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What's Your Rate on Heifers?

M

Mike

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Feb 10, 2005
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Location
Montgomery, Al
Bunch of us were at the store the other morning and got to talking about calving heifers. The consensus was somewhere between 5-10% loss of calves from them.

Anybody ever actually kept up with it over a period of time?

Wonder how many good heifers have lost the 1st calf and been culled from losing the first one?
 
We always keep some old granny cows from which to rob calves from. These calves we put on good young cows that have lost a calf. If for some reason we don't have a calf available, we sometimes pick out a good bull calf and put him on two mothers. That way we somewhat justify keeping an extra cow around until the next year, because at least the calf is getting twice as much milk as it would have otherwise.

This year out of the heifers we have calved out, all are raising a calf except one. She had a bad attitude and very little milk, so she gets a one-way trip to a salebarn.
 
I ran anywhere from 10% loss to 0 loss, depending on the year, amount and how they were bred. had the best luck when we used longhorn bulls, but the neighbors now are having real good luck with the bull they AI to.

The 10% loss was on some big, fat and therefore "pretty", heifers I calved for a guy. Only time I did that bad and we both decided that the feller who soild them had sold his feed reeeaaaallll well.

Best I ever did , on cattle I didn't raise, was on some small framed, thinner heifers who didn't calve until mid April. They had calves almost as big as themselves that fall and were bred back and in good shape, whereas the big fat heifers had tall thin calves who looked poor and the mothers looked the same and had a low bred back rate.

I guess maybe thats why I like smaller more efficient cows. :wink:
 
Our local vet was doing a C-section on a big Simmie heifer for a neighbour and when asked what the survivability rate should be on a section, he replied "80 to 95% but for some reason all mine die". You had to be there to see the expression on the neighbours face.....priceless!
 
I would say some where between there,but do as Soapweed does-rob calves from granny cows that are kept for that purpose. Had a run of grafting here a couple of wks. ago. 2 heifers had 4 wk old calves die over nite as the calf had been ok the eve before. Vet posted and thought clostrial problem so ran them thru and gave 7way and seem ok now. It was in some boughten heifers off a ranch home raised with a good vaccination program.Then about the same time a cow had a calf with a foot back and too late when I found her-so she wanted a calf bad so she claimed it overnight. So then had a trailer load of old cows that headed to the sale and the salvage value was good plus they had nice calves. I will not get a calf from the sale barn to graft,I will let the cow go or sell her before I do that. Too many things to bring home out there,especially now a day. :?
 
Over 8 years, my loss on heifers is 0. I did have one abortion, but I've also never pulled a calf from a heifer either. Having said that, I've got a whack of heifers out there this year, and I'll probably lose every last one of em. :lol:

Rod
 
When we got stuck calving 190 heifers in 2004 because of the border deal-no sale for them- we lost a dozen or so calves. We weren't really set up to calve that many heifers in early March. The interesting thing was as soon as i could I turned them out and we lost one out of the last 50 that calved unattended on the grass. Over half of that 1900 were EXT descendants I deserve some kind of medal I think lol. Calving on pasture we aree under 5 percent death loss on our heifers-they get checked once or twice a day-never at night.
 
Calving losses on the heifers are generally about the same as the cows, as long as bull selection is done right. So far our only calving loss this year was from a heifer, but no fault of hers as it was born fine but 'wasn't right inside'.
About fifteen years ago, dad and I did 22 c-sections here, and we'll not repeat that mistake again. Although we did get pretty handy it. :lol:
 
Our heifers do as well as the cows for live calves, but we do watch them a lot closer. Two of our heifers even had unassisted twins this year, which surprised us all to pieces. We don't like leaving twins on heifers, it's too hard on them. The twins make first class adoption candidates.

We also use ace to adopt calves. We like the powdered Atravet the best. That way you don't get the cow fired up by chasing her with a needle. :) It can be hidden in water or feed, and will last for hours. Quite often by the time it wears off the adoption is complete.

Our best trick for adoption is to not let the cow see the dead calf if possible, then take the cleanings, (I know, it's gross :? )and either put them on the adoptee calf, or rub them on it to get the scent. We've had adoptions done this way that took less than two minutes to complete! 8)
 
Last year we calved 60 head heifers we bought at the salebarn. Didn't have any trouble with them. Just had 2 heifers that wouldn't claim their so we bottle fed them The wife and kids think that is fun. I didn't sell them going to give them another chance? If they mess up this time they get the axe. When we graft , we skin the dead calf put the hide on the graft, have the cow in the pen stick the graft in with its new mom and their in love. The trick is if you skin the dead calf in the mouring don't do the graft till evening. Get the calf good and hungry. If we have any cripple cows we graft their calves on a good cow that has lost a calf.
 
We also graft a calf using the hide of the calf she lost. It is tied on and the her "new baby" wears it until she's claimed him.

On a calf that a hide is unavailable amonia is placed on the calves back and then the cows nose is wiped with it also. So far the one we had this year took her calf with this method.
 

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