Breeding for longevity

Wonder what age bovine calve at in the wild?

-XBAR- said:

Wonder what age bovine calve at in the wild?

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As for domestic cattle, bovine will calve depending of food offer. Of course that some species show precocity than other, but food is essencial.
Believe that an 3 years old average,as females are open to mate at two. Also males are always together females and by first female cycle they are ubiquitous.

Heifers should cycle at least once before their 1st bday.  Nature would have them calving anywhere from 18-21 months old.  Maybe even earlier.

Yep, and people would bear children at 13 and die at 40.

I voted to let him stay even though he often goes to far, is onesided on criticism and can irritate at times, I did not know about all the personal attacks.

X-bar your bovine calving in the wild theory is flawed. Man has intervined and has bred cattle to meet certain criteria. Turn 100 heifers out with 5 bulls at six months old, check them at 2 years old, how many calves would be on the ground, how many heifer carcases would be in the field? If cattle are turned out in the wild and natural selection is allowed to occur you would end up with something like the Longhorn or the Cracker Cattle sans the horns. I do not think that is where most breeders want to go.

vc said:

I voted to let him stay even though he often goes to far, is onesided on criticism and can irritate at times, I did not know about all the personal attacks.

X-bar your bovine calving in the wild theory is flawed. Man has intervined and has bred cattle to meet certain criteria. Turn 100 h

eifers out with 5 bulls at six months old, check them at 2 years old, how many calves would be on the ground, how many heifer carcases would be in the field? If cattle are turned out in the wild and natural selection is allowed to occur you would end up with something like the Longhorn or the Cracker Cattle sans the horns. I do not think that is where most breeders want to go.

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I wasn't suggesting that approach being the most profitable, just that's its no where near abuse.  If the heifers in your example didn't cycle till 12mnths, and you used a true low birth weight bull, I'd say you shouldn't have much problem.  Then again, I'm referring to cattle with beef industry acceptable growth curves and not some of the extreme late maturing show genetics.

I think its interesting that cattle have a 9 month pregnancy and it takes 60-90 days to breed back(especially with out supplements or man made practices). That sets them perfectly with a seasonal cycle of one year. Green grass ......yhey thrive.....breed......calve in the spring and do it all over. Gods plan.....evolution or both. Buffalo herds kinda did the same thing.

aj said:

I think its interesting that cattle have a 9 month pregnancy and it takes 60-90 days to breed back(especially with out supplements or man made practices). That sets them perfectly with a seasonal cycle of one year. Green grass ......yhey thrive.....breed......calve in the spring and do it all over. Gods plan.....evolution or both. Buffalo herds kinda did the same thing.

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Buffalo

Breeding
Unlike cattle, bison can produce calves for 20 years or more.

Female bison breed when they are two years old and have their first calves when they are three.
Cows can live to be 20-25 years old, having a calf each year under the right conditions.
The gestation period for the American Buffalo is 9 1/2 months. Under normal conditions, cows have their calves from mid-April through June. Cows generally have one calf per year, but twins very rarely occur.
The calves are very small when born, normally weighing between 25-35 lbs. Although small, these little critters are very tough and are up walking and running with their mothers within a couple of hours.
Cows are very protective of their young. They leave the herd to have their calves and then remain away from the herd for a period between 6 hours to several days.
Bison calves are normally weaned when they are around 6 months old. At that time the females generally weigh around 350 lbs and males weigh approximately 425 lbs.
Under range conditions, bison cows seldom have calving problems.
The bull to cow ratio for bison is approximately one bull per 15 cows.

http://www.kansasbuffalo.org/raising-bison/breeding-bison/

Very cool. So apparently the younger females(bison) don't cycle early...........or don't sustain a pregnancy.......at an earlier date. This would be a evolutionary trait.......?............developed over 10,000 years....? Or not?

aj said:

Very cool. So apparently the younger females(bison) don't cycle early...........or don't sustain a pregnancy.......at an earlier date. This would be a evolutionary trait.......?............developed over 10,000 years....? Or not?

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Not to derail the thread, but every site I have read about Buffalo say the females are receptive at 18 months and older. They calve at 3 but have documented cases of 30 year old cows calving. Seems interesting that they evolved that way with extremely low birth weights as well.

As an responsible amateur anthropologist and archeologist I must state that buffalo were mistakenly called that because Coronado or who ever dubbed them that cause they looked like water buffalo back over the pond. Bison is the correct name and species of our "buffalo". Minor correction.....bison bison. There were also bison antiqious and bison occidental(sp) also. Earlier species who di or did not breed between each other. Stil debated.

First 3 shorthorn herds I visited each had a cow producing at over 20yrs.  Prior to that, I had never heard of anything like that.  These were pasture cattle too. 

