Bred Calves

[Silver]

I've had the odd bred calf over the years, but this year I'm sure there are no less than 6 bred heifer calves in the bunch. We sorted 5 of them off before we hauled the calves up to where we are going to summer them, and I noticed another as we unloaded them out of the trailer :?
I suppose the lesson here may be to pull the bulls, but when your breeding herd is spread through the wilderness this isn't very practical. Plus, in our experience it's pretty uncommon for calves to get bred at 5 months of age :shock: :?

 

[Shortgrass]

Thats different for sure. You've got some pretty early maturing heifers all right. 5 months is a bit too early in my book!

 

[Cedarcreek]

I had it happen once. The calf had to have been less than 5 months old. I start calving in April and this one calved the end of April.

 

[eatbeef]

We pull bulls around 90 days, usually when we precondition calves and still have some every year. We started giving lutalyse shots at weaning, or soon after weaned and started on feed, to prevent the future headache. Having early maturing hiefers is a good problem to have though.

 

[Silver]

Another bad angle to a deal like this is that of course these calves aren't bred to a heifer bull either. The thoughts of doing c-sections in May/June isn't very appealing either.
I wonder if that lutalyse is available in Canada? How expensive is it? Looks to me like it may be money well spent.

 

[sic 'em reds]

A good friend of mine has been dealing with this the past couple of years. He runs on leased pasture and runs his cattle seperate, but two other outfits run on the same ranch. He pulls his bulls, but then the neighbor bulls get in with them.

He has been doing the blood pregnancy test on his replacements, then hits them with Estrumate and Dexomethasone to dump the calf. Then he generally sells the calves to backyard ranchers for freezer beef.

 

[katrina]

Don't know if it's available in canada, but you will need more than lutyse.. Can't remember what we used, but plain old lutyse will not be enough... And we had trouble with them cleaning.... this was years ago.. Ask a vet... We had a calf get bred.... she had her calf but never did breed back.. Let us know what ya do and how it turns out...

 

[hillsdown]

Here is the aborting protocal Silver

Up to 3 months ,prostaglandine
3-6 months ,prostaglandine and dexamethasone
6 months and up ,dex

My breed hits puberty at 3-4 months of age, so every fall we give all heifers a shot of estrumate and dex 9 days after they have had been pulled from the main group and possible bull exposure.

They are usually bred by the bulls calves running with them, not our mature bulls.

 

[Silver]

Here is the aborting protocal Silver

Up to 3 months ,prostaglandine
3-6 months ,prostaglandine and dexamethasone
6 months and up ,dex

My breed hits puberty at 3-4 months of age, so every fall we give all heifers a shot of estrumate and dex 9 days after they have had been pulled from the main group and possible bull exposure.

They are usually bred by the bulls calves running with them, not our mature bulls.

Thanks!
I was wondering about the bull calves myself, although last breeding season we ran mostly yrlg bulls so I wondered if that increased the odds as well.

 

[leanin' H]

I had a heifer get bred by accident thank to a bull jumping a fence. Went the Lute and Dex route and it worked great. Good luck.

 

[hillsdown]

Here is the aborting protocal Silver

Up to 3 months ,prostaglandine
3-6 months ,prostaglandine and dexamethasone
6 months and up ,dex

My breed hits puberty at 3-4 months of age, so every fall we give all heifers a shot of estrumate and dex 9 days after they have had been pulled from the main group and possible bull exposure.

They are usually bred by the bulls calves running with them, not our mature bulls.

Thanks!
I was wondering about the bull calves myself, although last breeding season we ran mostly yrlg bulls so I wondered if that increased the odds as well.

Have used this protocol for the last 9 years, and the only glitch so far was I aborted the replacements ,kicked them back out to pasture but it was very cold out then, we were having temps already of -30 at night. One heifer aborted and it froze to her tail and stupid me missed it for a few days . So by the time I brought her into the chute it was a big wad of frozen crap on her tail. Hubby and I worked on her for a long time with countless buckets of hot water hauled from the house. We finally got her tail free, but she did end up losing all but a 12 inch stub a few months later. She looks like we docked it ,but other than that she bred back on time ,AI, and calved unassisted ,87 lb bull calf this year .

Good Luck !

 

[Silver]

Lack of sleep must be getting to me. I actually thought I had bull calves running around last year, and we knife cut at birth

:lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[RSL]

2cc of Estrumate will likely do the trick if you don't wait into the 3rd trimester. Readily available in Canada. Runs around $5 a shot in this part of the world.
Comes in 10cc vials, so you likely have 6 heifers that need it.

 

[littlejoe]

2cc of Estrumate will likely do the trick if you don't wait into the 3rd trimester. Readily available in Canada. Runs around $5 a shot in this part of the world.
Comes in 10cc vials, so you likely have 6 heifers that need it.

I'm thinking on days between 30-100 one shot of lutalyse does it.

 

[burnt]

Seems to me that when we aborted a bunch of heifers one time we used Lutalyse or Estrumate and a couple cc's of Dexamethazone. Probably at about 100 - 120 days.

 

[Nicky]

Lack of sleep must be getting to me. I actually thought I had bull calves running around last year, and we knife cut at birth

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Now that's funny!!

Our vet said lutalyse up to 5 months, he didn't say anything about dex too. Our neighbor has a bunch of fall born heifer calves that he is putting their moms back into the spring herd. So he will need to do something this fall.

 

[hillsdown]

Seems to me that when we aborted a bunch of heifers one time we used Lutalyse or Estrumate and a couple cc's of Dexamethazone. Probably at about 100 - 120 days.

It would have been 2cc's of estrumate and 10 cc's of dex Burnt .

 

[burnt]

Seems to me that when we aborted a bunch of heifers one time we used Lutalyse or Estrumate and a couple cc's of Dexamethazone. Probably at about 100 - 120 days.

It would have been 2cc's of estrumate and 10 cc's of dex Burnt .

You are probably right - it's been too long ago to remember.

 

[Silver]

Well, I guess we're done calving now. Turns out there were 8 calves bred, the first one calved on May 15 (before the last of the cows), the last one on Aug 1. In the end we ended up with 7 live heifers and 6 live calves. One assist, one calf dead at birth, and the last heifer was put down on Aug 1 when discovered in distress. We feel pretty bad about the last one, she was one of the ones that we didn't notice until she was coming off the trailer into pasture several miles from home, so didn't get the attention she should have had.

 

[3words]

Another bad angle to a deal like this is that of course these calves aren't bred to a heifer bull either. The thoughts of doing c-sections in May/June isn't very appealing either.
I wonder if that lutalyse is available in Canada? How expensive is it? Looks to me like it may be money well spent.

Yes it's available in canada,i do my heifers that i plan to keep at weaning for replacements.I can't remember how much it costs,but it's not that much for peace of mind.