Twins what causes them?

[Okie Boy]

We have had 4 sets so far this year.  ( That's out of 25 cows so far)  I think I read recently that pre breeding diet has an effect. Ever since we started bringing them home to calve we have had at least 3 sets per year out of about 50 cows. Some think it could be the AI. But we were having lots before we started that. Sometimes I think we just know about them now that they are looked at more in a smaller pasture. What are your thoughts on twins?

 

[CAB]

  Twins are caused by one of 2 ways. One, two eggs that mature and are fertilized @ the same time. @, one egg that is fertilized and then splits into 2 fetus' very early on and come the birthing maturity. Of coarse we can get multiple births also with the fertility drugs,m ie. flushing cows. Nutrition will have some effect, but what you are kind of describing seems to be more genetically influenced. Hope this helps you out. Brent

 

[LN]

We talked about this topic in my advanced beef production class. High milking breeds (Simmental, Gelbvieh, dairy breeds) have a higher tendency to twin and I think twinning is somewhat heritable.

 

[CAB]

  Not too many years ago, didn't ABS try to develop a breed that would twin @ high levels? I think if I remember correctly they were called Mark,(Marc), Twinners. I may be all wet too about the name.

 

[Sundy]

I believe twinning can be influenced by nutrition, but only playing a limited role. For example, I know an individual who had 17 sets of twins on roughly 200 head of cows (8.5%). These cows are fed well in quantity, quality, and nutritionally. They receive fed daily and free choice Kent mineral. They have noticed that some of their heifers that twinned were a twin themselves. Thus, leading me to believe it can be hereditary especially from the dam's side. We ourselves had a Simmental cross cow that we bought a half rack of Double Stuff for years ago and we bred her 4 years in a row to Double Stuff, all of which resulted in twin bulls. The fifth year we bred her to Warhorse and got a single. The sixth year she was bred to the last unit of Double Stuff, resulting in another set of bull calf twins. So, that leads me to believe that twinning can be hereditary maternally and paternally.
Twins are either monozygotic or dizygotic. Monozygotic twins (identical twins) result when a single egg, fertilized by a single sperm, divides into two embryos. Dizygotic twins (fraternal twins) result when two fertilized eggs, fertilized by two different sperm, attach to the uterine wall at the same time.
Therefore, you may want to analyze your pedigrees and look for consistency. I do not feel A.I. plays any part, but the genetics of the bull being used might. If you feel that it is not genetic, then it may pay to analyze your nutrition program, especially your mineral. I hope this helps and good luck!

 

[knabe]

http://www.ansci.wisc.edu/research/twin/index.html

 

[justintime]

I have been scratching my head about this twinning thing for years. We seem to have more twins than most others around us. For quite a few years I thought it had to a genetic factor in our herd, as we consistently had 8 or 10 sets each year. The highest was 17 sets in 1985. In 1989, we started over with a completely new set of cows and the twins continued, In 1993 we again had 17 sets of twins. At that time we were running purebred herds of Shorthorns, Charolais and a few Simmentals as well as a commercial set of black cows ( Angus and Maine/Angus) and we had twins in all of them. This makes me think that there are more factors than just genetics. I cannot see how winter feeding can affect the twinning, as the cows are bred on pasture and the twins must be created there. Last year we only had 4 sets from 214 cows so I have no idea what we did differently.

 

[oakbar]

The MARC facility in Clay Center, NE has been working on the twinning idea for years.  When we toured their facility in 2006 they were talking about possibly, in the future, twinning might become the normal rather than the exception to help the cows produce more offspring and enhance the economic cash flow per cow. 

I have to say that, usually, I would rather have one good healthy calf rather than twins because many times one is much larger and healthier than the other or both turn out duds.  I have had sets of twins where both calves were very good calves as well, though, and grew up just fine.  I guess if we have them, I just hope  they are the same sex, approximately the same size, and display the same vigor and nursing instinct.  Then we usually get along just fine.

I'm sure there is a genetic factor to the whole scenario, however, if twins are concieved at the time of fertilization,  a good health and nutrition program will certainly allow more of them to survive as twins all the way to parturition.  We have a much smaller sample than many of you, but it seems our twins are usually out of the same cow lines.  I guess we don't have enough of a sample size to make much of an observation about the paternal side.

