We've got about a week to go on calving out the majority of our "AI" cows. I'm probably hexing myself, but things have gone remarkably smooth. Some observations:
Conception is a little on the low side overall, but mainly on last years first calf heifers, that apparently didn't breed back as quickly as we hoped. All actually bred back for us in 90 days(which was a first), but its looking like a lot of them were to our cleanup bulls.
This is the first year we used Heat Wave. We bred 17 mature cows to him and have eight babies so far (a couple were bred a few weeks after the others and aren't due yet). I guess we got lucky, but if anything the babies have been on the small side. My guess is the fact that our cows run on grass on not much else (at least since winter) probably accounts for it. Better yet, all but two are bull calves.
We've got five Jimmy the Greek calves that look really nice for babies. No trouble out of him either.
Our biggest calf has been a Yellow Jacket out of a Cunia grandaughter. Cow had him unassisted though. He's going to be our trouble maker though. I saw him laying out next to one of our stock tanks and thought he was dead. I went and woke him up. He proceeded to charge me (at 4 days old), knocked me down, and then proceeded to take off through the shallow end of the tank where he proceeded to bog down. I wade out to him and pull him out, and then I nearly had to be pulled out myself. I guess his mom had already given him the coyote speech. My wife laughed at me for an hour. This calf already looks the part.
We used Rocky Balboa and Tyson on some heifers and young cows were worried about calving ease on. One calf out of each from young cows and both were just fine size wise. Heifers bred to them haven't calved yet.
Golden Child has done fine again. Five calves and no issues. We have a real pretty spotted heifer out of him.
Our biggest calf out of everything was an Angus-sired calf out of a heifer. We gave up on the pull and took her to the vet. Vet was able to get it pulled (head was really hard to get positioned right), but calf still hasn't stood up yet. He was a big one (out of a Playmate grandaughter).
That's the only assisted birth we've had so far. Good thing, because I broke my left arm a week ago falling down the bleachers at a football game.
I'll get some photos up one of these days.
Conception is a little on the low side overall, but mainly on last years first calf heifers, that apparently didn't breed back as quickly as we hoped. All actually bred back for us in 90 days(which was a first), but its looking like a lot of them were to our cleanup bulls.
This is the first year we used Heat Wave. We bred 17 mature cows to him and have eight babies so far (a couple were bred a few weeks after the others and aren't due yet). I guess we got lucky, but if anything the babies have been on the small side. My guess is the fact that our cows run on grass on not much else (at least since winter) probably accounts for it. Better yet, all but two are bull calves.
We've got five Jimmy the Greek calves that look really nice for babies. No trouble out of him either.
Our biggest calf has been a Yellow Jacket out of a Cunia grandaughter. Cow had him unassisted though. He's going to be our trouble maker though. I saw him laying out next to one of our stock tanks and thought he was dead. I went and woke him up. He proceeded to charge me (at 4 days old), knocked me down, and then proceeded to take off through the shallow end of the tank where he proceeded to bog down. I wade out to him and pull him out, and then I nearly had to be pulled out myself. I guess his mom had already given him the coyote speech. My wife laughed at me for an hour. This calf already looks the part.
We used Rocky Balboa and Tyson on some heifers and young cows were worried about calving ease on. One calf out of each from young cows and both were just fine size wise. Heifers bred to them haven't calved yet.
Golden Child has done fine again. Five calves and no issues. We have a real pretty spotted heifer out of him.
Our biggest calf out of everything was an Angus-sired calf out of a heifer. We gave up on the pull and took her to the vet. Vet was able to get it pulled (head was really hard to get positioned right), but calf still hasn't stood up yet. He was a big one (out of a Playmate grandaughter).
That's the only assisted birth we've had so far. Good thing, because I broke my left arm a week ago falling down the bleachers at a football game.
I'll get some photos up one of these days.