almost disaster. Gathering clues- picture attached

[Bradenh]

Charolais donor, best cow I own by a country mile she has great numbers rare pedigree and Her calves are as good as they get

Neighbors red angus bull got in with her last April. He's calving ease red angus, figured if he breeds her it wouldn't be a big deal.

Never saw that bull cover her or anything of that sort in the 8 hours he was in there on accident

Went ahead and aspirated her in May- ultrasounds open the end of May when we did it

Come back and she spends a few months with our american bull (also calving ease) Never wore a heat patch or anything but she needed a year off and to carry a calf so they lived together

November we had her ultra sounded they called her 5 months bred the last week of November- so assumed she was bred to the American as planned

All of a sudden she bags up and has this monster. We are in south east central tx where an 85 lb calf is heavy and this calf was 207

What's concerning is it's tail is deformed pretty bad, it's bald around it's eyes and mouth also

So I'm just trying to see if anyone has had any similar experiences with a natural calf like this. Could the Ivf drugs super charge a fetus? Is it common to miss this on ultrasound and be off by almost 90 days?

Cow is a 3 trees wind 0383 x cigar(char)
Calf is obviously not american making it half red angus

For the record im almost 5 foot 8 and weigh 220

 

[Bradenh]

It's obniously not supposed to happen, searching for ideas for anyone with experiences in freak cases

Truck isn't a short bed either it's a 1 ton

 

[crystalcreek]

Oh my gosh Braden that almost was a disaster - 205 lbs! wow!!!  Glad you saved that cow.....I'm assuming you jacked it?

 

[crystalcreek]

Reminds me of those trophy pictures from down in Galveston when they have that shark fishing contest and they hang the sharks like that and stand beside them to show just how big they are.

 

[crystalcreek]

They aspirate pregnant cows and heifers all the time.  It's pretty safe and routine at this point.  Aspirating that cow should not have affected the calf like that.

With a 1/20 birthdate on the calf (I'm assuming yesterday???), she was right on track with an April cover, around 4/13.  When did the bull get with her?

If you haven't buried it yet, you should run it over to A&M and let them have it for study.

 

[Medium Rare]

I'd have to brush up on this condition, but it sounds like you're describing the traits of a rat tail. The hair coat in the picture doesn't quite look right but it seems the condition can display at varying levels. Their coat will normally be short and curly as they age with very little hair on the tail up closer to the tail head and around the eyes. The switch tends to stay real short too. I don't believe the research really shows larger birth weights, but the few I've had were all at least 15 pounds over the Bull's expected birth weight and all of them needed pulled. The largest of the calves was 137lbs.

I've only had a hand full over the years, but all of them came from a bull carrying the diluter. When cooler weather moved in all of mine fell behind their contemporaries which lead to an older slaughter age. At the end of the day, they're junk as far as I'm concerened.

 

[Pleasant Grove Farms]

How sad to see this baby;
after having thousands of calvings, we have seen alot....
seems like once maybe every thousand calvings you may see something like this;
a calf that doesn't seem to have the genetics to monster out like this; so then you wonder
if there would be some factor like an unusual placenta that maybe was oversized, over functional....
over-feeding the unborn calf that allowed it to get so huge; did you have to section the cow to get
this monster out?

 

[Lucky_P]

Not a rat-tail.  They always have at least one gene for black coat color... hence will be a diluted black of some shade... gray/brown/mousy... not red, like this calf.

Genes don't always 'read the book';  Haven't had any that topped 200 lbs here, but have had some out of extreme calving ease angus bulls out of old SimAngus cows that topped 100 lb.
Or...one or both bulls aren't all that 'calving ease'... and...you can't forget the BW that the cow brings to the equation.

 

[crystalcreek]

Three Trees Wind 0383 is a high accuracy calving ease sire.  He ranks top 3% of the breed for calving ease and top 15% of the breed for birthweight, with a 90% accuracy due to number of offspring recorded.  He has genomic enhanced EPDs.  Maternal sire, Cigar, has some higher birthweights, but nothing even close to this magnitude and his daughters are highly sought after by seedstock producers.  Wyo Wind on Cigars make good cows.  0383 is deceased and arguably the most popular son of Wyo Wind.  You will see these 0383's used a lot in the M6 program when you go through bulls offered in their bull sales, a commercial outfit that just so happened to flush for their own program the Thomas-bred ZsaZsa, the Cigar daughter that birthed Firewater who dominates the show side of the Char deal.

Pretty predictable char genetics at work in the momma cow.  No way to see that freak coming.

Edited to say - "Commercial" outfit is probably not the best way to word it.....the majority of their (M6) bull customers are purchasing purebred bulls to run in commercial operations.  So a purebred bull and seedstock producer geared toward customers who have commercial operations ..... I guess would be a more accurate way to say it.

 

[whitecow]

Looks and sounds a lot like Large Offspring Syndrome (LOS). LOS used to be fairly common with assisted reproductive technologies like IVF and cloning where embryo culture is involved. Improvements in culture conditions and media have greatly reduced the occurrence of LOS. While very rare in traditional pregnancies, it does sometimes occur. It is believed that LOS is caused by a malformed/malfunctioning placenta. The placenta may be thicker than normal with fewer (but larger) placentomes. This may be caused by epigenetic affects like abnormal methylation of the fetal DNA.

Was the head malformed or disproportionately large? Did you notice anything weird about the placenta?

 

[whitecow]

Edited to say - "Commercial" outfit is probably not the best way to word it.....the majority of their (M6) bull customers are purchasing purebred bulls to run in commercial operations.  So a purebred bull and seedstock producer geared toward customers who have commercial operations ..... I guess would be a more accurate way to say it.
[/quote]

BTW....Zsa Zsa was bred and shown by Thomas Ranch. M6 bought her, flushed her a few times and sold her.

 

[Bradenh]

Sorry guys we've been setting up stalls all day at fort worhb

Believe it or not we hand pulled that calf out the back end, it was never alive but it was made as perfect to come out as uou can make a 207 lb baby

That cow is from m6, her name is m6 mamie 0383 I bought her fall of 2013.

Thanks for the comments, my mind is still blown over the deal

But yes her gestation and calf color and everything points directly to the red angus bull which is calving ease and she's got an October solid gold (well not hers but it's her genetics on a recip) that can literally fit inside that dead calf

 

[crystalcreek]

BTW....Zsa Zsa was bred and shown by Thomas Ranch. M6 bought her, flushed her a few times and sold her.

Absolutely correct; I went back and fixed that.  My fingers and thought process are definitely not on the same page.