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First crossbred calves in a few years.

Tap

Well-known member
We are starting to get some calves from our late bunch. Most of the baldy cows were bred black, and we had 3 hereford bulls and one angus bull in the black cows. As I took the pictures, I was thinking about how NR likes the baldy cows. I think they look good right now. I hope the hybred vigor gives them a boost.

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Unique looking calf.

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A solid colored calf.

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Looking north. :wink:

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Looking east. :)

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Another calf.

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Tap

Well-known member
Cal got me to looking at the bags on the cows, and I see the first one is quite the milker. :? That is one drawback with late calving cows. They milk so much that the calf won't take it all for a long time, and it probably causes some bad bags.
 

Northern Rancher

Well-known member
Bad bags are caused by poor udder structure not time of calving-a cow with a decent udder won't blow it up by calving on grass. Those late born calve are alot more aggressive to the teat than a chilled calf born earlier on-nice looking calves by the way. Thanks for the pics.
 

Jerry H

Well-known member
great looking calves tap
i like those cross bred calves myself
i'd shure be glad that cow with the pink bag didn't calve when there was snow that might have made for some work as she looks healthy
until later
jerry
 

Cal

Well-known member
Yep, they look like they have some vigor :wink: . Good pics!

About 2 or 3 weeks ago an old black baldy (born in '95) cow calved, and the calf just didn't seem like he was getting any milk. I got the ornery old b__ch in the chute...and even though it looked like she had a perfect bag, both back quarters were ruined and hard as rocks. Front teats had about two squirts in 'em. Well, baby got a new mom and the cows running dry with the sell bunch....not much unlike she was running dry with a new calf.
 

BRG

Well-known member
Tap, We found that out as well. We never had any issues with udders either,in fact we would get compliments all the time from neighbors and customers about how good they are, then we switched to May/June calving. The grass is so lush and powerful at this time and these fresh babies just can't take it all. We have lost some cows because of this. Some say you can't get this unless you have poor uddered cows to begin with, but I know that is simply not true, because we are seeing it first hand. The excess milk will make a great udder look bad for a couple weeks, but as the calf gets older and can eat more, he will start to suck on all 4 tits instead of just one or two, and then it will get back to normal.
 

Northern Rancher

Well-known member
We never lost too many cows switching over to grass-but even a plainer uddered cow can get by because of the way the calves get up and at it. I used to spend more time getting chilled calves to suck on peffect uddered cows than I ever have trying to get May calves started on a poor one. Like BRG says they get around to all four quarters in due time. I've got a few cows are pretty gross but the calves get going so we just let them stay but never keep heifers from them. That is one of the most puzzling things I've seen is a bull that's inconsistant on udders-one Devon bull we had could move one cow from terrible to great uddered but move the next one from great to terrible. I guess the point I'm trying to make is the great 'Grass Calving will be the ruination of Udders' is less of a problem than it's made out to be.
 
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