• If you are having problems logging in please use the Contact Us in the lower right hand corner of the forum page for assistance.

BW Corelation to WW

Faster Horses wrote:

"Those 80 lb. black calves get right up and get going."

"Our calves gain an average of 3 lbs. a day on grass and mineral."

"We try not to keep the calves on the cows more than 205 days at the most."
Click to expand...

205 days X 3 lbs/day = 615 + 80 BW= 695

Your bull calves average this in 205 days?
 
The older I get- the lazier I get...And I'm getting too lazy to be running out and check cows or even heifers every few hours- or babysitting those big dummy calves in cold or nasty weather....
As long as I can get easy calving angus bulls that have heifers that calve out 70-85 Lb calves and cows that drop 70-90 lbers- I'm plumb happy....And they been averaging around 600-620 lbs for steers and 570- 580 for heifers when sold around 6 months-- with a lot more live calves than when I was running the simmi and simmi cross bulls...Too many of those calves just laid there in the snow, rain or wind and died if you weren't right there to babysit-- while the little angus jump up and are sucking in 5 minutes- sometimes even at 20 below.....
 
I'm with you OT. Totally.

Mike, we do have some early calves that weigh 695, but not the average.
For one thing, except for the few that come early, they aren't 205 days old. More like 180 days old. We have alot of calves on the ground in the first heat cycle. So if we start calving March 25, the first heat is over April 15. We get at least 85% of the calves by that time.

180x3=540+80=620.

Sorry for the confusion.
 
Oldtimer said:
And I'm getting too lazy to be running out and check cows or even heifers every few hours- or babysitting those big dummy calves in cold or nasty weather....

with a lot more live calves than when I was running the simmi and simmi cross bulls...
Click to expand...

OT, I guess you don't quite understand what Randi and I are trying to say here. We don't have to check our cattle because of the higher birthweights, but rather because of the time of the year that we calve in. If I decided to grass calve my critters, I'd check em once a day just to tag the new calves.

As far as your problems with Simm bulls, you simply had the wrong Simm bulls. Before I went back to Shorthorn bulls, I ran Simm bulls successfully for a number of years. Actually, with ALOT more success than Angus or Maine bulls.

Rod
 
The claim of dummy calves with simms come from a lot of folks I know.. Maybe they all got them from the same source or soemthing but they always say you couldn't give them a simmi bull to use now.. These are folks who use Chars and Maines and Angus and some clubby bulls and they always go back to saying those simms they used for pasture breeding one year were just a nightmare..

That being said, I kind of felt the same way about some of the Maines I used from them, lol.
 
I don't understand the phenomenon discussed here:

"Big Dummy Calves"

Some are slower than others to suck and small ones can be just as slow as big ones.

Our bigger calves have equal vigor to the smaller ones.
 
Mike-- it just seems like those little calves that come fast without any problem have more vigor...I lost 4 calves last year- 1 to a coyote- 1 I think I may have run over :roll: and then two big ones...First I didn't catch early enough and the 1/2 simmi heifer was having problems- pulled it- tough, tough pull- calf was alive but never seem to have the will to live-- laid there in the sun and died....Calf weighed 110 lbs...
Next one was a calf born in a cold rain out of a 1/2 simmi cow (biggest cow that was on the place)-- calf weighed 130 lbs- and never had apparently even got up and tried to suck...Was alive when I found it, but died shortly after I hauled it in to heat up- just didn't have the will to live....3 other calves born (straight angus) during the same night were much smaller-but jumped up and lived....

Now I know this ain't scientific--but over the years of running simmi- and simmi X bulls, I had 5 times the calving problems with dummies--the ones that just don't seem to have the will to want to live- that take forever to get up and suck-and many times take babysitting until their brain size catches up to the size of their body...And in this cold weather--if they don't get up and get a warm belly full fast--many times they don't make it...
 
Oldtimer that's why farmers should buy bulls from farmers and ranchers should deal with ranchers. Hothouse calvers can have pretty severe cases of denial-I know I used to be one. I'd get the red hair out if anybody dared to suggest that calving big BW cattle in the cold wasn't the smartest thing going. bigger BW cattle probably are bigger at weaning-but by harvest time you can't sort the 80 pound BW calves from the 100's. Not denying people can make them big but it sure isn't easy.
 
i read there's a positive correlation between birth weight and mature weight so the light bw bulls' daughters are likely to be smaller at maturity. this would probably also mean lower ww in many cases but the low bw high performance bulls could throw good ww's as well. depends on the cow too. she's fifty per cent of the calf. the big dummy calves seem to be the ones that took a while to get out and are probably a little short on energy and maybe some physical stress too from a longer time getting pushed out.
 
Oldtimer said:
Mike-- it just seems like those little calves that come fast without any problem have more vigor...
Click to expand...

Can you light birthweight guys answer me this: Why would a big calf that comes fast have any less vigor than a small calf that comes fast? If a birth isn't difficult, that calf is going to get up and get rolling whether he weighs 70 lbs or 130 lbs.

If your cows can't deliver the big calves, then by all means, don't breed to high BW bulls. But also don't say it can't be done, because my families been doing it for generations. In the 35 years that my grandparents ran Shorthorns and Red Polls in Saskatchewan, they had the vet out 3 times. 3 times. And they always maintained good BWs. My uncle ran livestock for 45 years, and he had the vet out a handful of times. When I tried my lower BW breeding exercise, they all thought I was a fool. Turned out I was.

