Calving Ease

I have this discussion a LOT with friends, cutomers and my spouse.  So many people are breeding their heifers/ cows to "calving ease" bulls and wondering why they are pulling calves and losing heifers.  So many people assume that even if the bull isn't advertised as "calving ease" that if he has a birthweight under 85 lbs that he should be easy calving.  Then there are the people that say they bred all of their heifers to an "Angus" bull assuming that just because he's Angus that he is automatically going to be easy calving.  It's very frutrating to me.

First of all, if you breed your heifers to a bull that does not have a calf crop on the ground but his numbers and bloodlines suggest that he should be an easy calver, it does not mean that he indeed will be an easy calver.  People fail to look at BOTH sides of the pedigree.  You have to put as much pressure on the bottom of the pedigree as you do the top.  What is really funny is that perhaps there is a reason that bull is out of a noted "easy calving" sire. Maybe it is because his mother is a beached whale that couldn't possibly have a calf out of a Lowline!  So now what do you have?

Next, you have to know the females that you are breeding.  If they are hot-bred clubby females there might be a chance that they may not have a calving ease epd left in their dna!  That female may not be able to have a calf no matter what you breed her to.  Yeah, you could try using a Lowline (and don't take this the wrong way...i sincerely think they have merit!) but what have you accomplished?  You might manage to slide a tiny little calf out of that heifer when she sneezes at the hay ring but what have you prepared her for next year? 

Personally, I don't think weight has a whole lot to do with calving ease.  I think that design/structure plays a key role.  I have had cows grunt and groan over an 85 pound calf that is giant headed, massive boned and huge shouldered and then not think twice at shooting out a 135 lb calf from a soft fronted, soft shouldered bull.   

So, my point being...I think it's just hard to say that a bull is 100% safe to use on heifers based on his birthweight and based on the topside of his pedigree.  I especially think it's hard to say that he's calving ease if he's never raised a calf.  It is so important to know your females and pick accordingly and also to look very hard at both the top and the bottom of any bull's pedigree.  And also, at the very least, call and ask questions about the bull and ask the people who raised the bull what they think he will work best on.  I would LOVE to tell my customers that I think my bull is 100% safe to use on heifers but I could never do that with a conscience.  How could I when I don't have any idea what kind of heifers they are using him on?  I have palpated heifers that should never have an opportunity to try and raise a calf. 

Then remember, you can not blame calving ease on backwards calves, poor management and bad nutrition. 

(clapping) (clapping) (clapping) Well said.

Very good! as I've always said the cow is also 50% or even more of the equation. How you feed is so important. Also I agree on the shoulders & bone.

Well said, I'll take a point for it! 

Red

Well said!
I laughed at my Dad the other day because we were talking about fat heifers/cows and calving time.  "He said...well, you lock your girlfriend in a room and feed her nothing but pizza and beer and see how her pregnancy goes!!"  We were reffering to his relative, who has been having a bad year calving.  The guys cattle sit in the yard all winter eating barley, and never get any exercise during pregnancy.  We dont baby our cattle, and good nutrition during pregnancy does not equal....being overweight!!  A simple adequate diet with a no holes mineral program and some darn exercise can go a long ways for pregnant cattle!

Common Sense, I think it is hilarious when I hear people talking BULLS, BULLS, BULLS!  The cow has 50% of the say in any given situation.  If you look good and hard you could find the right Simmental bull to put on Angus heifers, and still consider him calving ease.  Calving ease has nothing to do with breeds anymore, since most breeds are losing their "breed charactoristics" anyways.  It is humerous when people think they are all set becuase they are buying the bull with the lowest BW in the entire sale, yet fail to ever find out that his mama was a 100lb calf!  Also, yes, the Angus thing gets giggling too!  But for people who are that niave and dont educate themselves, perhaps they shouldnt be in the cattle business to begin with! (clapping)

I think as a general rule when you are talking about traits of cattle(calving ease, YW, REA, etc) there is as much a degree of difference within a breed as there is between breeds. So an Angus is not necessarily calving ease or Limousin is not necessarily heavy muscled anymore.  And as a side note the term "purebred" is kind of a joke anymore if you ask me.  I have yet to still figure out how a calf sired by a Fullblood Maine can be a purebred shorthorn????  I would love for one of the shorthorn breeders to enlighten me on this....

red said:

Very good! as I've always said the cow is also 50% or even more of the equation.

