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Calving Ease

H

Hereford76

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Joined
Dec 13, 2005
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1,163
Location
North Central Montana
What is everyones thoughts on how to go about calving ease in a breeding program. I don't know but I have always believed that when a breeder continues to select bulls on calving ease or birth weight with the excuse that those little 65lb calves pop right up isn't doing you much good in the long term or for your cowherd. TO me it seems, if they are keeping their own replacements, they are just building a cowherd that can't calve. I've seen it in several herds. I won't go out and find a bull specifically for use on heifers. If a herd bull is to make it here he has to cover everything else and work on heifers. I occasionally get the 90 lb calf out of a heifer, but I believe that because of the fact that I haven't selected extremely (although I do have to keep it in check) on calving ease or birth weight I can use just about anything on heifers and be safe. BW is the most highly correlated trait to growth performance and if I can have a calf at 20lb heavier at birth with good vigor then I believe I am ahead.

Curious to your thoughts.
 
Not sure what we do exactly but we don't have much calving trouble-less than 1% on cows and heifers. The fallacy that you have to use bigger BW bulls so their heifers will calve is complete and utter B.S. We get some bigger calves now and then but they seem to have them-I guess if your a pen calver you can mess with that sort of stuff but our heifers calve out on grass and once they hit the bush they don't get checked. I'll take my performance outside the cow not inside it. if all my calves were 70-90lbs I'd be pretty happy. Ninety pounds is about the upper end of BW I'd buy a bull at but that's just me being to lazy run a calfjack.
 
My two cents worth is that a proven hiefier bull is worth their weight in gold...... Sure they may drop your weaning weight, but having a hiefier that calves easily less stress makes them breed back easily is worth the less weaning weight...... NR is right, that is pure BS.....
On cows it's what you want to do with your program....... And what works for some doesn't work for others.............
 
Natural selection has resulted in consistant small calves at birth in the Tuli breed. These calves are up and away immediatly as in the African bushveld where they developed over 5000 years, this is essential to survival. The cows have remained a consistant 1000-1100 lbs adult weigh throughout the recorded history of the breed. If selection is done with the emphasis on growth rate, calving rates increase, a balance needs to be selected for between birthweight and growth for low maintenence ranch cows. Terminal sires can be used for growth on cows not required for breeding replacements, while all heifers can be bred to proven low birtweight bulls and assessed as future replacement breeders or terminal producers, on their progeny performance.
 
i think some of it comes down to management of your heifers and selection. i keep a little bit better eye on the heifers in case there is a problem. i don't specifically pick bulls on BW epd.
 
I do things a little different - - - I breed my hiefers to a bull of the same breed.

Then after that they are crossed - - - my favoriate ( please don't YELL at me ) cross is my Angus cows to a Charolis bull - - - would I have problems breeding the Angus hiefers to a Charolis bull ?????- - - I don't know but the bulls are to large to expect a yearling angus to support anyway.

In 2 more years I will have gotten rid of all the Charolis cows ( they eat to much) but while I had them I bread the Charolis hiefers to Charolis bulls with no problem. But then I had first calf hiefers that weighed 1,500# at first calving. My first calf Angus are weighing about 900# at calving.
 
i don't think there is anything wrong w/ char. do you get smokey calves. jmo, you have to look at the heifer as much as the bull
 
Northern Rancher said:
I guess if your a pen calver you can mess with that sort of stuff but our heifers calve out on grass and once they hit the bush they don't get checked.
Click to expand...

I start calving April 1st on grass. I check once in the morning and once before I go to bed and tag and weigh calves at both checks. Since I started calving on grass in April ( 5 years ago) - I have had to pull one calf cause it was backwards. I didn't mean to say I select bigger birthweight bulls to do what I was getting at. TO me alot of what goes into making a heifer bull is his build. I have always thought the a good percentage of "heifer bulls" or calving ease bloodlines are cattle that are more refined, narrow and fine boned... and in my opinion small pelvis. Just about every female born on this place is retained and bred. I like to see how every mating on this place will do. To me the typical heifer bull is not much more than a heifer bull. I just expect the heifers to do what the cows do.
 
Hereford76 said:
Northern Rancher said:
I guess if your a pen calver you can mess with that sort of stuff but our heifers calve out on grass and once they hit the bush they don't get checked.
Click to expand...

I start calving April 1st on grass. I check once in the morning and once before I go to bed and tag and weigh calves at both checks. Since I started calving on grass in April ( 5 years ago) - I have had to pull one calf cause it was backwards. I didn't mean to say I select bigger birthweight bulls to do what I was getting at. TO me alot of what goes into making a heifer bull is his build. I have always thought the a good percentage of "heifer bulls" or calving ease bloodlines are cattle that are more refined, narrow and fine boned... and in my opinion small pelvis. Just about every female born on this place is retained and bred. I like to see how every mating on this place will do. To me the typical heifer bull is not much more than a heifer bull. I just expect the heifers to do what the cows do.
Click to expand...

