Tight Pull at Calving

krazyfarmer

Have had a few tight pulls calving Heifers this year. Any body using lubricant or other ideas? Advice welcome.
CharX heifers around 2 year old - Limo bull.
Heifers have not been overfed but are in good condition.

reilig

krazyfarmer wrote: »

Have had a few tight pulls calving Heifers this year. Any body using lubricant or other ideas? Advice welcome.
CharX heifers around 2 year old - Limo bull.
Heifers have not been overfed but are in good condition.

2 hard pulls this year out of 30 so far. (Hadn't to put the jack on anything else- even the 18 BB's). One was a BB cow in calf to a LIm and the calf came double muscle (cow was in great condition but not overfed).

Second was a 2 year old CHX heifer to LIM Bull and I lost the calf.
I left her for a good hour after the waters broke to allow her to open up well. Put the ropes on the calf and had him out within 3 minutes. A load of clear gunk came out of his mouth as we pulled him and I knew he was a gonner. He must have smothered - don't know how long he was dead before we brough him.

Have used lubricant in the past and didn't find it to be any better.
I'd recommend putting any remaining cows or heifers on hay or really dry silage and push it to their heads twice a day rather than letting them feed ad-lib. Incalf cows don't know when to stop eating. they won't die from hunger as long as every cow gets a small bit twice a day.

If there are any poor heifers or cows that you feel need to be bulked up, feed them a small amount of rolled oats morning and evening. This will help put condition on the cow but not on the calf inside her.

The main point is, if you want easier calving, you have to cut back on the amount that you feed the cows or heifers!!!

pakalasa

reilig wrote: »

.....One was a BB cow in calf to a LIm and the calf came double muscle ...........

What do you mean by this?
Do you mean they are muscular at birth?
My understanding is that all cattle have the same number of muscles, so it is only a degree of muscle development, that we are talking about.

I have a few BB's but they were always born showing no muscle, only skin and bone. They dont show muscle until about 3 wks or so....the way I like it, no calving problems.

reilig

pakalasa wrote: »

What do you mean by this?
Do you mean they are muscular at birth?
My understanding is that all cattle have the same number of muscles, so it is only a degree of muscle development, that we are talking about.

I have a few BB's but they were always born showing no muscle, only skin and bone. They dont show muscle until about 3 wks or so....the way I like it, no calving problems.

Double muscleing occurs in some Belgian Blues due to mutations in the myostatin gene. The calf was born with very broad hips rather than developing them a number of weeks after birth like most BBX calves do. Most of my calves would be the same as you, but this guy was an exception. He was 24 days over due and had shells of horns ready to be dehorned on the day that he was born. He was overdeveloped in the womb.

The birth was hard on both cow and man!!

Bigbird1

reilig wrote: »

Double muscleing occurs in some Belgian Blues due to mutations in the myostatin gene. The calf was born with very broad hips rather than developing them a number of weeks after birth like most BBX calves do. Most of my calves would be the same as you, but this guy was an exception. He was 24 days over due and had shells of horns ready to be dehorned on the day that he was born. He was overdeveloped in the womb.

The birth was hard on both cow and man!!

24 days is a lot,what lim bull is this calf by and what blues are you using to have such trouble free calving

reilig

Bigbird1 wrote: »

24 days is a lot,what lim bull is this calf by and what blues are you using to have such trouble free calving

Its normal enough for a cow in calf to a Limousin Bull to bring 3 weeks with her. This guy was off Milbrook Tanco (TKO).

I only use ballyfinn borat (BBQ) on my black cows. I have never had a difficult calving with him and can only recall ever having to use the calving jack on 1 or 2.

Min

I had a cow calve today - she is 50% BB (VDC), 25% holstein and 25% Montbeliarde. She had a very beefy looking holstein heifer and easy calving
I kept her as she was from a good line, my new breed of beefy holsteins :pac:

pakalasa

Min wrote: »

I had a cow calve today - she is 50% BB (VDC), 25% holstein and 25% Montbeliarde. She had a very beefy looking holstein heifer and easy calving
I kept her as she was from a good line, my new breed of beefy holsteins :pac:

Just out of curiosity I looked up VDC on www.icbf.com. He's in the top 16% of the BB breed for Maternal Calving (97% Rel). Would explain why she calved so easily. Maybe these figures do work.;)

Bigbird1

pakalasa wrote: »

Just out of curiosity I looked up VDC on www.icbf.com. He's in the top 16% of the BB breed for Maternal Calving (97% Rel). Would explain why she calved so easily. Maybe these figures do work.;)

where did you get this 16% figure, i can only get the euro stars up

i have heard that VDC daughters make super cows alrite in terms of calving ability

pakalasa

Bigbird1 wrote: »

where did you get this 16% figure, i can only get the euro stars up

i have heard that VDC daughters make super cows alrite in terms of calving ability

Type 'VDC' under 'Bull search'. Then click on the 'Fertility' box. The second window down is the 'Maternal Calving' figure. It fives a value of 84 for percentile rank Within Breed. Subract from 100% to give the value of 16%.

