What are the chances?

[JCC]

This story begins a year ago. While calving heifers we had my father-in-law check on the heifers while we were at work, he called my wife and told her that there was a heifer calving. He said it was a heifer without a tag. Being confused due to the fact that the heifer that was due and showing had a tag in its ear that morning she started asking more questions about the tagless heifer. In the end we figured out that the heifer that was calving was one of the yearling heifers that was due to be bred this past spring. She obviously had gotten bred on the pasture while still on the cow. They pulled the calf hind feet first and determined that she was actually aborting a 7 month old pregnancy. This summer when we were processing calves we discussed with the vet about giving a lut. shot to all the heifers to avoid the situation that we had had over the winter and he thought it was a fluke deal and not really cost effective. Fast forward to two days ago, I had just gotten home from work and drove past the cattle yard where and notice a yearling heifer laying out having contractions. I got her in and confirmed that she was indeed trying to push a calf out. We called the vet and told him I thought we had a c-section on our hands. When he got there he sleeved her because he said she didn't look bred! We wound up having to do a c-section to get the 6 month old aborted calf out of her. Once we were done with the c-section were were discussing who the heifer was out of and looked back in our records and found that both of these two yearlings are out of the same cow!!! Both got bred in the pasture while still on the cow! What are the chances of this happening two years in a row let alone both of them being out of the same cow? BTW the heifer that aborted last year has a 18 day old heifer calf on her. She was the first to breed of the heifers that we bred last summer. From now on we will be giving lut shots to all the heifers at weaning time.

 

[LN]

That is incredibly rare. How old are the heifers when the bull is pulled out of the pasture?

 

[JCC]

The heifers have been born in late Feb. early March and are pulled out of the pasture the middle of Aug. So 5-6 months old. We actually pull the calves not the bull. The cows are ultrasounded in late July and bull calves are cut. Pull open cows off, turn calves back out with mom until they are healed up then wean.

 

[kfacres]

we left our bull calf in with the heifer calves in the next group younger.. Bull calf was probably 8 months old, heifer calves were between 5=6 months old.  Anyways, we had about 10 of these heiferss calve out at about 15 months this summer.. Had to pull everyone of em..  Not the most ideal position in world.  Didn't lose any cows, or calves though..

 

[ROAD WARRIOR]

This story begins a year ago. While calving heifers we had my father-in-law check on the heifers while we were at work, he called my wife and told her that there was a heifer calving. He said it was a heifer without a tag. Being confused due to the fact that the heifer that was due and showing had a tag in its ear that morning she started asking more questions about the tagless heifer. In the end we figured out that the heifer that was calving was one of the yearling heifers that was due to be bred this past spring. She obviously had gotten bred on the pasture while still on the cow. They pulled the calf hind feet first and determined that she was actually aborting a 7 month old pregnancy. This summer when we were processing calves we discussed with the vet about giving a lut. shot to all the heifers to avoid the situation that we had had over the winter and he thought it was a fluke deal and not really cost effective. Fast forward to two days ago, I had just gotten home from work and drove past the cattle yard where and notice a yearling heifer laying out having contractions. I got her in and confirmed that she was indeed trying to push a calf out. We called the vet and told him I thought we had a c-section on our hands. When he got there he sleeved her because he said she didn't look bred! We wound up having to do a c-section to get the 6 month old aborted calf out of her. Once we were done with the c-section were were discussing who the heifer was out of and looked back in our records and found that both of these two yearlings are out of the same cow!!! Both got bred in the pasture while still on the cow! What are the chances of this happening two years in a row let alone both of them being out of the same cow? BTW the heifer that aborted last year has a 18 day old heifer calf on her. She was the first to breed of the heifers that we bred last summer. From now on we will be giving lut shots to all the heifers at weaning time.

Early maturity (puberty) is a highly heritable trait, I don't think that it is all that odd that both were from the same cow. RW

 

[TJ]

Early maturity (puberty) is a highly heritable trait, I don't think that it is all that odd that both were from the same cow. RW

RW is correct & I don't think that it odd either.  In fact, I'm guessing that same cow could produce even more heifers that get bred while nursing.   


We when first started with Tarentaise cattle, we only had a handful of heifer calves, but 2 out of that handful calved at 14 months!  We've started giving them all a shot of PG & 10 cc of dexamethasone.  Every year, several heifers abort.     

 

[JCC]

Thanks TJ-that will be our new protocol!

It will be interesting to see what her daughters produce as far as early maturing calves. This year will be our first test of that.