A set of Twins I never want again.

[Mueller Show Cattle]

My best Maine cow had a set of Twin bull calves today, both dead. A red one and a black one both with great hair bone and muscle. I never get twins as I have a small herd and when I do this is what I get for twins. A mistake I think on my part, I bough her a little over a year ago as a cow/calf pair as she had a heifer on her at the time. Was a milkman heifer that I tested that came back TH positive, did not get around testing her yet. Well I used my neighbors Maine clean up bull last year which bred her as she did not settle from AI, he never tested his bull as he has commercial cows he breeds to this bull and said he never had any dead calves out of the bull. My guess is my cow and the neighbors bull is TH positive. The 2 bull calves were about 60lbs a piece. I am going to test her this week so I get the results back before I AI her in 3 weeks, either way I will not get rid of her as she throws great calves, just sucks to finally get a pair of twins and bam there both dead. If it is not TH or PHA (doubt it but going to test for that also) don't have a clue what it would have been as they looked still born but normal. I did not keep any samples and just buried them this afternoon, did not want any critters creeping around after the smell as I got other new born calves on the ground.

 

[farmboy]

So they looked normal, but you suspect TH?

 

[RidinHeifer]

Are you meaning th carrier instead of positive?

 

[Mueller Show Cattle]

Yes they looked normal, nothing abnormal, just like a developed still born calf. I don't think PHA as the calves were not huge as like many dead PHA calves are, just about 60 lbs a piece. Moma had them cleaned off but they still had alot of fluid in their mouth and nose, that's why I am pretty sure they were still born as it does not appear they were breathing at birth. I did not take pictures as my wife was upset as they were both nice bull calves, I loaded them on the backhoe bucket and took them to another pasture were I dug a hole and buried them. She had to have had them last night, found them this morning and already infested with flies and maggots, just pissed me off.

 

[Mueller Show Cattle]

Are you meaning th carrier instead of positive?

yes

 

[JTM]

Reall sorry that happened. If the calves look normal then it wouldn't be TH or PHA. You are going to know that there is something wrong if you have one and there is no mistaking it. My thought is that the calves just died during labor because of a difficult birth. They may have got tied up inside and lost connection of their cords and died inside before birth. Crazy things can happen when having twins. I would still have your cow tested for TH and PHA though. What is the bloodlines of your cow and the bull that was used?

 

[JSchroeder]

Dead sets of twins have been around a lot longer than TH and PHA.

There's a reason that breed that was established in the mid-90s to select based on cows that threw twins didn't stick.  Twins are a pain in the rear to calve out and death losses are high.

 

[Mueller Show Cattle]

Reall sorry that happened. If the calves look normal then it wouldn't be TH or PHA. You are going to know that there is something wrong if you have one and there is no mistaking it. My thought is that the calves just died during labor because of a difficult birth. They may have got tied up inside and lost connection of their cords and died inside before birth. Crazy things can happen when having twins. I would still have your cow tested for TH and PHA though. What is the bloodlines of your cow and the bull that was used?

I could see this happening with cords getting ripped but I would have thought one would have survived, but she is a huge cow around 1700 to 1800 lbs, she would have pushed them out no problem as the milkman heifer was over a 100lb birth weight that she had with ease. Very large cow that is tall, deep and wide. She is a Full Throttle out of a maine/angus cow. Most people think she is a bull when she is in the trailer from how big she is and not from fat, she is a grass and hay fed cow. The bull is a high percentage or PB Maine bull (don't know for sure cause of the dam) that is sired by FJH Executive 31C, don't know the dam side.

 

[farmboy]

TH positive calves are DEFORMED. My guess is the cords were severed before birth.

 

[FriedgesCharolais]

As an earlier person posted you would know if they were born positive of TH. i dont know if you were there when she calved but by the way you make it sound is that you werent, it just sounds like, since they had fluid in their mouth and nose, is that they were both born backwards.

 

[Mueller Show Cattle]

As an earlier person posted you would know if they were born positive of TH. i dont know if you were there when she calved but by the way you make it sound is that you werent, it just sounds like, since they had fluid in their mouth and nose, is that they were both born backwards.

I don't know about backwards. What I do know is it was last night as I had seen her that prior afternoon as I have been watching her as her due date was 4-25-12 as I watched her get bred by the bull so I looked her due date up and she was showing signs of getting ready to calve. I did not see her have the calves, checked on her when I got up. She was not high risk, so I was not checking her in the middle of the night cause I did not know she was carrying twins and like I said she never had any calving difficulty cause of her size.