Somebody told me once that a heifer can have a 200 pound snake but she can't have a 2 pound basketball.

We try to have a balance between calving ease and performance.

have a cold one

lazy ace
 
I have learned you can't select a heifer bull on his BW alone.
You need to look into the cow families and see if there are big
birthweights there. In the right situation, you could buy a bull
to use on heifers if he had a 90+ birthweight, but in the cow
family light bw was the norm. The old Rainmaker bull is proof
of this...didn't he have a 90 lb. birthweight himself, yet was
an excellent calving ease bull?

Using this method, you could have
problems by using a bull with a 65 lb. birthweight IF heavy BW
was the norm in that line of cattle. I learned this from Bill
Ohrmann, many moons ago and it has served us well. We very
seldom have to pull a calf out of a heifer, and it we do, it is
usually because of a malpresentation.

JMHO, you understand.
And we want those heifers to calve easy. We want everything to
calve easy and they do.
 
IMO the conformation of the bull is just as important as birthweight. A bull with a huge blocky head and square front shoulders is more likely to cause calving difficulties than a streamlined sire of similar BW. Just my 2 cents.
 
I don't use SlimJim's or microbirthweight bulls either-I'd actually picked out the Hereford bull before I knew what his birthweight was. I just have a real problem with the thought that big Bw heifers out of big cows will calve better than small Bw heifers out of sssmaller cows. It makes a semen salesman's blood run cold trying to reccommend a heifer bull for those deals. Trust me if you get the wrong bull in there and there's is calving troubles the customer forgets that every calf has a mother. Bigger heifers Might have a bigger pelvis but they usually have to cram a bigger calf through it. Moderation in all things genetic is a pretty good formula-a few C sections or dead calves along with messed up heifers uses up any growth premium you get by pushing the envelope. We A'I to bulls that will calve but once A'I is over all the cows and bulls are in one herd.
 
Once you get big BW in your herd, it is hard to get rid of them.
Case in point...and I think this really tells a story. I may have related
this particular story here earlier. But if most of you who read this, have
a memory any where close to mine, it won't matter anyway.

Some Hereford breeder friends of ours were retiring. They kept 50 Hereford cows. In the 80's they bought 2 Limousin bulls to breed those
50 cows. The first calving season, all went well, with the exception of
2 cows. Those 2 cows had to have their calves pulled. OK. Fast foreward
to the next year. Same cows, same bulls. Same 2 cows had to have
their calves pulled...AGAIN. The Mrs. looked up her records as these
were registered Herefords.

What she found was...those 2 cows had a BW of 105 lbs.

You just need to remember that the COW is an important part of the
equation, even when it comes to BW. In fact, I think I read where the
BW of the cow is even more heritable than that of the bull.
 
John SD said:
IMO the conformation of the bull is just as important as birthweight. A bull with a huge blocky head and square front shoulders is more likely to cause calving difficulties than a streamlined sire of similar BW. Just my 2 cents.
Click to expand...

Welcome to my world. We just went thru 2 years of hell because of a bull that was just as you described. A Gelbvieh who never threw a calf over 90 lbs and most were in the 70's. We pulled every one on the heifers and a couple on the old cows.

Awful good calves crossed on Shorthorn cows but maybe not worth the trouble.

Oh and another bonus was we have to Lute all of his daughters when he comes off the cows because he was breeding them at 4 to 5 months of age.
 
We also expect our heifers to drop a fairly good sized calf. I really hate seeing those 60-70 lb calves, 99% of the time they are the little scrubs come fall. If I have to assist a heifer, but in the end, have a 500 lb calf instead of a 400 lb calf I think I have likely made a bit of money. Plus, I have found that the bigger calves (say 85 lb compared to 65 lb) are more able to take the cold weather.

And, in theory, I figure that by expecting heifers to calve out an 80-90 lb calf, I should never have to worry about them calving as cows. We pull the odd calf out of the heifers, but I figure we are doing something right, they average around 80 lbs at birth and most will wean off a 500 +lb calf the first go around.

But, you have to take conformation into consideration, when you are expecting bigger calves out of anything. Long and smooth are 2 major requirements when we look at a bull.
 
You know when I ship a 1300 pound fat steer or heifer the remorse I felt at the minuteness of their birthweight has almost dissipated. The chagrine I feel from finding a big dead one is a much more bitter pill to swallow-I blame those on management disease.
 
Yes I get Smokey calves and they grow like weeds. I'm currently only using two bulls and they rotate. (I only have 33 cows counting hiefers)

I use an Angus bull on the hiefers and then three weeks later turn him and a Smokey bull in with the cows and hiefers all in one group.

After I'm out of Charolis cows I will still breed hiefers to Angus and I will try to find good Smokey bulls but if I can't find them I will AI some of my best Angus cows to Charolis and keep one back.

I like the 1/4 3/4 calves better than the 1/2 as they all will have black noses and the feed lots around here pay more for them than the smokies with the pink noses.
 

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