That article about buffalo sounds like it was written by an outsider. They're receptive at 18 months, breed at 24 mnths, and then don't calve to 36mnths ??

-XBAR- said:

First 3 shorthorn herds I visited each had a cow producing at over 20yrs.  Prior to that, I had never heard of anything like that.  These were pasture cattle too. 

That article about buffalo sounds like it was written by an outsider. They're receptive at 18 months, breed at 24 mnths, and then don't calve to 36mnths ??

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There are several articles on buffalos some written by zoo folks others written by breeders and some by the associations. I thought the mature size was interesting that "woods buffalo" can stand 7 feet at shoudler where plains buffalo are 5 and half to 6 feet at shoulder. Amazing grow rates considering their birthweights.

-XBAR- said:

First 3 shorthorn herds I visited each had a cow producing at over 20yrs.  Prior to that, I had never heard of anything like that.  These were pasture cattle too. 

That article about buffalo sounds like it was written by an outsider. They're receptive at 18 months, breed at 24 mnths, and then don't calve to 36mnths ??

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This heard had 10 shipped last summer in the drough b/w 13 and 18 years.  The old girl was a sad day...  

Oops, shouldn't have said that... I'm sure they were bred at 12-14 months of age.

-XBAR- said:

First 3 shorthorn herds I visited each had a cow producing at over 20yrs.  Prior to that, I had never heard of anything like that.  These were pasture cattle too. 

That article about buffalo sounds like it was written by an outsider. They're receptive at 18 months, breed at 24 mnths, and then don't calve to 36mnths ??

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Our oldest cow just turned 14 and we have three 13 year old cows. The oldest cow we ever had in production was 18 and we have had a couple of 16 year olds. I often think we should put more emphasis on longevity. It would seem you could make a lot more money if your cows did not need to be replaced until they were in their teens. We have calved heifers at 21 months with no problems. One of those produced in our herd until she was 13 and the heifer calf she had at 21 months was still producing at 12.

Okotoks said:

-XBAR- said:

First 3 shorthorn herds I visited each had a cow producing at over 20yrs.  Prior to that, I had never heard of anything like that.  These were pasture cattle too. 

That article about buffalo sounds like it was written by an outsider. They're receptive at 18 months, breed at 24 mnths, and then don't calve to 36mnths ??

Click to expand...

Our oldest cow just turned 14 and we have three 13 year old cows. The oldest cow we ever had in production was 18 and we have had a couple of 16 year olds. I often think we should put more emphasis on longevity. It would seem you could make a lot more money if your cows did not need to be replaced until they were in their teens. We have calved heifers at 21 months with no problems. One of those produced in our herd until she was 13 and the heifer calf she had at 21 months was still producing at 12.

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If a cow doesn't calve until she's 4, but lives until she's 11-- what's more profitable- her or one that calves at 20 months and lives until she's 8 or 9??? 

It takes way more money to grow out out before she calves, than it does after she gets into production. 

blackdiamond said:

Okotoks said:

-XBAR- said:

First 3 shorthorn herds I visited each had a cow producing at over 20yrs.  Prior to that, I had never heard of anything like that.  These were pasture cattle too. 

That article about buffalo sounds like it was written by an outsider. They're receptive at 18 months, breed at 24 mnths, and then don't calve to 36mnths ??

Click to expand...

Our oldest cow just turned 14 and we have three 13 year old cows. The oldest cow we ever had in production was 18 and we have had a couple of 16 year olds. I often think we should put more emphasis on longevity. It would seem you could make a lot more money if your cows did not need to be replaced until they were in their teens. We have calved heifers at 21 months with no problems. One of those produced in our herd until she was 13 and the heifer calf she had at 21 months was still producing at 12.

Click to expand...

If a cow doesn't calve until she's 4, but lives until she's 11-- what's more profitable- her or one that calves at 20 months and lives until she's 8 or 9??? 

It takes way more money to grow out out before she calves, than it does after she gets into production. 

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good thinking, Jody.  Im always doing NPV (Net Present Value) calculations  to determine what age I should buy a particular cow at. NPV is the sum of future cash flows discounted for the time value of money.  Both NPV and DCF (discounted cash flow) analysis SHOULD come into play when making any type of investment decision. W/o doing the numbers,  If you purchased both on the same date say at 6months old for the same initial outlay, then the one calving at 20 months would have a higher NPV. 

To compensate for the 2 additional years with no cash flows, the cow calving at 4 would have to have close to 4 additonal calves for it to be a wash.

I am thinking the Wood bison is a bison bison and is in the North like Canada mostly. Did the the Neandertal breed with modern man? Did bison bison interbreed with bison occidentalis?

Went from banning someone to the discussion of buffalo bison
(lol)