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Guess the weight

Grassfarmer

Well-known member
Well I think it's time to reveal. The guesses on the tan charolais cow ranged from 125lbs under to 190lbs over - she actually weighed a hair under 1250lb. The weight on the yellow (or red) cow ranged from 325lbs under to 50lbs under - she actually came in at a hair under 1500lb! Closest on the tan were Bullhauler and SMN Herf. Closest on the yellow/red was gcreekrch. It interested me that nearly everyone had a spread of 75-100lbs between the two when in fact there is 200lbs. Not implying that folks can't judge the weights of their own cattle, especially when they can see them in the flesh versus looking at photos but interesting all the same. I also had underestimated the weight of the yellow cow until we weighed her although in my defense she is fatter than usual as she ran in a small bull group on better than our regular pasture.

I picked these two to use in a demonstration on cattle type that I am doing when we host a county/forage association pasture walk coming up next month. The yellow/red cow is the type I prefer for our system - she will winter very easy on grass and is packing about 200lbs of fat on her back at the moment. She has a lot in reserve for when it hits -40C and they are grazing through snow. With all that weight she will likely turn in a calf that weighs 40% of her at 200 days. Not very efficient to some minds but set against that the fact that she is half way wintered already with the body condition she has and the fact that weaning weights really aren't that important to me as we don't sell weaned calves.

The other creature is what a friend of mine in Scotland would call an "arms and legs" cow - all bones and no body. She has a good "fill" on her in the picture but is the type of cow that never carries much fat. I bought her in a bunch of cheapo bred cows last fall and she is the worst performer. She will likely not manage to winter graze and will finish up pulled into my leaner, extra feed group. This cow will turn in a very small calf - she didn't calf until July. For a young cow I suspect she is already paying the price for her inability to carry flesh - late calving as a youngster usually means they are heading out of the herd.
 

DejaVu

Well-known member
Just to be different......I'll say they weigh approximately the same. That is 1214 each, apiece, individually, separately. Do I get the cows if I win??? Do I,do I, do I. :p :lol:

mercy, my computer didn't show all the posts :oops: I thought the contest was still going. sorry. I'll go hide for awhile.
 

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