Triplets

[Limiman12]

I know that when a cow has twins- bull and heifer, the heifer is a free martin.

Not always...  actually more like a 92% of not being good.  Type in Chymera in google.. will help explain this better.

When a cow has triplets, 2 bulls and a heifer or 2 heifers and a bull, does this mean they are freemartins too?

Maybe, what causes the infertility-- has nothing really to do with the actual number of births- but has to do with egg splitting in half to form twins-- since most cattle won't drop 2 eggs.  Somewhere along the lines- the heifer calf gets a shot of male DNA forcing her to be sterile.  IF the triplets are from one egg- which I do not believe to be possible *unless the cow had quads and absorbed one* one should be different DNA-- or as my guess most of the time would be-- she dropped 3 eggs. 
Now in sheep and goats, where dropping on more than one eggs is common- rarely  are "free martins" ever seen.

That is how remember it....

Might have to politely disagree with you Jody. I was always taught that a freemartin was caused from the testosterone crossing the placental barrier while the gonads (sex organs) were forming early on, thus suppressing the growth of the female reproductive parts.  If twins are the result of eggs splitting, they would be IDENTICAL, so same sex and no worry of freemartin. So, with triplets of different sex, I think you run into the same issues; if the testosterone crossed the placenta then the heifer will be sterile.
??? Am I correct??? I will have to look later, right now I am finishing up giving a quiz and packing up to head home to do chores.

 

[oakie]

The cows sire probably has twins in his lineage, and the dam probably is the same way. We are running into a lot more twins than the norm and I'm thinking it's due to one of the bulls probably has the twin gene. A bull has millions of sperm, so the triplets sire wouldn't affect the chance of triplets, but their grandsire would affect the chances of his grandchildren being triplets. I have a cow that just weaned off twins in October that were 7 months old at weaning, on dry pasture, and weaned off at 600lbs.  She's out of g13 structure, but her mom has twins on her side. Too bad she doesn't do that every year  

 

[oakie]

As a science project, which maine bulls and angus bulls have twinnages in their lineage. That structure cow is an awesome milker, if I could get her calf to twin every year and still look good................

 

[knabe]

For what it's worth I had twins out of a direct Midas x double power plant  bred to legacy plus and one of those daughters had twins by majors money man. Both mothers easily had enough milk. I know people don't like midas cus he's bald but they are great attentive mothers.

 

[NBCattleCo.]

We once got quadruplets out of a sim x hereford cow. 3 heifers and a bull and all four survived.

That would of been a handfull for old mooma cow! You must have pics of that crew to post? If we had triplets or Quads we would have 100 pics.
I am just guessing but prob have a better chance at winning a lottery than a cow having quads?

It happened like 6 or 7 years ago now and all we had at the time was still an old film type camera so I would have to scan the picture. It was pretty cool, the radio even called to interview about them.

 

[justme]

So glad Frostie told me to look this up!  Oh my goodness, I bet my good friend Red is looking down on those little triplets smiling and clapping!  She sure would have been doating over those babies!  We'd sure like to see pics of these babies! (thumbsup)