 

[simtal]

I hate twins.  Dyscotia, cow acceptance, milk, rebreeding, freemartins, plus the calves always look pitiful

 

[Wiley]

I had a first calf Angus hefier that had twins out of a dr. hook son this year both were hefier calves

 

[ratmama2]

We have a small herd of Herefords with three main cow lines. Out of the three lines only one of them gives us twins every year without fail. Both of these cows were single borns. I know it comes from the females but since I bought my young herd sire we have had twins from the non twining lines and it makes me wonder if he can influence twining somehow. I personally don't mind the twins. I give some extra feed to the cow and mine have been pretty good. I have only had one rejection in 5 years of twins and that was when she had them a week apart, her first set. So I wasn't expecting twins and she acted fine and even cleansed. Then the extra one turned up, she acted possessive of him but wouldn't let him nurse. Vet said he should have been dead and was surprised as us that he lived. Guess he just wasn't ready to make his entrance into the world yet.

 

[fluffer]

From what I understand about twins -identical twins (1 fertilized egg that splits) is just a random act.  It is not a heritable trait.  However, fraternal twins (2 eggs that are released and fertilized) is heritable.  If I remember right it is a lowly heritable trait with a .6% heritability.  I have had several fraternal twins but have had no identical twins.

Fluffer

 

[ROAD WARRIOR]

We have a small herd of Herefords with three main cow lines. Out of the three lines only one of them gives us twins every year without fail. Both of these cows were single borns. I know it comes from the females but since I bought my young herd sire we have had twins from the non twining lines and it makes me wonder if he can influence twining somehow. I personally don't mind the twins. I give some extra feed to the cow and mine have been pretty good. I have only had one rejection in 5 years of twins and that was when she had them a week apart, her first set. So I wasn't expecting twins and she acted fine and even cleansed. Then the extra one turned up, she acted possessive of him but wouldn't let him nurse. Vet said he should have been dead and was surprised as us that he lived. Guess he just wasn't ready to make his entrance into the world yet.

Several years ago I had a commercial cow that calved on schedule with all of the other cows and 23 days later had a second calf. It was very small, maybe 25-30 lbs and never did grow much. It was a bit of a surprise to be checking cows when you think you are done calving and have a mystery baby appear out of nowhere. For several years I never had a set of twins in the purebred herd and then about 10 years ago I hit a streak of about 6 years that I would have from 3 to 6% twins, the last few years I have 1 or 2 sets of twins a year. Personally I would  rather have 1 good calf as ever have a set of twins. RW

 

[aj]

There is a genetic aspect to it. I remember reading an article about a guy who was linebreeding for twins. Seemed like he had almost like a epd system fgured out. I think the old yellow simmentals and the milking shorthorns may have some twinning lines.Twins can definitely be a mangement problem.

 

[bcosu]

i know some people who have alot of the yellow and red old simmentals and despite the small number of cows, the have multiple sets of twins almost every year. we've discussed this and were pretty sure as well that it must be in the breeds alot of the time.

 

[red]

We had one cow that had 2 sets of twins. I think some of it is genetic. A feed customer of mine though swore it was based on the pre-mix he was using (mine of course!).

 

[oakbar]

I was looking around the MARC (USDA Meat Animal Research Center)site the other night and I ran across some information on twinning.  I knew they had said something about selecting for twinning when I toured the facility 3 years ago. 

Basically, they have been selecting heifers since 1981 for fraternal twins (more than one egg shed per ovulation).  What they found was that in the twinning herd they went from 4% twins in 1984 to 52% in 2001, so apparently there is a genetic factor associated with twinning.  They selected females that consistently produced more than one fertile egg per ovulation ove that time.  I'm not sure how they determined their bull lines.  These findings seem to support the idea that specific cow lines will produce more twins than others.

In their trials, the postnatal mortality( calves that died after birth) was no different from single birth calves--I'm not convinced we could duplicate this in the real world.  They also found that single birth calves were heavier at birth and at weaning(no surprise) but that when they looked at total cow productivity(total weaning weight per cow calving) that the twin producing cows were between 55.6 and 71.3% higher.  This of course could also be affected if your mortality was higher with twins.

Interesting work though!!  I wonder if the ability to produce more than one egg per ovulation in some cows is what causes some cows to be more productive as donor cows than others.  If all we are doing is multiplying the eggs normally shed by adminstering the drugs, it would make sense that a cow with the tendency to produce multiple egg ovulations would probably produce more eggs when flushed.  Just a thought!!

If your a scientist at heart there are lots of interesting studies on the MARC website---hogs, cattle, goats, etc.

 

[Dusty]

Twinning is genetic and also affected by enviroment. 
If you have highly proflific cow lines on good nutrition there is going to be a tendency to twin.  All species of plants and animals are going to reproduce to the maximum that the enviroment allows.  Thats nature. 

It's like corn.  In a good year with ample fertility and ample moisture there are certain corn hybrids that will put 2 full ears on a stalk.  They do this because of their genetics and to take advantage of the surplus resources.  It's no different with cattle.