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it's actually more due to methylation, where environmental effects are basically stored in a hereditable fashion, though not in the germline, mostly by the female, but to a lesser extent, sperm as well.

once again, don't buy cattle from someone who feeds better than you.  not don't buy, just be aware.

common sense said:

Yeah, you could try using a Lowline (and don't take this the wrong way...i sincerely think they have merit!) but what have you accomplished?  You might manage to slide a tiny little calf out of that heifer when she sneezes at the hay ring but what have you prepared her for next year? 

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Pretty good post.  I totally get what you are saying & I agree that some females are a trainwreck no matter what.  Said it before, will say it again, any female that requires assisitance needs culling... same with known hard calving bulls!  Keep culling them long enough & you can forget the calf pullers except for a rare occasion.

I know this wasn't the point of your post, but since Lowlines were mentioned, I want to take the oppurtunity to share what you can accomplish by using one on virgin hiefers.   You can worry a whole lot less about whether or not a heifer will be able to deliver or not & about 50% of my heifers to breed up a heat cycle, as about 1/2 of mine have had calf #2  anywhere from 20-40 days earlier than they had calf #1.  Plus, a 450 lbs. weaning weight is almost guaranteed and I am weaning Lowline bull calves topping 600 lbs. out of Tarentaise heifers.  And who knows, you may end up with a great show heifer calf that can compete in the AOB division with the big girls.  Fortunately, we are about to find out if they can.      And I think that the steers will be ideal for light weight classes. 

Like I said, I do agree with your post.  I just wanted to point out that a Lowline bull can have merit when breeding open heifers & the calf wont be a throw away either. 

It comes down to accountability. It is much easier and makes someone feel better if they can blame a bull or the person who advertised a bull then to say "wow I really screwed that one up". 
Just like the people that have bred a certain breed of cows for some time then go and buy into another breed. Then the cow they bought turns out to be not a great investment and all of a sudden the whole new breed sucks, not that they did not make a good decision of what to buy.

hope you dont mind me jumping in here, but something i think is a very important part of this topic is the age of the heifer being bred...i bought a group of 10 heifers one time and bred them to a calving ease bull to calve at 2 yrs of age....it was a nightmare....we had to pull 7 of the 10 calves, 3 of the calves died, and had to send one of the heifers to the sale barn because of injury from the birth.....then on top of all that....everyone of those stupid heifers acted like they didnt have a clue what they were supposed to do.....at least half of them we would have to tie them up and tie off a back leg so the calf could nurse...they acted like they were scared to death of their own babies........since then i have held all my heifers till they are 2 to breed...and it has worked so much better for me...calving at 3 i have seen a big difference in the performance of my first calf heifers......i havent had to pull any calves, they seem to be more "mature" and "know" what to do, and physically they seem to "recover" from the birth faster and rebreed quicker....i dont know, maybe i have just had some crazy things happen....does anyone else have any thoughts on this???

Yeah this happened at our place by accident on year and it worked better for all the reasons stated.  The reason nobody does this is because it is a huge money loss for the fact that your female makes you no money until the age of 3.  It costs a lot of money to have females hanging around, with no calf (profit) by their side.  Also, the beef industry is already behind pigs, chickens, sheep, etc. as far as progression because we basically only "harvest" one crop of offspring per year.  In otherwords, if the poultry industry decides that they want their chickens to produce more feathers...they could accomplish that in one year...whereas it may take 3 or 4 for the beef industry to do something similar.  That was a mediocre example, but its the best I could think of quickly. 

