Calf sex ratio

flat out !!

Just wondering how other dairy lads bull to heifer ratio is working out this spring. In my own situation bulls are outnumbering heifers almost 3 to 1, with 56 calved so far, (all Ai)
Yeah I know I could have gone down the sexed semen route, but I chose not to because of the reduced conception rates associated with it. I felt cows would be under enough pressure after the tough spring last year.
Maybe I'm just very unlucky this year, other years final tally was always close to 50-50. Can't help suspect I was sold byproduct from sexed semen.:(

Timmaay

As far as I know sexing destroys the males, so in that case no you couldn't of been flogged the males only byproducts. Its just luck, sure some of the big irish families might say 7boys and no girls etc, its not uncommon to see big variations.

I think with 2015 looming we are all pushing for more heifers, hence why people are annoying more now about the poor ratio, whereas in years gone by heifers were only needed to keep the herd ticking over.

freedominacup

I don't even want to talk about it.

mahoney_j

freedominacup wrote: »

I don't even want to talk about it.

+ 1 on that bulls outnumbering heifers by over 4 to 1 here.dont even bother looking any more.seems to be very common this year around here anyway especially with progressive genetics bulls.

Miname

3/4 heifers 1/4 bulls here at the moment, although it is suckling im at. with the price of heifers against bulls this year im still happy enough.

freedominacup

It gets worse.

keep going

Ran a stock bull with heifers last year and he is trowing more heifers than bulls but heifers will probably do that anyway whereas ai on the cows is more bulls than heifers.

flat out !!

My run of 9 bulls in a row ended with a lovely KSK heifer 20 mins ago. I got requests from few Ai companies to do genomic tests on some of the bull calves that were registered earlier, I won't be getting my hopes up though, but €8k to €16k for one would certainly ease the dissappointment of the run of bulls.

biddy2013

mahoney_j wrote: »

+ 1 on that bulls outnumbering heifers by over 4 to 1 here.dont even bother looking any more.seems to be very common this year around here anyway especially with progressive genetics bulls.

had a great run of heifers, last 5 where bulls, it always evens out .. what was it like last year? had a couple of dead calves and they where bulls so eased the guilt a bit

biddy2013

flat out !! wrote: »

My run of 9 bulls in a row ended with a lovely KSK heifer 20 mins ago. I got requests from few Ai companies to do genomic tests on some of the bull calves that were registered earlier, I won't be getting my hopes up though, but €8k to €16k for one would certainly ease the dissappointment of the run of bulls.

i got request for one that was born dead, would they not be able to see this on line?

flat out !!

biddy2013 wrote: »

i got request for one that was born dead, would they not be able to see this on line?

Yeah, I would have thought so, they get updates from the Icbf every Tuesday and Fridays.

biddy2013

flat out !! wrote: »

Yeah, I would have thought so, they get updates from the Icbf every Tuesday and Fridays.

felt like replying, they are welcome to him

kevthegaff

20 bulls and 5 heifers terrible so far!

Timmaay

Got plenty of heifers early on, but 4bulls in a row has evened it up now.

delaval

60:30 Bull to heifers so far. If it wasn't for the sexed semen trial it would be a lot worse.

Load of bull calves leaving today any way so won't feel so bad

bbam

flat out !! wrote: »

Just wondering how other dairy lads bull to heifer ratio is working out this spring. In my own situation bulls are outnumbering heifers almost 3 to 1, with 56 calved so far, (all Ai)
Yeah I know I could have gone down the sexed semen route, but I chose not to because of the reduced conception rates associated with it. I felt cows would be under enough pressure after the tough spring last year.
Maybe I'm just very unlucky this year, other years final tally was always close to 50-50. Can't help suspect I was sold byproduct from sexed semen.:(

Dairy lad I used to buy calves of did all his own AI, he said that the ratio could only realistically be looked at over 3-5 years.. Individual years can be very onesided.

stanflt

bbam wrote: »

Dairy lad I used to buy calves of did all his own AI, he said that the ratio could only realistically be looked at over 3-5 years.. Individual years can be very onesided.

36 from 78 births

It was 23 from 65 but then had a great run

One of my great cows calved last night she did 13044 litres at 3.45prot in 287 days and calved a month and a day earlier than last year
She's also classified ex 90

Had a chq heifer just to top it off- very happy this am

onyerbikepat

You can work out the odds of so many heifers from a number of cows from a calculator like this below. Similar to tossing a coin.

For example the chances of getting more than 65 heifers from 100 cows are 0.089% or one in 1,100.

http://stattrek.com/online-calculator/binomial.aspx

Probability = 0.5
No. of trails = Number of calvings, eg = 100
No. Of successes = number of heifers, eg = 65

Use the 2nd last window for the result. Cumulative Probability: P(X > 65)

oooge1

Started out with 13 heifers from the first 15 calved ..Now 32 calved and I've 16 heifers!!!!

delaval

bbam wrote: »

Dairy lad I used to buy calves of did all his own AI, he said that the ratio could only realistically be looked at over 3-5 years.. Individual years can be very onesided.

I count on a three year average

grumpyfarmer

Running 26:20 here
heifers:bulls, all ai, no sexed semen but not all freisians. The heifers are in calf to white heads.

Mulumpy

Running 50:50 at half way but have three sets of twins in that all bull and heifer

RobertKK

75% heifer calves so far, not using sexed semen.