NR, you've said in the past that those low BW animals will weigh up with a high BW animal come weaning time. My numbers and Randi's say you're wrong, so now I'm asking you to come up with numbers to support your statement.

Rod
 
I'm not NR, but didn't I just show you what happened in our herd with 80
lb. birthweights as far as performance? I guess 3 lbs/day is good enough for us. Granted, the calves out of the two year old heifers don't perform that well, but by golly, the heifers have a great percentage of breed back because they weren't stressed having their first calf.

Just think about it, heavier BW means more muscle to get moving,
more weight to get up and going. And I hear you about calves that are too little having trouble when it is bitter cold. But once those calves get some milk in their belly, you can't kill them.

An old cowman told me that those big calves that are slow in coming
get short of oxygen which causes some brain damage and that is why they don't get up and going as fast.


Also, some young fellows that lost their father, were running the cows their dad had. They were the old yellow spotted Simmental. They got an opportunity to buy 100 coming 3 year old Angus out of a registered herd when the owner got into financial trouble. That first spring they calved those Angus cows, we asked the oldest boy how they liked the Angus.
He replied, "Oh, we just glance at them while we are on our way to do something with the Simmentals." They didn't know how much work those full blood Simmentals were until they had something to compare with. Didn't take them long to run straight Angus cows.

I think some Simmental in an Angus herd has merit. There seems to be a lot that can be gained by it. One of our good friends keeps a little Simmental in his herd. He knows he has too much Simmental when he starts having calving problems, so then he switches back to Angus bulls.

I certainly didn't want to get into a breed discussion here, mainly just wanted to relate what I have observed.

We used Limousin bulls for awhile during the 80's. That's when our calves were getting so sick on us--before we were on a good mineral program--and I can tell you that when those red calves got sick they were pretty much done for. It was low vitality...or something...but it was real.
 
Faster horses said:
1) Just think about it, heavier BW means more muscle to get moving.

2) An old cowman told me that those big calves that are slow in coming
lack oxygen and that is why they don't get going fast.
Click to expand...

1) More muscle to get moving, but with adequate nutrition any animal should be able to move themselves.

2) You've mentioned slow coming calves being hard to start. I agree. What I keep mentioning, and what keeps being ignored, is that big calves don't have to be slow if your cows are able to handle them. I'd be willing to bet that my cows giving birth to 100lb calves are shooting them out just as quickly as your cows giving birth to 80 lb calves. If they weren't, I would be having issues, which I simply do not.

As far as breeds go, we all have stories about this breed or that breed being trouble. The next door neighbor will never run another Angus cow again because 30 years ago he bought a whack of Angus heifers, bred Angus, and pulled every single calf. As far as the Simm stories go, I've successfully used Simm bulls on my herd and had no issues, however I've pulled many Maine and Angus calves. Another neighbor run Char cows and bulls and rarely has a pull. Hell, he often goes on vacation during calving season. Ditto a good friend of mine who runs Simms. I helped him pull a calf this spring. It was the first one he'd had to touch in 4 years.

My point in all this is that no-one, and I mean no-one, can make a blanket statement about what works for sure and what doesn't. If you had trouble with high BW animals, then your cows were simply not able to support those weights. If you had trouble with Simm bulls, then you simply had a bad bull. Ditto Angus bulls. There are good and bad in every breed. And there are cows out there who can indeed deliver 100 lb calves WITH EASE, and do it every single time without needing any kind of babysitting. Anyone who doesn't believe me is more than welcome to come on up here in Feb/Mar and help with calving season. I can always use a hand with feeding ;-)

Rod
 
Rod if you could read before you type you'd see that I agreed that big BW cattle probably are bigger at weaning-I just know they aren't worth the bother for me. Genetics and management that cut it behind the barn in February sometimes won't do it on the grass. Hey I did the performance thing-even was in a national breed ad for a performance breed back in the day-weaned eight weight calves the whole shamoo. Don't try and B.S me or anybody else that big performance doesn't come at a cost-some are willing to pay the price in time and money others aren't. In a few generations when those big BW heifers start coming into production you'll see where I'm coming from or maybe not.
 
I didn't put those results up to start an arguement, just to show the difference within our herd. You can argue the high/low BW thing all day long, and really what does it matter? I am going to continue with things the way they are, because they work for me. We manage our herd, and keep fairly extensive records. Generally, we don't have many weak calves, and in this herd, (and yes I did look) over the last 7-8 years, the vast majority of weak calves have been small calves, not large calves. We do not generally lose many calves at birth, either.

I won't lie, we do pull the odd calve. Again, by and large, most calves we pull are out of heifers, and most of our heifers are purchased bred. So, the breeding decisions there were not mine.

In the end, I would much rather see a 100 lb calf hit the ground than a 70 lb calf. The results of this (granted unscientific) study tell me that it is very likely that the bigger calf will out weigh the little calf by 100+lbs in the fall. 100 lbs x $1.00/lb is an extra $100 in my pocket.

Sure you can find those curve bender bulls, they are out there. But usually they sell for a LOT more than my pocket book will allow. And I have seen way too many dinky calves born, that are still dinky come weaning time. You do what you want to, and what works for you, but don't try telling me that calving 95-100 lb calves is the wrong thing to do. It works here, we don't assist alot of calves either to be born or to get going, we don't lose a lot either, and our dry cow rate runs around 7-8%.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top