If we couldn't breed our heifers to calve at 2 yrs of age, I'd really have to wonder why we were in the beef business anymore.   If they aren't fertile/mature enough to do what we ask of them, why are these cattle in our herd?    That's the commercial & $$ side of my brain talking.     That said, that's the way it used to be - breed them at 2 to calve at 3. ... and there is nothing worse than a pasture of open heifers that you are trying to keep open over the summer.  Every bull within for miles eventually visits the heifer pasture. 

ETA:  Another thing I wonder about with calving ease...    I use a proven CE bull of one breed on a heifer (who has decent numbers) of another breed - How do I know I'm not going to get into trouble.    An example might be breeding a CE Simmi or Shorthorn to an Angus or Hereford heifer.    Now my dad would factor in hybrid vigor. 

Dusty said:

I think as a general rule when you are talking about traits of cattle(calving ease, YW, REA, etc) there is as much a degree of difference within a breed as there is between breeds. So an Angus is not necessarily calving ease or Limousin is not necessarily heavy muscled anymore.  And as a side note the term "purebred" is kind of a joke anymore if you ask me.  I have yet to still figure out how a calf sired by a Fullblood Maine can be a purebred shorthorn????  I would love for one of the shorthorn breeders to enlighten me on this....

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Full-blood, French Maine-Anjous are the product of crossing an extinct draft breed (Mancelle) with solid-Red English Beef Shorthorns, during a time when Mechanical technology replaced Draft Animals in France. This is reported in several Bovine history books, as well as the French Maine-Anjou Association. By blood type, a Full-French Maine is, I think, 73-point-something-percent Shorthorn. Hence, entry-level 3/4-blood status for Maine Bulls (as long as they're red, not black).

Hope this answers your question.

GB

here's a pic of a durham mancelle bull circa 1853?

http://www.old-print.com/cgi-bin/category.cgi?item=B3181850447#

oops kinda big.  he looks like some fullbloods i can think of with the proportion of depth and mass of front end versus rear end.

wow!

Looks like a Normande, to me.

GB

Agree with the unassisted comment.  I put a whole lot more stock in knowing that the calves were unassisted than by their weight.

Structure on both sides of the pedigree and the feed available to the female during the last stages of her gestation are most certainly a factor.

SWMO said:

Agree with the unassisted comment.  I put a whole lot more stock in knowing that the calves were unassisted than by their weight.

Structure on both sides of the pedigree and the feed available to the female during the last stages of her gestation are most certainly a factor.

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It means more to me if they can have them unassisted. When a cow can have a 126# calf unassisted you know she's good. when a cow can't have an 80# calf by herslef, somethings wrong there.

Red

garybob said:

Dusty said:

I think as a general rule when you are talking about traits of cattle(calving ease, YW, REA, etc) there is as much a degree of difference within a breed as there is between breeds. So an Angus is not necessarily calving ease or Limousin is not necessarily heavy muscled anymore.  And as a side note the term "purebred" is kind of a joke anymore if you ask me.  I have yet to still figure out how a calf sired by a Fullblood Maine can be a purebred shorthorn????  I would love for one of the shorthorn breeders to enlighten me on this....

Click to expand...

Full-blood, French Maine-Anjous are the product of crossing an extinct draft breed (Mancelle) with solid-Red English Beef Shorthorns, during a time when Mechanical technology replaced Draft Animals in France. This is reported in several Bovine history books, as well as the French Maine-Anjou Association. By blood type, a Full-French Maine is, I think, 73-point-something-percent Shorthorn. Hence, entry-level 3/4-blood status for Maine Bulls (as long as they're red, not black).

Hope this answers your question.

GB

Click to expand...

Thanks for the history lesson.  Pretty soon we won't even be able to associate breeds with any traits at all.  I think instead we will have "families" of cattle lines, and they will each have their respective traits.

that pic got me to thinking about calving ease.  this breed was used for draft purposes and probably needed those big front ends to excel, and was "fixed" as a trait.  taking that off seems to be a 150 year problem and was probably part of the reason they were bred to shorthorns.  granted some of a bulls secondary sexual characteristics are front end growth, but that's pretty dramatic.

  Thanks Knabe, GaryBob. It's fun to learn about stuff we all already like. TEACH US.