Miserable Winter , High Birth Weights

we lost 2 calves and almost lost a cow cause they were so big....plus had twin heifers one wieghed 72 the other 78......plus one of my buddies said his neighbor had to pull a 150 pounder with a skidsteer and only got its head out killed cow and calf both its was also 2 weeks early....how much of its true idk <beer>

A.T.B said:

plus one of my buddies said his neighbor had to pull a 150 pounder with a skidsteer and only got its head out killed cow and calf both its was also 2 weeks early....how much of its true idk

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Now that is just stupid, a c section doesn't cost that much and trying to yank a calf that size out with a skid steer is just plain cruel. Plus the cow was probably worth $1000 at market without the calf! 

sorry thats my bad i worded it wrong cow died b4 vet got there so thats y they used skidsteer but still i understand what ur sayin

I also noted higher BW's this year from our Cows. Most were around 95lbs (HW Family bulls) the calving ease matings ranged from 40lbs to 60lbs. Biggest calf - 130lb Naughty Pine
Smallest calf - 40 something I-80

Our calves are heavier this year but the two most extreme cases are - 1. a cow we purchased whose bull calf last year was 97 and full brother this year was 120lb. and 2. last night one of my favorite cows whose heifer calf last year was 82 had a full sister that was 106 ???
Does anyone know if EPD's would be able to account for any of the weather related  influences under the environment formulas?

As I said earlier, calving is going good here and I am hearing all these reports from my neighbours and many others in Western Canada that I have talked with, about bigger birth weights this year. For some reason, we have seemed to miss most of this... at least so far. We semen tested bulls yesterday and I left here at 6 am and never got home until 11 pm. I was relieved to find only one new calf and he was standing by his mother nursing. I just weighed him this morning, and he was 108 lbs, and that is the heaviest calf so far out of 56 calves. This calf is the last ET calf out of 10 implanted the same day. Five of these were from the same flush and all 5 stuck and we got 4 heifers and one bull. The heifers were all in the 78 - 90 lb range and this guy was born 7 days after the last of his heifer flushmates was born, so he was considerably over due. BTW,these 5 flushmates are the first double bred Trumps we have had here and the only reason we got them was that I shared in a flush of one of our donors who is sired by Sonny with a breeder in Scotland. The Scottish breeder wanted to use CYT Pure Power in this flush so I went along with his request and we ended up with 14 grade 1 embryos. I implanted 5 and got 5 pregnancies. The other 9 embryos went to Scotland, and the last I heard there were 8 pregnancies out of the 9 embryos. It looks like there will be 13 calves born from the 14 embryos. I mention this only to point out that being double Trump did not mean cow killer calving issues because of using the Trump genetics. We have had 8 Pure Power calves so far now, and all have been unassisted at birth Maybe I am just using up all my luck!It will be interesting to see if there are any BW or calving issues from the Scottish born calves. I am very pleased with how these calves look. They are very impressive babies, and we will reserve judgement on how good they are until they get older.  

The 283 day due date was March 18th and the heifers were all born between March 12th and March 18th. There was a 13 day spread between the first and last of these flushmates. So, is this all simply chance or does the recip or the weather conditions, or the genetics of the calf, of the sex of the calf etc etc etc determine this? I have wondered if the genetics of the recip plays a bigger role than is often given to her. I have one Simmental X recip that has now had 5 ET calves and she is always the last one to calve from a group of embryos implanted at the same time.I have some othr Simmie X recips that do not show the same trend.  The recip that calved last night, is a purebred Shorthorn that was born here, so I have some records on her. She is a 5 year old and this is her first time being a recip. Looking back at my calving records from 2006, I have her recorded as having a gestation length of 290 days so she was about a week overdue when she was born. Is this the reason her ET calf born yesterday was a week overdue? I find it hard to believe that this is the only factor involved here, but then I am not entirely sure either. I do think the recip does have a role in this.
So, if the recip does play an important role in the gestation length of the ET calf and obviously, a role in the Birth weight of this calf, should we be more careful to use shorter gestation cows or at least use recips from breeds that tend to have  shorter gestation lengths?I don't know if there is a definite answer to this question, but it does make for some interesting food for thought.

Getting back to the original topic, I am expecting I have had more calves under 90 lbs this year than I normally would have. So what can  attribute my good fortune too, when so many others are having bigger calves this year? My cows have been fed nothing but hay along with salt and mineral,  as they are in other years.I really don't know why my calving experience is differengt from others are having.  Out of 56 calves so far, all but 2 have been born unassisted. The first was a backwards calf from a first calf heifer.She may have had it herself as the calf was 82 lbs but I did not take any chances when I saw two hind legs presented. The second assist was last Sunday when I had a 4 year old cow have an upside down, backwards and breatch calf.  I worked at it for 1.5 hours before i decided that I  needed help. I hauled her to the vet and he worked for another hour before we decided to do a c-section. I never dreamt the calf would be alive but he came out a blowing and was trying to get up within two minutes of coming out.He was 96 lbs and is the second heaviest BW so far this year and he was also 6 days overdue. By the time we had my cow sown back together, a neighbour arrived at the vet clinic with his 7th  C -section and he is only half done calving. He said he was going to have to makesome changes to his breeding program,as he never wanted to have a calving season likethis again. I mailed a  sale catalog for our bull sale yesterdayto him. Time will tell.