As you can see the value is taken from 3057 calving surveys. Impressive, when you think about it.
Link here;
http://www.icbf.com/taurus/bull_search/index.php?ani_id=108375173&target=b_fertility

Nutcase

I looked up the EDJ BB bull there and its Maternal Calving difficulty percentile rank within breed is 2.. so subtarcting this from 100 does that mean he is in the top 98% of the breed for maternal calving? Doesnt seem like a very good value that?

pajero12

krazyfarmer wrote: »

Any body using lubricant or other ideas?

An ounce of Lubricant= A tonne of Pressure

Bizzum

krazyfarmer wrote: »

Have had a few tight pulls calving Heifers this year. Any body using lubricant or other ideas? Advice welcome.
CharX heifers around 2 year old - Limo bull.
Heifers have not been overfed but are in good condition.

Have you calved this bull before on heifers?
I take some of the points about double muscle at calving, but I will say this, I'd far sooner pull muscle through a tight space than bone. Heavily boned calves with big square hips are the ones that give us most trouble.

Re: Lube- We lash it on all around the calf. It's only a few euro, if it helps one calf it's money well spent!

Pre-calving management of incalf heifers is important as other posters pointed out.

what happen

hi reilig what was the bull code of the double musele lim calf

Bizzum

what happen wrote: »

hi reilig what was the bull code of the double musele lim calf

KGZ and LGP. The boys to breed show winners:D

reilig

what happen wrote: »

hi reilig what was the bull code of the double musele lim calf

TKO (Milbrook Tanco).
To be honest, the double muscle came from the cow's side (She is a 3/4 BB)

Bizzum

what happen wrote: »

hi reilig what was the bull code of the double musele lim calf

I'm just pulling your chain.

You shouldn't get too bogged down on which of the BB bulls got some particular calf. The reality is that almost any of them are capable of producing the goods given the correct mating programme.
Start off with say BBQ and work your way up to Giga or BYU or whoever is flavour of the month!

what happen

i had a red lim calve bb ovo last year no problem bull calf. she calved on her due date. can not get ovo or byu this year ai man said they were gone.what is fhz like.

pakalasa

what happen wrote: »

what is fhz like.

I have 3 calves by FHZ. One last year which was only average. This year had one super one, but from my best cow. The other one then was from a 7/8 Lim cow, still young but not great either. These are the only BB's I've ever bred so no experience with others to compare with.
The NCBC catalogue does say he will 'prodcue export quality from 3/4 bred continental cows'......so maybe they are trying to tell you something there.
I do find him very easy calving.

pakalasa

Nutcase wrote: »

I looked up the EDJ BB bull there and its Maternal Calving difficulty percentile rank within breed is 2.. so subtarcting this from 100 does that mean he is in the top 98% of the breed for maternal calving? Doesnt seem like a very good value that?

Ya EDJ is in the bottom 2% (or top 98%). You've got to watch that with nearly all easy calving AI bulls, Their daughters tend to have smaller hips, i.e. low Maternal Calving figures.
It's the really good bulls that are good for both. Malibu (MBU) and NINO (NIN) were great in this regard. Nino is in the top 1% for Maternal Calving both within breed and across breeds.
If you ever see his off-spring, they are all very big and square at the hips. It's worth looking at them, as it shows you what it takes in a cow to be easy calving. I have a few myslef.:D

ootbitb

anyone follow the old tip of feeding springers only at night. supposed to delay calving til morning. did this myself years ago with success.

tismesoitis

what happen wrote: »

i had a red lim calve bb ovo last year no problem bull calf. she calved on her due date. can not get ovo or byu this year ai man said they were gone.what is fhz like.

would'nt recomend fhz at all only have 2 calves so far out of decent cows that bred well before and one is only average and d other is poor certainly won't b using him again.have used at least 10 or 12 blues before and fhz is the worst!!

Bizzum

On the subject of Blues, did anyone here try ROSS A (AI code RSA)?
He is I believe from a line of naturally calving Blues. Anybody got any calves I wonder?

what happen

hi bizzum i asked the ai man about him and he didnt have him. ross anon (anx) would have been my first choice.

Bizzum

Ross Anon on paper aint that hot, although I do enough cribbing about the Eurostar system when it suits me!
Anyway SBV €29 at 68% reliability and Calving of 23% at 92% rel.

Anon and Ross A are no relation either. It was the English Blue blood that sorta got my interest!

pakalasa

Guys,

What about Ross Alo (AZL). He's by BYU and has good calving figures too.
I was planning to use him this year.
I don't think I'll be using FHZ again either. Other peoples comments here have convinced me now.
http://www.ncbc.ie/beefdata/beefsire.php?id=AZL

Bizzum

pakalasa wrote: »

Guys,

What about Ross Alo (AZL). He's by BYU and has good calving figures too.
I was planning to use him this year.
I don't think I'll be using FHZ again either. Other peoples comments here have convinced me now.
http://www.ncbc.ie/beefdata/beefsire.php?id=AZL

Yeah, He seems to be a very complete bull. Again it was specifically Ross A (RSA) that I was wondering about because he is from an english bloodline of naturally calving Blues. So I suppose I was wondering is there much of a difference?