Today I was out to a friends ranch and they had a heifer give birth to the smallest live calf I have ever seen. I wonder if the calf even weighs 35 pounds. The heifer is not especially tall herself which is a good thing so the calf has no problem reaching the teats to nurse. It is amazing how short a time it nurses before it is satisfied. It is about three days old when these pictures were taken and seems healthy as can be. It was jumping around like any normal calf would.

cute little bastid....

Hey Larry,

Isn't having smaller calves what gives the Angus an edger over the Hereford? That is what my Grandpa used to say, anyway.

They could name it "Quarter Pounder".

That is a dink for sure.

Usually when a calf is that small it's a twin.

Doubtful the heifer still has another calf in her 3 days later or she'd be 'sick'.


Must just be one really small calf!

That was their first thought Sam, but she cleaned and shows no signs of having another one in her. She is a very mellow cow which helps the little one a lot. While we were watching she even moved one of her back feet to allow the calf easier access to lunch.

I just have never seen one that small. She is even smaller than all the dogs on the ranch.

That might be true enough Tim, but I doubt any rancher would like their calves quite this small.

Although it would undoubtedly negate the worry of having to pull calves.

Life is good ad long as the little one catches up. I used to have some cows but the calving season drove me nuts. I just buy them around 700 and feed them out now.

No, that's all marketing.

LOL!! Thanks for the chuckle...I needed it.

There's little difference in calving difficulties between Angus and Herefords. It's when you mix in some of the exotics like Charolais or Simmental that things get ugly. One chart I looked at was comparing the problems when different breeds of bulls were used on Hereford and Angus cows. It show that Angus and Hereford bulls produced calving problems about 3% of the time. For the larger exotics, it was closer to 20%. The calf birth weights were about 10lb higher with the exotics.
The exotics were brought in to increase birth weights but the vet bills and calving losses offset any gains.

Could it be a dwarf?

wont be able to tell unless it starts growing a beard and carrying around an ax

I get the humor but I am kind of curious.

When I was a kid growing up my grandfather had a small meat market and did custom slaughering.

Lots of ranchers brought in what I heard called dwarf calves to be butchered. All of them had big knee joints and a rounded forehead but none of the ranchers wanted to admit they were calves out of their herd.

Many times they will end up being just a big as one born larger

I'd rather have a small healthy calf with no birth problems than a bigger one that stresses the cow

What matters is the size many months from now, and that has a way of evening out

A lot of acquaintances like to use a Longhorn bull with first calf heifers. They will throw a small calf. Easy birthing.

Birth wt. vs. weaning weight is where it's at.

That said, I prefer my calves to be a bit larger.

for being hung like a donkey.

Yeah, I remember the excitement when Charolais first burst on the cattlemen's radar in the 70's in Alberta... a lot of ranchers lived to regret investing in "big calves".

Heck he will bring $400 on Craigslist but sell him asap

Its hard to tell from the pics but I don't think so. Like human dwarfs, dwarf cattle aren't just small, they're misshapen.

True.

Hard to tell from the photo, but a very prominent forehead in a young calf is an indicator.

Had neighbors that left their herd uncut, and un-sold for a few years, and the genetics started reaping the harvest... There were lots of dwarves over the fence. One crossing the fence into mine would have been a death sentence.

Could it have been bred to a "lowline" bull?

Yep, Angus bulls, in general, throw small calves.

prolly why i havent seen one, between both my uncles having small herds(around 100 pairs give or take 20 plus the bulls) and the fact they bring in new blood regular enough i havent seen many genetic defects personally....actually only one i can think of is a 2 headed one born on a friends ranch and thats not genetic but developmental...

We raise beef cattle. I've been saying for years that small live calves are better than big dead ones any day. Big dead ones are hard to sell and they attract predators. By the way, our worst predator on newborn calves are the black headed buzzards. They will attack a live new calf in preference to a dead one. The red headed turkey buzzard isn't as bad.

I've seen quite a few birth defects on large dairy farms. I have to wonder if some are caused by massive antibiotic and/or hormone injections.

granted ive never been around a dairy operation, only beef but would guess they use more pure breds than most beef raisers which means a higher incidence of bad genes circulating around....while some guys up here are nuts about pure breds most are like Sam's outfit where they run lots of crosses.....makes recessive genetic anomalies less likely....far from impossible but less likely....also like i said part of the reason ive never seen one is likely due to the small sizes of the herds ive been around....none of my family have big operations so low numbers combined with regular injections of new blood and chances of seeing defects arent that great....im sure even with new blood if any of them ran 1000 head operations i would have prolly seen something odd....simple numbers game...

Lots of interesting comments.

This rancher runs a stock cow herd of about 250 cows & heifers and has been in the business many years. He is quite fussy about his bulls and there is little or no inbreeding. This heifer was bred to a new bull on the ranch this year in a pasture away from older cows.

In talking to his foreman the other day he said that this is the smallest calf he has ever seen and he has been there about 25 years so he has seen many, many calves. Every thing about the calf looks in proportion, it is just much smaller than normal. It will be interesting to see how it grows between now and next fall when the calves are weaned.

Interesting about the buzzards. We see a lot of bald eagles and a few golden eagles around here this time of the year but they are after the afterbirths. There was one perched on a post in the corral the other day when we were out there waiting for a cow to clean after giving birth to a calf. They never seem to bother the calves any.

Maybe the mother was born to a bred heifer and had a low birth weight father. Then she is bred with another low birth weight bull and has mini-me for a calf.

But I'm not a geneticist and don't even know if that's possible.


We've kept replacement heifers from 2-year olds and never had any super dinks so that theory might be off.


I'm with Hastings, a little live calf(especially with bred heifers) is better than a big dead one. Or even a big live one that is all dopey from a tough birth.

Relative to beef genetics, there is a lot of "line breeding" and "in-breeding" in dairy, especially in the non-Holsteins.

Off topic, but all of our "turkey" buzzards have disappeared about 2 years ago. All are black headed buzzards, WHY??

I'd call him "Bearbait", or Sue.