Silver

[gcreekrch]

You shouldn't have to worry about feeding tommorow. The hay we rolled out today should be there by morning. 7C and a south wind as strong as I've seen in this neck of the woods.


Got brushed up on my obstetrics at the neighbors today, about a 3/4 torsion that I ended up taking out the side window. The neighbor said she started messing around at 3:00 PM yesterday, if that had been our cow the calf would have been dead. :roll:

 

[Silver]

You shouldn't have to worry about feeding tommorow. The hay we rolled out today should be there by morning. 7C and a south wind as strong as I've seen in this neck of the woods.


Got brushed up on my obstetrics at the neighbors today, about a 3/4 torsion that I ended up taking out the side window. The neighbor said she started messing around at 3:00 PM yesterday, if that had been our cow the calf would have been dead. :roll:

Maybe spring is finally blowing in . We've still got a breeze out of the north, and accumulated another 6" of snow last night. There is well over 3 feet of the stuff laying around right now, I don't know where it's going to go when it leaves. Too much frost for it to go where I want it to go this year. It is hovering around -5 today though, and good things are in the forecast.

Your neighbours cows must be hardier than ours also. Not very often those have a good ending. Generally the operation is a success but the patient dies :shock: We got stocked up on cat gut the other day though so we can try our luck if the situation requires it.

How's your calving going? Calves are starting to trickle in now, got about 15 on the ground.

 

[gcreekrch]

You shouldn't have to worry about feeding tommorow. The hay we rolled out today should be there by morning. 7C and a south wind as strong as I've seen in this neck of the woods.


Got brushed up on my obstetrics at the neighbors today, about a 3/4 torsion that I ended up taking out the side window. The neighbor said she started messing around at 3:00 PM yesterday, if that had been our cow the calf would have been dead. :roll:

Maybe spring is finally blowing in . We've still got a breeze out of the north, and accumulated another 6" of snow last night. There is well over 3 feet of the stuff laying around right now, I don't know where it's going to go when it leaves. Too much frost for it to go where I want it to go this year. It is hovering around -5 today though, and good things are in the forecast.

Your neighbours cows must be hardier than ours also. Not very often those have a good ending. Generally the operation is a success but the patient dies :shock: We got stocked up on cat gut the other day though so we can try our luck if the situation requires it.

How's your calving going? Calves are starting to trickle in now, got about 15 on the ground.

Due date is April 9, there will be a few heifers we bought last fall that are due April 1.

Have been lucky with my patients, if I am called early enough most all of them have lived. Have had 3 cows over the years that were pretty much done for prior to operating that succombed but they were gone anyway. Did get live calves from them though.
Snow is at 2 feet and sinking today. No doubt it will be replenished several times between now and June. :roll:

 

[Silver]

We had a wreck calving one year (I think about 1986 or so).... Dad and I did 22 c-sections. Three in one night :shock: All lived that year, and most actually got back in calf; if memory serves me correctly about 75%, which is better than the vet was doing at that time. Still don't know exactly what the cause for all the big calves was for sure, never had a year like that before or since. We were real short of feed that year and were feeding barley at a pretty high rate right up to calving time.
But it was a pretty good learning experience for a young fella

 

[Faster horses]

I truly cannot remember the last time we had a c-section. It was
a long, long, long time ago.

 

[Silver]

I truly cannot remember the last time we had a c-section. It was
a long, long, long time ago.

The only time it seems to happen anymore is because of a case of bad dystocia. Seems to happen once a year or so whether we like it or not. Of course, many people don't have c-sections but perhaps they should have :wink:

 

[Faster horses]

No brag, just fact. We shouldn't have had some and didn't. It just wasn't necessary.

Amazing how well cows and heifers can get along\
when bred to small bw bulls. I realize that's not the route for everyone, but it was for us.
We just bred to take the work out of calving. Years ago, in the 70's we
bred hereford heifers to black angus bulls. We had 2 c-sections that
time. But we didn't know what we were doing and knew nothing about
checking BW's and calving ease in cow families. We've come a long ways, baby.......... :wink: (as has the industry).

 

[jodywy]

Pelvic score replacement hiefers whenpreg checking really help here, some times that big pretty hiefer dod have that big of a hole back there.....

 

[Silver]

.......hmmmm..... I don't believe dystocia is related to bull selection or good management.
But yes, the industry has come a long way in the last 20 plus years.
Fresh out of high school I went to work on a ranch and calved out 2000 head a year for the two years I was there. That was where I learned that colour meant absolutely nothing, but management did. But even though I know I can't blame the cattle, I can never imagine myself calving out cattle of that colour ever again. Turns out no breed has a lock on prolapses, tough pulls, poor temperment, poor keeping abilities, poor productivity, etc.
Low bw bulls are only part of the equation, it's a good tool to have in the box but it shouldn't be the only one.

 

[Silver]

Pelvic score replacement hiefers whenpreg checking really help here, some times that big pretty hiefer dod have that big of a hole back there.....

