We just weighed some calves yesterday from 4 old cows that were crippled and we didn't put a bull with them this summer as they will be sold. Their calves look really good. The cows look good as well, it was a great year for
them to put on weight. Just because I have an inquiring mind, we
weighed the calves and weighed the cows. The cows are aged, mind you,
and out of our earlier genetics. The calves averaged 525 lbs.
One was born April 6 and weighed 525. I did some fast math and she would have
been 158 days of age on Sept. 14. Assuming she weighed 80 lbs. at
birth (we don't have big calves here), that makes her gain 445 lbs. in
158 days, or 2.77 lbs. a day. You times that by 205 days and you get
567 lbs. Add the 80 lb bw and you get 647 lbs. A nice calf for sure, but not 50% of her mothers weight which was 1500 lbs. :shock:
(note; seeing the trend toward those big cows are why we changed to moderate bulls.)
So BRG, how could that red cow wean 50% of her body weight
when things are similar to what I found in these cows yesterday?
Am I figuring something wrong?