RobertKK

bbam wrote: »

Dairy lad I used to buy calves of did all his own AI, he said that the ratio could only realistically be looked at over 3-5 years.. Individual years can be very onesided.

My average is 55% heifers over 3 and 5 year periods, over 8 year period it is 52% heifer calves.

Farmer Pudsey

keep going wrote: »

Ran a stock bull with heifers last year and he is trowing more heifers than bulls but heifers will probably do that anyway whereas ai on the cows is more bulls than heifers.

As a matter of Interest those of you that have 50% or above heifers do you dao DIY AI. and those that are having a lot of bulls have you a AI contractor coming in.

Was told once that the later a cow is caught in heat the more likely it will be a bull. The earlier in the heat more likely a heifer. know a few suckler farmers running stock bulls and they usually have 60% heifers.

farmerjj

50:50 here,happy with that.

oooge1

I DIY ai and am 50/50

loveta

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

As a matter of Interest those of you that have 50% or above heifers do you dao DIY AI. and those that are having a lot of bulls have you a AI contractor coming in.

Was told once that the later a cow is caught in heat the more likely it will be a bull.

Had Dan Ryan scanning and asked him that very question because i was on a 500 cow herd in antrim and one of the owners was convinced late AI ing of cows gave him a higher % of bulls but dan reckoned it had nothing to do with it.

biddy2013

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

As a matter of Interest those of you that have 50% or above heifers do you dao DIY AI. and those that are having a lot of bulls have you a AI contractor coming in.

Was told once that the later a cow is caught in heat the more likely it will be a bull. The earlier in the heat more likely a heifer. know a few suckler farmers running stock bulls and they usually have 60% heifers.

ai man here, also br/fr stock bull. When ai'ing we only ai in the morning. 60% heifers so far.

awaywithyou

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

As a matter of Interest those of you that have 50% or above heifers do you dao DIY AI. and those that are having a lot of bulls have you a AI contractor coming in.

Was told once that the later a cow is caught in heat the more likely it will be a bull. The earlier in the heat more likely a heifer. know a few suckler farmers running stock bulls and they usually have 60% heifers.

The advice is to wait 12 hrs after cow is seen in heat to AI.... Which I can't understand as the stock bull when he goes in don't wait til 12 hrs after he sees the cow in heat!!!

aneala

awaywithyou wrote: »

The advice is to wait 12 hrs after cow is seen in heat to AI.... Which I can't understand as the stock bull when he goes in don't wait til 12 hrs after he sees the cow in heat!!!

Agree he doesn't but he generally gets more than one go and has a whole lot more fire power than any AI man;):D

Deepsouthwest

awaywithyou wrote: »

The advice is to wait 12 hrs after cow is seen in heat to AI.... Which I can't understand as the stock bull when he goes in don't wait til 12 hrs after he sees the cow in heat!!!

Can't believe some of high bull proportions some people have here. Nearly always have just slightly more heifers, or at least 50/50 split for the last 7/8 yrs, even though this yr I have slightly more bulls, but still hope/believe they'll even out. All AI here for the last 7/8 yrs, always bull everything in the morning and if a cow is still standing for that evening she's done again the following morning, that happens roughly in 10% of them. Bull early for a heifer was the old saying I was told!

Deepsouthwest

Deepsouthwest wrote: »

Can't believe some of high bull proportions some people have here. Nearly always have just slightly more heifers, or at least 50/50 split for the last 7/8 yrs, even though this yr I have slightly more bulls, but still hope/believe they'll even out. All AI here for the last 7/8 yrs, always bull everything in the morning and if a cow is still standing for that evening she's done again the following morning, that happens roughly in 10% of them. Bull early for a heifer was the old saying I was told!

Another heifer there now!

Gillespy

From what I remember of X or Y chromosomes, it's the bull alone that determines the sex of the calf. Timing of AI has nothing to do with it.

flat out !!

I'll buy and wear this for next Ai season...

attachmentid=294612&stc=1&d=1392723538[/url]

Deepsouthwest

Gillespy wrote: »

From what I remember of X or Y chromosomes, it's the bull alone that determines the sex of the calf. Timing of AI has nothing to do with it.

From what I remember the later in the heat that u serve, the more acidic it is, which supposedly favours the male chromosome (Y)

awaywithyou

We had a run of bull calves 5 pr 6... Then we had a cow due to calve today that w inseminated with PKX.... NCbc sent us a letter and contract that if she had a bull they wanted to test him with a view to buying calf if it was a bull .. Cow duly calved earlier.... A heifer!.... Next 2 cows that calved... Bulls again!!

You can't win!!

stanflt

Had a Jkf heifer from an 84 point 2yo shottle born this morning

Dam did 10044 litres at 3.44 p in first lactation

farmerjack

stanflt wrote: »

Had a Jkf heifer from an 84 point 2yo shottle born this morning

Dam did 10044 litres at 3.44 p in first lactation

Have a good few Jkf straws ordered for this spring, I really like the look of that bull, was she calved easy?

Timmaay

farmerjack wrote: »

Have a good few Jkf straws ordered for this spring, I really like the look of that bull, was she calved easy?

Got 20 sexed of him, so should have a fair few heifers. Agreed, looks like a very good bull on paper, has both fertility and production.