You're right on there, we don't do that but should. Seems we get caught on that every once in a while around here.

 

[jodywy]

Pelvic score replacement hiefers whenpreg checking really help here, some times that big pretty hiefer dod have that big of a hole back there.....

You're right on there, we don't do that but should. Seems we get caught on that every once in a while around here.

We got in the habbit usually have the scribe with a calculator and he writes the score down next to her number. We have to bleed every fall when we preg test for my APHIS herd plan, Yellowstone, elk feed grounds and a state line are the reasons, so vet is used to doing doing a little extra on my place besides saying open, late or bred.....

 

[Faster horses]

We used to pelvic measure, but when we never found one with a small
pelvis that needed to be culled, we quit.

Maybe we didn't have c-sections because we pretty much straight bred
our cattle. But then again, we used some Limo in the 80's and that
worked fine. We just never got big BW's in our cows. Maybe that was
part of it. Whatever, the calves always gained good and sold well...
maybe we were just lucky, but I like to think it was more than that.
Our night calver that we had for 10 years says you could count on one
hand all the calves he pulled out of heifers. Seriously. A good cowman
taught me how to buy heifer bulls and it really worked for us. And we
just didn't have to pull calves out of cows.
We watched them have backwards calves...by themselves...we were
ready to get them in, but mostly it wasn't necessary.

We had friends who had Gelbvieh and Simmental cross cows. That was
back when Simmental meant big spotted yellow cows...they had so
many c-sections they built their own barn for the c-sections. I visited
with one of the wives and she told me that they selected their
replacement heifers by putting a line on the alley and all the heifers
that touched that line is what they kept for replacments. :shock:
They even bought some brangus bulls and that didn't help. In fact,
if I recall correctly, it was worse. I asked her if they had ever pelvic
measured thier heifers...they hadn't. Well, they did that fall and 30%
had too small of pelvis. :shock: Somewhere along the line that got
bred in there, and they had no idea. Of course, they culled all those,
and were very much aware of pelvic size after that. Which made me
realize a big cow doesn't necessarily have a large pelvis.

The cattle business is always interesting. Just about the time you think
you have something figured out, you get humbled... :wink:

 

[jodywy]

should cull off the big pelvic score , or you end up getting bigger frame score cows

 

[Soapweed]

The cattle business is always interesting. Just about the time you think
you have something figured out, you get humbled... :wink:

You are lucky. You got out before it could happen. :wink:

We have bred to low birthweight bulls for years on our heifers, and have had excellent luck. Not this year.
We have pulled at least a third of the heifers, and are actually getting quite accomplished at the task. :wink:
So far at least, no C-sections have been required.

Here is the kicker. I was visiting with a friend at church Sunday evening. He said he has pulled 40% of calves
from their heifers. He used the very same bulls that were used on heifers the year before, and hardly had to pull
a single calf last year. The moon and stars must be lined up wrong this calving season. :roll:

 

[WVGenetics]

should cull off the big pelvic score , or you end up getting bigger frame score cows

Very true! If you look at all the research that has been done on the relationship between pelvic area and dystocia in heifers, there's just not much of a correlation there at all. I think your probably better off using bulls with high CED. Pelvic area probably works best to cull/keep borderline heifers. Just my opinion.

 

[Anonymous]

The cattle business is always interesting. Just about the time you think
you have something figured out, you get humbled... :wink:

You are lucky. You got out before it could happen. :wink:

We have bred to low birthweight bulls for years on our heifers, and have had excellent luck. Not this year.
We have pulled at least a third of the heifers, and are actually getting quite accomplished at the task. :wink:
So far at least, no C-sections have been required.

Here is the kicker. I was visiting with a friend at church Sunday evening. He said he has pulled 40% of calves
from their heifers. He used the very same bulls that were used on heifers the year before, and hardly had to pull
a single calf last year. The moon and stars must be lined up wrong this calving season. :roll:

I think here its the tough winter we had...I've always heard during exceptional cold winters the cows puts more nutrients into keeping the calf alive- and in the spring you end up with higher BW calves...

I weigh all my calves when born- and the calf weights out of them is running about 10+ lbs heavier than what the same cow did in previous years, when I look back at the records... And most are bred to the identical same bulls for the last 3 years...

Which got me nervous about the heifers...I've only had one calf from a heifer- which came yesterday... An 81 lb bull calf that apparently came fast and easy... The good thing is that even with the more lbs- the calves so far have all had a calving ease build....

 

[Faster horses]

Yep, cold winters result in heavier calves...because more nutrients go
to the fetus. I think the calves are heavier this year in most all the
states that had deep cold this winter.

 

[Big Swede]

In my experience, using calving ease bulls with short gestation length has been the best combination. If we aren't done calving heifers by their due date that's when I get nervous. Those calves that go full term can be trouble even though they are from light birth weight sires.