Tight calving

kealar

Hi all,recently got into sucklers,bought in 5 in calf cows from the same man who are all in calf to bb stock bull,2 of them calved 3 wks ago both doing well,but had to c-section 1 of them but my own fault ,cows were too fat,then bought in 2 springing hefers 1 carrying a sim and the other calved dis morning at 5.30,great ch bull calf,alive and well,other one not due till march,.....from what i was told by farmers i bought them off i should be all calved by now,i know its only 7 cows,but how would i start to tighten up the calving time,....im also looking to buy more in,would i be as well off to buy hefers nxt time instead of in calf cows any advice would be great.thanks:)

pajero12

kealar wrote: »

Hi all,recently got into sucklers,bought in 5 in calf cows from the same man who are all in calf to bb stock bull,2 of them calved 3 wks ago both doing well,but had to c-section 1 of them but my own fault ,cows were too fat,then bought in 2 springing hefers 1 carrying a sim and the other calved dis morning at 5.30,great ch bull calf,alive and well,other one not due till march,.....from what i was told by farmers i bought them off i should be all calved by now,i know its only 7 cows,but how would i start to tighten up the calving time,....im also looking to buy more in,would i be as well off to buy hefers nxt time instead of in calf cows any advice would be great.thanks:)

If keeping them all calving together is your main goal,then I think you should synchronize them artificially using prids or cidrs, that way,they'll be standing around the same time

Bizzum

I'm not a fan of buying incalf cows, unless you really know the reason for sale.
Rarely will a man sell his best cows. Some of the dispersal sales I suppose are the exception.
Their are disease implications too, but again I suppose if you need to up the numbers you have to buy from somewhere.

A few nice bulling heifers is the road I'd choose. This would aid a compact calving as you be starting off at the same point with the heifers, maybe inject and synchronize them.

Re: Thightening your existing herd. We found the bull helped as opposed to AI, Culling will always help (probably a non runner here!), use of a short gestation bull will buy you back a bit of time too.

5live

Taking the calves away from the cows and letting them suckle twice a day is a big help too as it seems to stimulate heats better than continuous suckling but is more labour intensive and may lead to more scours from hungry calves

agcons

You could try the syncronisation route then let the bull in to mop up. You have to be absolutely brutal about taking the bull out after a set time, scan 30 days later then decide whether to cull or carry the dry cows for a year. Long term its better to breed your own heifers, less disease risk and better control over the genetics.

pakalasa

It looks great on paper to cull your late calvers, but in reality it's not really a runner, if you're building up a herd. Just concentrate in getting all the cows in calf as soon as possible. You can cull your late calvers down the road, when you have build up numbers.

Seperating the calves helps to bring on heat by about 2 weeks. After that a fertile bull is your best option. If using AI, a teaser bull, operation costs about 70Euro, works great too. Ideally too, you should calf heifers about 6wks before mature cows, as they tend to slip back by about that amount.
I've done what you are doing about 5 yrs ago, so lessons well learned. I bought in all maiden heifers though.