Twins are trouble here, an old cow had twins a few days back.
Most cows like one calf, and walk away from the other.
Th only good thing about twins is, selling them at 1300 pounds after you forget all the time, and trouble.
Richard, we have had two sets of twins out of the bred heifers and one set(that we know of...) out of the old cows.
All three mothers are nursing their twins, which as you pointed out, is unusual.
Had 4 bums for awhile but sold 2 and with only 5 heifers left to calve should probably sell the other two. But then you know we'd lose a calf for sure.
Bragging now but 65 live ones in row out of the heifers...
Calving going good?
We calve late Sam, in 1983, I lost 15 calves, cold, and snow.
In 1984, I lost 25, same, but worse yet. As Forrest Gump might have said, "I'm not a smart man,---"
The cattle "game', is interesting, do what works for you. Even bankers should understand that?
To address your question, four calves so far, 99 cows pregged bred.
Planting corn, and beans, and calving at the same time gets busy, and makes for long days. This cold weather right now makes me think winter should have been over sooner.
It has been chilly here for a few days as well Richard.
But I think spring is here for good now. Hopefully the same for you.
Vet ultrasound or do it by hand?
I am impressed with the ultrasound. Our last 5 heifers to calve are all marked late...
And I hear you about calving and farming at the same time.
It would be soooo much easier to just concentrate on one or the other....
Been freezing here every night so our spray man has been waiting the past week to pre-spray our dryland wheat ground.
But at least the weeds aren't doing much.
Good luck with it Richard!
Sam, by hand, how far along when the vet did the 'sound'?
The retired vet, did at least one open heifer that calved in the feedlot. We used to try to get the pregging done when he was in Los Vegas for schooling.
I'm thinking 4 months give or take.
Some ranchers I know of always seemed to have more calves than they had cows...
Twins?
I doubt it.
Funny how that works ??? Rio7
45 100, our twins are Freemartin.
As a rule, twin heifers will grow up to be just as fertile as any other. However when twins are born bull and heifer, the heifer will grow up with no reproductive organs. Hence, freemartin.
Another pair of twins today, a first calf heifer, more time "teaching" a calf to suck.
We had our fifth set of year this morning.
4 bred heifers left to go and one had twins while we were loading a semi headed for pasture.
Sam, how are your twins doing? We have had two more since I posted, a dead at birth pair, and a heifer that liked only one calf, we blundered on the second, and lost it.