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Originally Posted by willow_girl
Yikes! Did you have a breeding exam done? Any idea what the prob was?
My best friend has a Jersey cow that has never calved, and she's been running with a bull for 3 years now. I suspect she may have been a freemartin, although Carol bought her as a calf from someone she believed she could trust.  |
Is the heifer obese? Obesity can make it very difficult for an animal to settle.
They may have been five years old...lol. We had a very large group of heifers in their peer group. They were also out of one of our home bulls and he gave us 9 daughters (including the twins) plus we were milking around 35 at that time so there were a lot more heifers than we get now with our smaller herd.
They were AIed a couple of times and then run with Junior, an Angus clean up bull right before they were sold. They were pretty fat by then. They went along with a few other open heifers in their age group.
We aim to settle animals through AI but the heifers are not always in a place where we can see them and we have another farmer doing our AI for us, so we have to catch them and bring them up to the barn for breeding.
We aim to AI and if we have a group not settled to calve at at least two and a half years we usually bring in a clean up bull, or use a bull we have raised. If they don't settle and are pushing four they get shipped. Usually we have a couple every other year we ship as very large open four year olds. They get every chance in the world to join the herd and we have had (actually currently have) four year old first calf heifers. Anya slipped her first pregnancy at five and a half months last year and she is due 3/12/05 with her full term pregnancy. Her age group is four and older. That may be a nightmare delivery. She is quite fat, but not as bad as Blue Moon was. That cow had the tiniest little bull calf and if we hadn't been there to pull that thick sack off it would have died. Poper weight is very important for breeding and delivery.
We have a group of heifers right now that are on the chopping block. They were born from 2/7/02 to 6/1/02. The last three were born in April and June though. Juliana is the one that is over three now. Jason is with them now and if he doesn't settle them then they will be shipped. Carina is cystic but we were hoping the bull would help in that department. They get pregnancy checked a month after Jason leaves..I am hoping they are bred, but if they are then we need to ship some older cows to make room for them.
Vicious cycle that.