 

[DL]

My best Maine cow had a set of Twin bull calves today, both dead. A red one and a black one both with great hair bone and muscle. I never get twins as I have a small herd and when I do this is what I get for twins. A mistake I think on my part, I bough her a little over a year ago as a cow/calf pair as she had a heifer on her at the time. Was a milkman heifer that I tested that came back TH positive, did not get around testing her yet. Well I used my neighbors Maine clean up bull last year which bred her as she did not settle from AI, he never tested his bull as he has commercial cows he breeds to this bull and said he never had any dead calves out of the bull. My guess is my cow and the neighbors bull is TH positive. The 2 bull calves were about 60lbs a piece. I am going to test her this week so I get the results back before I AI her in 3 weeks, either way I will not get rid of her as she throws great calves, just sucks to finally get a pair of twins and bam there both dead. If it is not TH or PHA (doubt it but going to test for that also) don't have a clue what it would have been as they looked still born but normal. I did not keep any samples and just buried them this afternoon, did not want any critters creeping around after the smell as I got other new born calves on the ground.

Twins are hard on the cow and at risk for multiple problems which includes being born dead. If you want to know if they breathed you can have them necropsied or necropsy them yourself - if the lungs float in water they have taken at least one breath. If they were "about 60 lbs" and this is a big cow they may have been premature - how long was the hair coat? how far were the teeth erupted? How soft were the hooves? You can also tell sometimes if they were dead in utero - were the eyes cloudy?If they were dead in utero one might consider an infectious cause.  By sticking them in the ground without looking them over carefully you may have missed an opportunity to find a cause. Just because she is big doesn't mean she can easily have a set of twisted up twins easily - she may have been in labor a while if there were for example 4 feet from two different calves in the birth canal with one head - if she hadn't been a big cow you might have had a twisted dead mess on your hands

If they looked normal they may be carriers for almost anything but they were not affected with the defect.

Has she passed the placenta(s)?

Sorry you lost the calves, but IMHO re breeding a cow 3 weeks after she had a set of dead twins is a pretty bad idea. If as you say this is what you get when you get twins - ultrasound any time after 30 or 35 days can identify twins so you can be more prepared and if you checked her in the afternoon it might be worthwhile to start checking before you go to bed even if they are not considered high risk as dead calves with great bone and muscle are not very marketable

 

[justintime]

For some reason, twin births are sometimes stillborn. Over the years, I have had a few sets stillborn in what appeared to be normal births. I am 100% positive that your dead calves had nothing to do with TH and/or PHA. Calves positive of TH have deformed back legs ( sometimes twisted together) and short kinky hair and short deformed heads sometimes with a hole in the skull where the brain pushes out when the calf breathes. I have had 6 TH calves before I ever heard of the defect. Everyone of them was very much alive and tried and tried to get up.Of course they couldn't !  If your twins had PHA, they would have been huge and walrus like, and deformed. Fortunately, I have never had one, and I hope I never do see one.
I think twinning in the Maine breed is higher than in many other breeds. I would far rather have one good calf than a set of twins. A few years ago, there was some research being done by some University researchers, who were attempting to see if they could develop a herd that had a higher percentage of twinning . I thought they were completely out of their minds and that this was a total waste of taxpayers money.

 

[sizzler14]

This is a TH Calf

 

[Pleasant Grove Farms]

I hate hate hate twins.....
one year, has been some years ago now, we had 19 sets in our spring calving cows; we usually get 6-7 sets a year out of around 300 births;
that year we had so many, I am not so sure we even came out very many ahead of if they would have just had singles...
so many things happened; one was dead, both were dead, cow couldn't feed both; I know we ended up with a bottle calf pen that was mostly twins.
What bothers me most about getting twins that both die or one is dead is that twins are hard on the cow; takes alot out of her; when you end up with only one or none, it seems such a waste of all that she has to give to gestate them.

But many things can cause their death before birth, the over extension of the uterus being prob the main thing; because the uterus is hyper extended, it tends not to go into labor very well; so the cow doesn't really know she is calving but there is stress on the babies because of a prolonged labor.  Also, the placenta may malfunction, it has alot to support with two.  There are alot of things that can go wrong in any pregnancy and those are magnified with twins.

just got a set here yesterday....a Heatwave cow had a beautiful set of twins; she would be better off with just one cause a Heatwave cow can't milk enough to feed one baby, let alone two, but she has done an incredible job of taking care of both of them, keeping them together, feeding both.  She will be needing help to raise them but the kids need a summertime project!

 

[DL]

This is a TH Calf

I think not - that calf has by all appearances 7 legs and they do not appear twisted - neither straight or 7 legs is characteristic for TH - these are TH calves - note the large abdominal hernia and the twisted back legs - also not evident is the meningocele

 

[justintime]

I agree with DL. The abdominal hernia is a classic characteristic of a TH calf.

I'm not sure what changed our luck this year, but we have not had any twins this year. We normally get some twins, and the most we ever had was 18 sets in one calving season. I am hearing from my vets and neighbours that there are lots of twins in this area this spring. Several people who never have had any before have had several sets. I prefer not having any, and I will gladly let someone else have the twins.

