Thought this was cute

I was out heat checking tonight (in the rain) and caught the twin Rendition bull calves we have nursing. They are now almost 5 months old, and look pretty good. Super cow, raising them both, and bred back confirmed carrying a bull calf by Final Cut for next fall. These are the kind of cows I like to keep around!

I breed away from twins so I rarely have them. My question is, is there a dominant twin or are they exactly the same in all aspects?

Barry Farms said:

I breed away from twins so I rarely have them. My question is, is there a dominant twin or are they exactly the same in all aspects?

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how do you breed away from them?  never use a sire that sired them, cull females that had them and their offspring?

maine's have a high twinning rate.

knabe said:

Barry Farms said:

I breed away from twins so I rarely have them. My question is, is there a dominant twin or are they exactly the same in all aspects?

Click to expand...

how do you breed away from them?  never use a sire that sired them, cull females that had them and their offspring?

maine's have a high twinning rate.

Click to expand...

That was exactly my question, Knabe... Simmental also have more twins than a lot of breeds, and sometimes it's the most fertile cows that will pop out a set now & then. I'm not convinced there isn't a genetic component...we do see them sometimes in certain cow families, but obviously that's not always the case. We have had certain cows that have had more than one set of twins during their lifetimes, though. After that first set, I'm never surprised if she has twins a second time.

That is a very nice picture! Can't complain about a cow that can do that!

This year in our area there has been a lot of twins born. Our place, it always seems to be the cows that are average in performance that seem to twin. Never the really heavy milkers. So far this year we have had to cows abort a set at 6-8 weeks before their due date and 3 sets born at the right time. I am pretty sure there is a cow in the barn right now that is going to have twins because she is acting the same way as the other 3 did. Last year we only had one set...

leanbeef said:

knabe said:

Barry Farms said:

I breed away from twins so I rarely have them. My question is, is there a dominant twin or are they exactly the same in all aspects?

Click to expand...

how do you breed away from them?  never use a sire that sired them, cull females that had them and their offspring?

maine's have a high twinning rate.

Click to expand...

That was exactly my question, Knabe... Simmental also have more twins than a lot of breeds, and sometimes it's the most fertile cows that will pop out a set now & then. I'm not convinced there isn't a genetic component...we do see them sometimes in certain cow families, but obviously that's not always the case. We have had certain cows that have had more than one set of twins during their lifetimes, though. After that first set, I'm never surprised if she has twins a second time.

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My vet here told me that it is not likely for a twin to have twins, but it VERY likely for a twins daughter to have them, more so the daughters of female twins, not as much the daughters of twin bulls, so he obviously feels as though there is a genetic component as well. i know in humans, ut is fiarly well thought that twinning skips a generation, having said that, i know a set of triplet girls, and so far twon of the three have had children, and both of them had twins.

Barry Farms said:

I breed away from twins so I rarely have them. My question is, is there a dominant twin or are they exactly the same in all aspects?

Click to expand...

This is only our second set, so we have not had a bunch. I have really enjoyed this experience, since these two are identical and impossible to tell apart. We used to put tail chalk on one just so we knew who was Jacob and who was Esau (there names), but it wears off pretty quickly. We do not put ear tags in, since we only have about 35 head and can tell them all apart (the cows have tags, just not the calves), but these two make me want to put tags in! We slick sheared them and one other bull calf we are showing this year, so we can tell them apart right now from the clip job.
Our vet said that twins is not genetic. This cow line is not known for twins, and she will probably never have twins again. I am just tickled that they were born alive and healthy, and that she is raising them both while breeding back early. She is a keeper for sure!

Babies without ear tags look like nobody loves them! Lol

I finally got my cows worked last weekend, and all the calves have tags now. They just look like they didn't just wonder into the herd now!

Regarding the twins...if your vet says so... I'm still not convinced. I'm sure there are all kinds of theories, and there's probably research done on the subject. We've been breeding Simmental for 40 years, and we've had more sets of twins over the years than I can remember! If there is a genetic component, I'm not arguing that it's highly heritable. No reproductive traits are believed to be even moderately heritable, but we still talk about cow families because productive cows tend to make productive cows. Who wants to keep the heifers out of their least productive or least fertile cows?... Not this guy!

I love twins when everything goes right. I'd usually rather just have one, though. It looks like this pair is an example of when everything went right, so congrats on that! And good luck with all the babies.

The Meat Animal Research Center at the Univ. of Nebraska has done a ton of research on twinning and is it practical for beef production.
http://www.bifconference.com/bif2002/Baker_Essay_pdfs/Nephawe_02BIF.pdf

I generally do not like twins at all.  Theyalways seem to have problems. one small weak one and one agressive one or one is backwards and dead or the good one gets all twisted up and dies and you are left with the runt, or it is from the poorest milker in the herd and both calves turn out to be runts.  But, that said, this year we have a set of twins, from a 7 year old shorthorn cow with tons of milk and they are both doing very well.  However, the set is one of each.  The bull calf was 108 pounds and the heifer was 100 pounds.  They are possibly two of the best calves that we have at his time.  The sire of the twins was not a twin, but came from a cow that has twins every other year.  Last year she had her third set of twins, and they were just what I expect from twins, all twisted up and dead. Give me one good calf and I am happy.

I breed away from twinning by not keeping replacements from cows that have twins and not keeping twins

With the price of baby calves right now, I would take every set of twins I could get!    4-500 for bottle calves!    If you get a set and she abandons one, take it to the sale barn!,    If a heifer loses a calf, pull a twin to graft over.  If she raises both, give her a little extra help for the extra 171 kg of calf the report says she is gonna wean.  If she wants to fall back a month or so each year she has a set of twins let her!    Likely she will get back up next year, or if she wants to keep having two every 13-14 months, that is cool too.....  Inconvienance for an extra 4-500 dollars?  You bet.