So, here she is

Dusky Beauty · #21 12/07/12, 12:23 PM

I'm thinking no on the feb calf. If she was it'd be turning soon if I'm not mistaken and she'd look extremely wide while she carried it sideways.

Just work on earning her trust and training her to be caught and walked on a lead and be pleasantly surprised if a baby does come.

dunroven · #22 12/07/12, 01:08 PM

Okay on the bread, we can do that for sure.

Marc, the stuff in the pen with them is not ours. It will be cleaned up in the spring, but it was there before the calves and will stay until spring. There is someone who needed a place for it and our pasture "was" empty when he needed the space. Course not so much now, but he's trucking and won't be done with current job till then. No boards with nails though. That has already been checked out.

The building looks rough, but reason for that is the buck boer goat that I had, busted through the sides of the building! He was a big guy. Just haven't had time to fix that yet, but all nails have been picked up. I have made sure of that. I don't want to walk where there are nails, so my animals don't have to either! LOL

matt_man · #23 12/07/12, 08:27 PM

Does she have any udder development at all. If she were due in Feb you would see something forming back there.

They both look all jersey to me.

dunroven · #24 12/07/12, 09:19 PM

But I don't think much if any udder development. I am going to go out tomorrow and try to get a little video of her and post it so you all can see it. She is actually (in my opinion) much more rounded and filled out than she looks in these pictures. Actually, I really think she looks quite good.

She is all black except around the muzzle and she has a top line of rusty brown hair.

I tried the bread tonight at chore time. Neither she nor Shaggy would touch it. Not just from my hand, but I put it in the feeding trough and they sniffed it and walked away from it, so I'm not sure that's going to work. I'll try again tomorrow though. She acts like she wants to trust me but just can't quite bring herself to do it.

Tomorrow I'll show you the other end of the pasture, which is much nicer looking. This is just one small end of the pasture, but they have a good place to be and where they like to lay in the sun all day.

kycrawler · #25 12/07/12, 09:54 PM

I would guess 16-18 months on the heifer i have one similar size and horns bred for a march calf . She may be bred but not for febuary . The heifer looks ok in the pictures but he is a pretty sad looking bull he is definately better suited for the freezer than as breeding stock

SpaceCadet12364 · #26 12/08/12, 07:16 AM

If she were due in feb. the calf would be turning around this month and she would be allot wider. Alfalfa cubes are good for her. Stale bread is good just limit it to 2 lbs a day don't want too much yeast in her belly. Range cubes are good. And salt and minerals are needed for preg. cows. Ours go through 250 lbs. of salt to 100 lbs mineral. yours may differ you can use any salt lake, solar, iodized, selenium or trace or combine different salts. We use separate buckets for salt and mineral.

dunroven · #27 12/08/12, 01:40 PM

I tried some more bread today and guess what? She didn't want it again and neither did Shaggy. I went in to their feed trough and the bread from yesterday is still laying there, so I'm thinking that's not going to work with these 2. I'm going to try some cubes or something when I go to the feed store again. I'll at least see if they have them. I have never seen anything like that there, but wasn't really looking, so I'll have to be watching and see what I can come up with. If not, any other suggestions for something they might like? Any fruit or veggies that might appeal to them and be safe?

SpaceCadet12364 · #28 12/08/12, 02:12 PM

Apples,pears,anything with molasses(sweet),Pumpkins,fresh veggies,(lettuce,corn,celery).

dunroven · #29 12/08/12, 02:41 PM

I have some carrots and celery that will now become cow food! LOL Maybe I can entice her with those! We'll see. I didn't get the video today. Did what I needed to do and came back in. I have a roaring migraine going and I think a sinus infection, which started the migraine. Bleck, not going to be a good few days, and I'm the choir director for tomorrow's chapel services at our local nuring homes. Not good.

oregon woodsmok · #30 12/08/12, 04:12 PM

She doesn't look pregnant to me, but she looks in poor shape. I have seen animals with their first pregnancy that don't get any size on the fetus if they aren't getting feed. You can't tell they are pregnant until they go into labor. First pregnancy is often carried high and isn't so obvious.

If you think she is pregnant, she needs protein. Get a bale of good quality alfalfa and add about 3 pounds of that alfalfa to her good quality grass hay every day. If you are feeding alfalfa then she should have a little bit of rolled barley to go with it and balance out the calcium phosphorus ratio.

A little bit of grain and a little bit of alfalfa will soon have her begging when she sees you. She needs to be either bumped or ultra-sounded so you know what to feed her. If she has been in with that bull the whole time and she is not pregnant at some stage of pregnancy, then there is some sort of problem that needs to be figured out.

I would de-worm her and build her diet up gradually.

Jersey/guernsey · #31 12/08/12, 10:30 PM

Try a blood test if you want to be sure of pregnancy early, you can’t bump a calf less then five or six months along and heifers are notoriously hard to bump anyway.
Also she may not have been in with the bull very long before you got her so don’t be surprised if she’s only a couple of months bred.

dunroven · #32 12/08/12, 10:40 PM

I HAVE to get some more pictures of this heifer. Folks, I do NOT think she is in poor condition. Wait until you see her sideways. She is very filled out and very nice looking. I did the head on shots, thinking you might be able to see a spread wide enough for pregnancy if there was one. But she is nice and full. Hopefully tomorrow I can do that.