Comments for The Cattle Management Blog

Comment on Twin calves – boon or bane? by Twin calves have arrived on the farm - Home in the Finger Lakes

Twin calves have arrived on the farm - Home in the Finger Lakes — Mon, 06 May 2013 13:56:25 +0000

[...] get one free, but there are many problems with twin calves, the first and most well known issue is mother rejection of one of the twins. I watched as the mother cleaned off the calves, she seemed to be focused on one, but would go over [...]

Comment on Have you tried blood pregnancy testing? by Adam Schauf

Adam Schauf — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 16:42:29 +0000

I have tried to draw blood but was unsuccessful. We were using a needle and syringe under the tail and above the rectum. Was never able to get any blood into the syringe; just created a vacuum when pulling on the plunger and got nothing. What is your website with the videos?

Comment on Twin calves – boon or bane? by Robyn

Robyn — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 03:56:22 +0000

I checked with my Dad. All the Dams are half sisters and all the Dams mothers are half sisters.

Comment on Twin calves – boon or bane? by stephanie

stephanie — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 17:51:20 +0000

hey guys,
we have a little herd of herfurds, we just started not too long ago, and we just had our firsth calf about a week ago, we had no problems with that one, and yesterday we had a heifer that still birthed twin bulls, she was about 11 days late. she went into labor sunday night, so yesterday we checked her, and the first cow was breach, we pulled him out and was he was still the next came out still too. i believe they had gone too long inside the mama cow, they drowned. i was wondering if anyone could give me some suggestions on what we should have done, and what we can do next time.

Comment on Twin calves – boon or bane? by Robyn

Robyn — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 04:03:32 +0000

All calves were out of the same bull. All the Dams are probably related in some way as well. They are all the same age so they are either out of one or two bulls. Plus we had the herd for 15+ years and we didn’t buy any replacement heifers so almost all the cows were closely related. last year we used the same bull and no twins. I think it was a bit of a fluke.

Comment on Twin calves – boon or bane? by Diane

Diane — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 16:56:56 +0000

Robyn,
I was wondering if all of the heifers were sired by the same bull. I’m looking to know if the Dam or Sire is the carrier of the twin gene.

Comment on Twin calves – boon or bane? by Nathan Boles

Nathan Boles — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 13:01:11 +0000

Yes, it is normal for a baby calf to begin grazing when it is just a few days old. Doesn’t take them long the learn what they need to do to survive!

Comment on Twin calves – boon or bane? by Cindy Chandler

Cindy Chandler — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 18:51:45 +0000

We just had twin bulls born to one of our heifers 10 days apart. The mama is nursing both but not producing enough milk. We are bottle feeding some. The first calf, now 12 days old is eating grass. Is this normal?

Comment on Twin calves – boon or bane? by bella

bella — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 18:34:05 +0000

We had a set of twin heifers yesterday. The mom rejected one but was nursing the other one. We had a cow that lost her twins four days ago. We brought the cow in the headgate and put the calf in there to nurse. The cow let the calf nurse without any tricks. We put them back in the pen together and the calf was still nursing she accepted it right away. When we checked this morning the real mom had lost her calf we found it dead. She was not near it at all. It appeared to be pretty healthy. We are wondering if we need to put her other calf the one she rejected back on her or keep it with the cow it is currently nursing ?

Comment on Hay – Grow it or buy it? by Nathan Boles

Nathan Boles — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 14:28:06 +0000

Russell,

What would I have done differently? Well, don’t know if there was anything I could have done differently. Here’s what I wish could have been different:

1. It would rain (for this year, the last real, measurable rainfall was the end of September, 2012.)

2. Left some cultivated land fallow for the winter to be able to plant haygrazer in March/April. That’s what I did in fall, 2012, but unless we get substantial rainfall in the next few weeks, there’s no moisture to plant a spring crop.

What did I end up doing? Culling my cow herd deeper and buying expensive hay for the second year in a row.

Nathan