 

[Mueller Show Cattle]

My best Maine cow had a set of Twin bull calves today, both dead. A red one and a black one both with great hair bone and muscle. I never get twins as I have a small herd and when I do this is what I get for twins. A mistake I think on my part, I bough her a little over a year ago as a cow/calf pair as she had a heifer on her at the time. Was a milkman heifer that I tested that came back TH positive, did not get around testing her yet. Well I used my neighbors Maine clean up bull last year which bred her as she did not settle from AI, he never tested his bull as he has commercial cows he breeds to this bull and said he never had any dead calves out of the bull. My guess is my cow and the neighbors bull is TH positive. The 2 bull calves were about 60lbs a piece. I am going to test her this week so I get the results back before I AI her in 3 weeks, either way I will not get rid of her as she throws great calves, just sucks to finally get a pair of twins and bam there both dead. If it is not TH or PHA (doubt it but going to test for that also) don't have a clue what it would have been as they looked still born but normal. I did not keep any samples and just buried them this afternoon, did not want any critters creeping around after the smell as I got other new born calves on the ground.

Twins are hard on the cow and at risk for multiple problems which includes being born dead. If you want to know if they breathed you can have them necropsied or necropsy them yourself - if the lungs float in water they have taken at least one breath. If they were "about 60 lbs" and this is a big cow they may have been premature - how long was the hair coat? how far were the teeth erupted? How soft were the hooves? You can also tell sometimes if they were dead in utero - were the eyes cloudy?If they were dead in utero one might consider an infectious cause.  By sticking them in the ground without looking them over carefully you may have missed an opportunity to find a cause. Just because she is big doesn't mean she can easily have a set of twisted up twins easily - she may have been in labor a while if there were for example 4 feet from two different calves in the birth canal with one head - if she hadn't been a big cow you might have had a twisted dead mess on your hands

If they looked normal they may be carriers for almost anything but they were not affected with the defect.

Has she passed the placenta(s)?

Sorry you lost the calves, but IMHO re breeding a cow 3 weeks after she had a set of dead twins is a pretty bad idea. If as you say this is what you get when you get twins - ultrasound any time after 30 or 35 days can identify twins so you can be more prepared and if you checked her in the afternoon it might be worthwhile to start checking before you go to bed even if they are not considered high risk as dead calves with great bone and muscle are not very marketable

Thanks DL, she did pass the placenta or was in the process, seen some of the afterbirth on the ground but yesterday morning she was still getting rid of some stringy stuff. She is walking around without any discomfort and eating like normal. As for the calves the hair was great about an inch long fluffy hair, had good normal teeth that were fully developed, looked like my live calf teeth. The hooves were fully developed. They did not look deformed in anyway like that TH photos, legs were straight and not bent up and their was no hernia in the abdominal area. Their organs and intestines were fully enclosed in their body cavity, nothing sticking out. They looked like a normal calf just dead and now that I remember there was no cord attached to their belly that I could see, so if it ripped off, it ripped off at there belly. So my question is, if a cow has had twins in the past is she more likely than others to have twins again? Thanks guys, will still have her tested to be sure for breeding anyway but I guess the cords ripped off the somehow by being tangeled up. I was not shooting for twins, did not even think about checking her for twins, I knew she was bred because she did not come back into heat after watching her get bred by the bull.

 

[Pleasant Grove Farms]

yes, she will be at a greater risk for twins again; super ovulation also seems to be
inherited as daughters will also be at increased risk.

 

[DL]

Big M

There are (as you probably already know) 2 kinds of twins - identical ( egg split) and fraternal (2 different eggs). In cattle, fraternal twins account for 99% of all twins and there is a heritable component to twinning (ie twins - either sire or dam twins) are more likely to have or sire twins. Identical twins are not suppose to increase the rate of twinning in offspring, ie it was just something that happened not something heritable.  In dairy cattle there is a relationship between high milk production and twinning and many dairies are using ultrasound to identify twins as early as 30 days. The high producing dairy cow carrying twins needs to be managed differently and can become a metabolic mess if not dried off early. I don't know of any studies in beef that relate twinning to high milk production but it makes some sense that it would

A formal project to select for twinning was started at the Meat Animal Research Center at Clay Center, NE in 1981 when twinning rates were from 0.5 to 4%, depending upon breed. By 2001, twinning in the selected herd exceeded 50% of the cows calving. - it is interesting and on the site below- note the increased mortality of twins compared to singlets

http://www.ansci.cornell.edu/courses/as360/lecture/twins/

sounds like you had to "normal" (ie not genetically defective) set of twins likely born dead

I wouldn't hesitate to re breed her after she recovers (ie probably 60 days minimum) but I wouldn't breed her to a bull that is or has sired  twins


should have said is or has sired twins