease ( the influence of the sire).

 

[charlie01]

One of my cows onto her second calf had to have it pulled same with the first time, the calf was a big bull he is now one of biggest calves in the herd and is growing fast. But in my case i could have lost the cow, so it's probably better to have a cow have a small calf that grows fast (not sure if it says it on EBV's on the bull, like 200,400,600 what ever that mean)

 

[Bigfoot]

Birth weight is not always the final determing factor. Shape of the calfs head, and front shoulder is my deciding factor. I have large commercial cows. Many differnt crosses in the heard. Most of them have huge calfs at birth regardless of bull. I open all hiefers with a coriente angus x bull. They weigh 100 pounds less at weining than they would bred to one of my herd bulls. I justify it with a much much higher live calf ratio. I kinda hate to support him all year to breed 10 to 15 hiefers, but they are usually easy keepers. Eleventh calf crop out of him may be time for another one soon.

 

[bigbull338]

id be real nervoius calving your cows with those high birth weights.but it maybe the way they are bred to throw high BWs.an as long as it dont bite you on the butt your ok.i would use calving ease bulls on both the cows an heifers an see what happens.

 

[Stocker Steve]

I synced and AI ed the heifers and my three smallest cows last summer so I think I am OK there.
My old "low birth weight" BA bull was throwing calves that ranged from 56 - 115 pounds and getting a little mean so he went down the road.
I bred the cows to two limi bulls so I may have some issues here. An optimist told me the weight of limi calves is not very important becasue they are so long...
Shopping for a GV bull now.

 

[rockridgecattle]

when are big calves a good thing?
when you can do your own c-sections!

 

[rockridgecattle]

I
I was concerned about big calf vigor but I now think that may be more related to calving ease than calf size?

Calf vigour is also a product of birth ease ( the influence of the sire).

Calf vigour at start up is a product of birth ease and good nutrition of the dam in the last three months of gestation.

 

[dun]

One part of the vigor of a new born calf that hasn;t been mentioned is something you can;t really pinpoint as the cause. For some unexplained reason a particular bulls offsrping are more vigorous at birth then others. One bull we used over the years (AI) had calves in the 80-85 pound range like so many others but his calves would be up on their feet and looking for groceries faster then any of the other calves. They just seemed more bright eyed and bushytailed from the start then other bulls calves. They alos didn;t spend day 2 laying about as much as the other calves, seemed they were alwasy up and about and the ring leaders in mischief.

 

[ANAZAZI]

One part of the vigor of a new born calf that hasn;t been mentioned is something you can;t really pinpoint as the cause. For some unexplained reason a particular bulls offsrping are more vigorous at birth then others. One bull we used over the years (AI) had calves in the 80-85 pound range like so many others but his calves would be up on their feet and looking for groceries faster then any of the other calves. They just seemed more bright eyed and bushytailed from the start then other bulls calves. They alos didn;t spend day 2 laying about as much as the other calves, seemed they were alwasy up and about and the ring leaders in mischief.

I noticed the same.

 

[randiliana]

Big calves (to a point of course) are much better if you are calving in the cold weather. They just can't be so big that they have difficult births. We definitely find that 90-110 lb calves manage the cold better than smaller calves do. It is a simple fact that they have more body mass which takes longer to cool down than a small calf.

Last fall, we had a few heifer calves that we sold because their BW's were a little too big. On the other hand we have a few cows that regularly have huge calves. As far as I'm concerned if she regularly has big calves, she better be able to have them by herself, so long as that is the case I don't worry about it. We've had the odd cow that liked to have big calves, but always seemed to need assistance too.

 

[Lucky_P]

rockridge touched on a good point about nutrition in calf survival.
Studies done back in the '90s showed that calves born to heifers intentionally fed a ration providing only 50% of the NRC recommended protein level were unable to generate sufficient body heat to 'get going', get up and nurse - not to mention the fact that colostrum quality was also significantly impacted. Survival rates were much lower than for calves born to heifers receiving 100% of recommended dietary protein.
So...if you're calving in a cold climate, those calves born to cows/heifer that are toughing it out on sorry, low-quality forage only, without some form of protein supplementation, may have a hard time getting up and getting started, even if they have an easy delivery.

 

[Old_man_emu]

In my experience, heifers that are held back right up to calving (low nutrition) can seem lazy and will have trouble with a calf of any size and common sense would say it due to a lack of energy, they just aren't getting enough energy from their diet to sustain the strength required to calve.