Heifer Twin

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steerkid21

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Jul 3, 2011
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I know that a heifer born with a bull calf twin is supposed to be "sterile", but is there any chance that she actually could be fertile?  She was a very good cross for our herd and we were super excited when we found out she was a heifer, until we noticed the cow was still having contractions and this calf had testacles....  Any hope for us at all? How can we test her?
 

ALTSIMMY 79

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I cant recall exactly but i believe its around a ten percent chance she may be fertile. As far as testing goes i know the sleeve method works once she's older. Should know right away if the parts are in there or not !
 

ROMAX

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kintore,ontario, canada
ALTSIMMY 79 said:
I cant recall exactly but i believe its around a ten percent chance she may be fertile. As far as testing goes i know the sleeve method works once she's older. Should know right away if the parts are in there or not !
DITTO
 

steerkid21

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cowman 52 said:
A bic  writing pen, lubed ,  insert into vagina, if it bottoms out before you run out of pen, problem, if not keep her.

She was just born yesterday (Wednesday), how soon can we do the pen test?
 

BA Maines

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There is a 10% chance she is fertile.  You can take a blood test also which is 100% accurate.  It costs about $60.00 for the test.  If she is good, the money spent is worth it.
 

twistedhshowstock

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I believe the 10% is correct on chance she is fertile. But fertility testing(hormones) isnt always acurate, though it ussually is.  To my knowledge the problem with freemartins is underdeveloped repro tracts.  Ussually they are non existent, but in some cases they are just not developed properly.  Not an "expert" on this but I believe it is possible for them to be "fertile" and conceive but not be formed properly to carry the pregnancy.
 

leanbeef

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In over 40 years, we've had a number of sets of twins, and several have been pairs of bull + heifer. We've never tried to keep many of them because of the low probability that they would be fertile, but it is possible. I've always heard the probability was closer to 5%, so I would expect somewhere in the 5-10% range.

If she's just a baby, it really isn't gonna matter for a while. I would just hope and not expect too much at this point. There are a couple of things you can do, starting now, in order to gauge your hope and expectations. Often, you can tell that freemartin heifers aren't right from an external examination. I've had freemartins that just don't look right in the vulva area, and I remember one that only had two teats, like a steer has two small teats. The external genitalia is the first test, and it gets easier to tell with a little age, so I would give her a little time and let her develop.

Be around weaning time, you might be able to tell that things don't exactly look right. Depending on how much hope you still have at that point, you can have her palpated by a vet or a repro physiologist to determine if all the parts are there. The problem with freemartins is that they don't have a complete reproductive tract. If she passes that test, then wait and see if she'll cycle. If she comes in heat, I would say she's probably ok.

In our experience, the freemartin heifers are almost always one of the best heifers in the group for some reason. We've had a couple that we've held on to for a while, hoping they might turn out to be ok. The first one we've ever had that actually turned out to BE ok is a two-year-old first-calf-heifer right now that was born about a month premature. Her twin brother was stillborn and she almost died, but looking back now, I don't think we coulda killed this baby if we had tried! Some of em just don't want to live, but this little girl never thought about giving up. She won me over when she lived through the first night, and she just thrived every day. I studied her several times before and after weaning, and I could never find anything abnormal about her development, but she still ended up in the freezer beef pen until one day my dad found her in heat. She immediately came out and went in with the replacement heifers, and she's worked out really well. She's the only one we know of that we've ever had that has turned out not to be a freemartin. But she's proof that it IS possible!

You can do a blood test. I'm not sure how soon that can be done, but if you're really anxious to find out, and you're still hopeful after a thorough examination of the external genitalia, check with GeneSeek or Igenity or one of the labs that does a lot of bovine testing. I don't remember how much it cost, but I don't think it was unreasonable. You're not gonna change whatever the situation is, so personally, I would give her a little time and see how she develops before I spent the money on a blood test. If you still have reason for hope by weaning time, it would be a good time to move forward and invest in that.

Good luck with her!
 

firesweepranch

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To go along with what Lean Beef said, you can tell by looking at the external genitalia on a lot of them. We had one last year, her vulva was very small and her clitoris was extremely large. I knew by the time she was a month old she was infertile. but my daughter wanted her checked anyway. Vet said she had a normal vagina, but partial cervix and nothing else.
 

leanbeef

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If she doesn't look completely normal from the outside to start with, I'm afraid your hopes are probably futile. Be prepared for disappointment. With a greater than 90% chance that she's infertile, the odds are stacked against her from the very beginning. I wouldn't get way ahead of myself with a newborn, though...give her a little time. You can usually tell within a couple of months or so. I just assume they're a freemartin until I have a reason to think maybe there's a chance she isn't instead of thinking about it the other way around. If you just hope she's ok from the beginning, you're setting yourself up to be disappointed. 
 

steerkid21

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Thanks a lot guys! Will try to "forget" about it now for awhile and maybe secretly examine her every so often!
 

BTDT

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leanbeef - your observation about the free martins being the best in the lot is probably true. Reason is they have more testosterone and therefore develop more quickly and have more muscle mass than the normal heifers that have less testosterone.

 

leanbeef

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BTDT said:
leanbeef - your observation about the free martins being the best in the lot is probably true. Reason is they have more testosterone and therefore develop more quickly and have more muscle mass than the normal heifers that have less testosterone.

Yeah...I've not seen any scientific data on that, but I figure there has to be something to that.
 

simba

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BTDT said:
leanbeef - your observation about the free martins being the best in the lot is probably true. Reason is they have more testosterone and therefore develop more quickly and have more muscle mass than the normal heifers that have less testosterone.

I don't know much about free martins, but assuming the calf was pretty good to start with, wouldn't that give her a pretty big advantage in a market heifer competition? Sounds like if you wanted a market heifer project, a free martin could be a good idea.
 

leanbeef

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cowman 52 said:
When you get one,  hang on to her, they make super good gomers.

Technically, a gomer has a penis that has been rerouted so he can't breed a female...but I think we know what you mean.
 
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