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Easy calving cows?

  • 29-12-2011 12:41pm
    #1
    BelgianBlue13
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 95 ✭✭


    First of all, all i know is at birth the calving difficulty is based on the bull,if he is easy calving ,it will be an easy birth. (normally).
    is it also based on the cow.
    e.g. i have a shapey heifer with an easy calving pedigree,so if i used a hard calving bull,would it be an easier birth than a cow with a hard calving pedigree?
    i know that the pedigree passes on to the calf.


Comments

  • #2
    pakalasa
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,552 ✭✭✭pakalasa


    BelgianBlue13 wrote: »
    First of all, all i know is at birth the calving difficulty is based on the bull,if he is easy calving ,it will be an easy birth. (normally).
    is it also based on the cow.
    Yes, from a genetic point of view, it's also based on the cow, but in two ways, Maternal Calving and Direct calving. Both are inter-linked. Maternal calving refers to the cows ability to calve. This normally refers to the cows pelvic opening, but it can also refer to the general tighness around the birth canal, due to muscling etc. The Direct calving genetic contribution, has to do with the cow tending to produce small calves at brith. The problem is one tends to work against the other, in that calves with small hips will calve easily but they may also tend to have small hips when cows, so in turn have problems later on when calving themselves. This has been noticed in Dairying, in particular after generations of easy calving bulls.
    If you want to have cows that will calve easily, then look at the Maternal calving figures for the bull. These are in under the Fertility tab on the ICBF site. These bulls tend to be average enoiugh for Direct Calving, so best used on mature cows only,to produce replacements that calf easily.

    Noted NCBC bulls are NIN & FL21 for Limousin.

    Generally, it's true that heifers from so called easy calving bulls, will be hard calving as cows and vice versa. The trick is to use the right bulls on mature cows to get big framey heifers, choosing bulls with good Maternal Calving figures should do this.
    You can also get a good idea from just looking at the heifer. If she's wide and deep at the hips, then she should be fine. I also like the tail-head to be set down not standing proud, but maybe thats just me....


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