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per

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OK I am about a week from the due date and have 10 early bird calves on the ground, 9 forward and 1 backward. Is the fact that they are all bulls unusual? Not complaining and I am sure the girls will start up, just curious. Seems the odd hf should have shown up.
 
floyd said:
Every birth is a 50/50 thing.
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I believe that to be true but sometimes it's hard to believe. :???:

Overall we usually finish up close to a 50:50 split but sometimes bulls (or cows) can go all through their lives and breed heavy to one side. Had a cow get to 11 before she ever had a heifer calf - but her last 4 were all female. I have known bulls to leave 65-70% female calves throughout their entire life.
 
I am just waiting for a couple stragglers, AI'ers that didn't catch so we ran them in with the bull. My rate this year is 78% heifers. One gal is 14 years old and has had nothing but heifers all her life and 3 of those seasons were twin heifers.


Maybe your herd is the year of the bull Per .
 
We were running 85% bulls for the first week or so-- but now the heifers are beginning to catch up...Both heifers and cows started calving 2 weeks early- but for the most part are getting perfect 75-85 lb birthweights..Biggest calf out of a heifer was an AI bull calf sired by OCC Magnitude that weighed 84 lbs...

One heifer left to go- and I'm almost positive she didn't catch AI and the calf is out of one of my cleanup bulls.. The other heifer calved this afternoon- a 75 lb bull calf sired by one of my own bulls- that took her less than 1/2 an hour between the time I happened to drive by and see a bubble sticking out- until I looked out and saw the calf on the ground (and half that time she spent grazing rather than getting down to work :wink: )... The reason I decided I'm going to use my own bulls on the heifers this year- and forget AIing this year...

Well were real strong to the heifers.
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A heifer year is supposed to be a wet year...
 
i had one out of the cows last night, thats not quite a month early. but this time i know it was the nieghbors bull beacause i caught him in action :mad: now the question, how many more. :? weather is suppose to stay nice for awhile. so for now, we should be alright.

as far as all the bull calves.......i bet the heifers will catch up. :)
 
We started out pretty out of whack here too, at one point early on heifers outnumbered bulls 2:1. Now with about 80 on the ground 44 are heifers. We've had 4 sets of twins now and that's starting to get irritating.
 
We have three bulls out of 12 live calves, never checked what the rotten calf was before the cow ate it. The last two years we have been 60% bull calves when we finished calving.
Maybe this is adjustment year. :?
 
I don't think we have ever finished a year with more heifers than steers. Looking back over the past five years, steers outnumbered heifers the most in 2008 with 52.6% steers and 47.4% heifers. The least that steers outnumbered heifers was in 2006, with 50.5% steers and 49.5% heifers. This year is unusual for us because we have had ten sets of twins with all twenty calves surviving so far. We usually get about four or five sets of twins, and only about half of them survive.
 
I'm at 25 heifers and 20 bulls.

Sold a 12 year 2 month old cow earlier this month. She missed her scheduled calf last May but earned a pass because she had 10 calves between December 1999 and May 2008 (no twins and was 4th generation of a roan bottle calf Dad bought me when I was 9). Ended up still open in February so the axe fell... Anyway, 10 calves in 9 years and all heifers. I kept 4 for of them for cows, wish I'd have kept more. Her offspring are making good mothers.

She was the 11th of 13 from another cow that came up missing just before her 14th was scheduled to appear. The cow was 15 at the time. Never did find her. Her tally was 10 bulls 3 heifers. Kept one other daughter from her, she just turned 11 and just had her 10th calf. Her tally is 6 bulls 4 heifers.

:oops: sorry for running on, but if you are lucky, every now and then you run across a few really good cows.
 
I am sitting 70% heifers with just a few left to go. I guess this is what you call a building year? But, I didn't keep any heifers to breed this spring, so that's alright I guess.
 

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