Lightest calf born alive

Last Thursday we had a commercial cow have a 30 pound, fully developed, live heifer calf (the bull is a Jack Frost son). The vet was out semen checking and he was pretty perplexed as well, said that the placenta may have torn away a little, so it could be malnourished, and a little premature. The cute little thing is still alive today! Wondering if anyone else has had calves that small? (Besides a lowline.)

A friend of mine just had a 51 lb bull calf out of a PB char. and a min. brahman bull that we had for a bit.(don't ask why we had him)   He ended up breeding 4 of his heifers that he was keeping at my place.

We had a heifer that was only about 950 when she calved last year and had twins, the poor little things had to be bottle fed until they were big enough to nurse. Im sorry I dont know the weights but they were so small that they could walk under a calf we pulled that was about 110lbs. Thats pretty tiny.

A few years ago I worked on  a ranch west of here, we calved around 750 cows starting in January.

  Sometime in late March I grabbed my flash light and went for a calf check when it was my turn to come on duty at 2 AM.

I was standing in the matternity pen, there were some commercial heifers calving and one or two that had calved in the night.

I pushed these pairs into the barn to dry off and mother up as it was quite cold and everything was covered in Frost, when I thought I was finished, I took a last look through the matternity pen and heard a soft high pitched calf bawl.

I couldn't for the life of me find the soure and nearly left again thinking I was hearing a calf from some other nearby pen, on w whim I climbed over the fence and was about to walk down an Alley to check another pen thinking a calf was caught or being laid on and I found in the Alley a Tiny Black Calf that had either been pushed under or crawled under the bottom plank of the fence.

I don't remember exactly what it weighed but I think it was around 30#, it was obviously a bit cold but didn't seem to have frostbite anywhere so I picked it up and took it in the office and laid it on a blanket in front of a radiant heater to warm up. I tried to feed it some warmed collustrum that we had on hand from a local dairy but ended up tubing it.

I know this part might sound silly but we had a HECK of a time figuring out which heifer was it's mother (we calved out 130 heifers that year).

Finally decided on a small black heifer that looked like she had next to no milk, ran her in and palped her and she had claved but she had zero interest in the calf.

The heifer was later moved over to the feedlot and culled.

I tubed that calf for probably close to a week before it would nurse at all, finally got it grafted onto another heifer that had lost a calf.

I don't remember exactly what happened to "Tiny" anymore but for some reason I don't think it survived until weaning.

Anyway,

Just a recollection of mine.

I hope you have good luck with your "Little Project".

Had a 1500 lb commercial cow have a set of twins this year. The bull calf weighed 50lbs. and the heifer calf weighed 40lbs. They were up and running in no time.

had one born 2 years ago, i could carry her under one are, not sure what she weighed but she looked like a lamb

my son pic with her is aq little over 2 and was about the same weight 25 lbs

We have a Santa Gertrudis cow that weighed 1750 lbs just 10 days before she had 52 lb. half Lowline heifer. She is the largest cow on our ranch. The calf is now 5 months old and weighs over 500 lbs. This is not really unusual, from our experience with Lowline bulls. The bull used on this cow is 47 inches at the hip and at a good weight is around 1500 lbs.

Larry

We bought a bred cow who was palpated and due in mid to late April last year. On March 1, she calved and had a very small and preemie baby heifer. The calf was strong but tiny, around 40 pounds. It could walk right under mama's belly without touching. We brought it home to help it nurse and it took off very quickly. Only calf in the herd that grew 11 times its birth weight by weaning time. She is still in the herd and a great looking calf. Mama calved right on time this year.

Had a set of twins born on November 23rd that weren't due till Christmas eve, as there wasn't a bull on the place!  We were sure surprised to find them.  They are the calves in my picture at about two months old.  The were 30lbs. for the little one and 42 pounds for the big one.  They took some time and work but the cow took them both till I pulled the little one off in early April.  They wore calf blankets for most of the winter and it took a solid two weeks to get them going good enough to be on their own!  Now when you walk the pasture you look at the bigger calf and more than one person has said WOW..nice calf!  She will be attending Charolais Jr National Show in Sacramento this year.  Looking at them now you would never have guessed what they were.

Had one that weighed 30# at just over a week old.

We had a polled hereford bull calf probably 10 years ago that was about 30 lbs. at birth.  He lived for about two weeks and then one morning we went out and he was layin by the hay dead. We had never had one that small and to this day still haven't come close. 

Had a neighbor guy this winter have a  gelbvieh bull calf out of a first calf heifer. several days after birth it weighed 28 lbs. Its the color of a whitetail, so we joked with him that the cow was buck bred. it didnt stand much the 1st couple days, but really took off after that. Its running around the pasture now, still no antlers or spots tho 

We had a "suprise" calf a few years ago and she weighed 32lbs at birth then dropped down to 28lbs. After a lot of TLC she made it and she was the most ungreatful little heifer. After all our care and we handled her everyday for weeks until she was out of the woods and she turned out to have a nasty disposition so she ended up at the market.

I think that my lightest ever was 22 lbs.  It was a Lowline.  Ideally, I like to see fullblood Lowlines in the 30 - 60 lb. range.   

My girlfriend had a calf that was born weighing 23 pounds.  He was out of a commercial angus cow and a commercial simmental bull.  He was born alive and although he didn't grow very fast, was healthy.

She's going to slap you when she hears about you talking about her like that.

(thumbsup)