I haven't had much time lately to follow this thread, so I took a few moments to read through it this morning. I may be too much "old school" but I find this thread to have left me scratching my head in disbelief. Here are some of my thoughts for whatever they are worth:
1) firstly, I think c-sections are a last resort... period. They should only be done when the life of the cow and/or calf is clearly in jeopardy.
2) I do not believe any vet, regardless of his/her experience can predict the BW of a calf accurately by doing a rectal examination and feeling the calf's feet late in the pregnancy. If they can do this with excellent accuracy, they are missing a great career as a physic. It is hard to guess a BW of a calf standing in front of you, let alone know what it will weigh when all u can feel are it's feet.
3) I am not a fan of messing with Mother Nature. I do not agree with the practice of induced births, or planned c-sections. Sorry... even if the greatest vet in the world recommended either of these to be done, I would let nature take it's course and see if the heifer could calve. My rule of thumb is if a female is having problems calving, I will put the chains on and hook them on the calf puller. Once the chains are tight I will push down gently on the calf puller, and if I don't see the calf advancing out at that stage, I unhook the puller and head to town for assistance. Sometimes the assistance is not required, but I feel it is better to have it available if needed. It is often better to be safe than sorry.
4) I think many of the calving issues in all breeds are being created by births that have been induced or calved early by any other method. The calf born by c-section, in this thread, weighed 95 lbs. My question would be what would be the actual BW of this calf if he had been allowed to go to term? Would this calf have been born on it's due date or would it have gone 10-12 days overdue. I'm not just picking on this calf, but I am seeing far too many cases like this. And we wonder why calving issues across the entire beef industry are increasing! Add to this, unscrupous breeders who lie about BWs ( which is nothing new, but I wonder how they sleep at night!) I know of a case where a bull being promoted with an 88 lb BW and is advertised as being "safe for heifers" actually was a c-section birth and had a 130 lb BW. IMO, this breeder should be sanctioned by the breed association and prohibited from registering for a signifigant period of time. I know these cases are hard to prove, but the vet who did the c-section was pretty vocal about this being one of the biggest calves he had c-sectioned that year. IMO, there is no part of HELL too hot for breeders like this.
5) this point goes along with the last one, but I firmly believe that gestation length is one of the keys to improving calving ease. How would you have any idea of how long the gestation length is supposed to be if you have an induced birth or planned c-section on a cow or heifer? As I have mentioned on here before, I have seen cows go 18 days over on the due date.( these were verified by DNA) Fortunately, these have been still born unassisted but if I had decided to induce or book an early c section, just what would I use as the actual BW of the calf?
6) I just believe that many of the calving issues we see or hear about are totally man made. This really isn't rocket science and I think the first ingredient to improving calving issues is good old common sense.
I had a calf born this morning from a 2 yr old SULL female from our Bar Code bull, who has been calving very easily for us. This female was 4 days over her due date and I would not have touched her if she had been 15 days over her due date. In this case she calved unassisted with a 90 lb bull calf, which is the heaviest calf I have had from Bar Code so far. This probably makes sense, as there is some bigger BWs in the pedigree and while this calf looks very promising, he will never be promoted as a bull that is safe for use on heifers... at least until he has a proven track record that suggests he is a calving ease sire. There are just too many other choices that are so much better. This was now the 25th heifer to calve and I have 3 left, and all have calved unassisted except for one that had an upside down, backwards, breach calf. Even it was not a difficult birth and the heifer has even cycled again since she calved.
Sorry to be a fly in the ointment, but I just have to say I do not agree with any of this inducing or planned c- section stuff that is going on. I just feel it will only lead to more and more calving issues in all breeds in the future.
