Heifer Mystery

[wstevenl]

On Sunday night I checked the cows (all Dexters) and found a calf that was JUST born and was dead. I was really down about it and it was freezing cold so I went home. The heifer that had the calf was about 40 feet away with her back arched and some after birth coming out. Before I left I saw some more stuff coming out, this was a bubble and was nearly white in color. I didn't put 2 and 2 together at that moment. In the morning I went back to make sure the heifer was okay and while I was getting the hay in the feeder I heard a crying calf about 50 yards out in the field. It was a tiny WET black bull calf with frost down it's back. I was sure it belonged to a 12 year old cow that is due but she would NOT nurse it, she kept pushing it away and running off. So, I got to looking at the heifer again and saw much more fresh blood on her back side. I tied her up, got her teats unplugged and got that calf nursing. I couldn't believe it, she actually had twins!!!

She's now letting him nurse on his own and not kicking him away and he's doing great. He never was weak and went from cow to cow trying to find one that would let him nurse.

He's 23 1/2 inches tall and one that was born on Saturday from another cow is 27 inches tall so the one that was a twin sure is small. Just by looking, the dead calf looked much larger than the one that lived.

How rare are twins?

[randiliana]

I'm not too sure about the Dexter breed, but about 2% of births can be twins. Some breeds are higher and some are lower. Simmental and Charolais have a higher twinning rate.

[Karenrbw]

A local farmer had four sets of twin last year. On the whole, they aren't all that common. Glad one of the little fellows made it.

[randiliana]

Oh, and don't beat yourself up too much about not realizing the heifer was going to have another calf. We have done the same thing, but we have never been so lucky, the second calf has always been dead.

[Dodgegal79]

Most times twins are sterile in cattle, so hopefully this little guy is going to beef. You can reseach it online and make sure. We had twin hereford calves when we were keids and they were sterile.

[wstevenl]

Yeah, he'll be beef. I'm not sure that he would be sterile though, I think it's usually a heifer that was in the womb with a bull calf.

[agmantoo]

The female calf is usually the one that will not be fertile in mixed gender twins.

[Up North]

We usually get one or two sets of twins out of 80 birthings a year.
Our last set was odd. The mother was a Holstein/Ayrshire cross who was black&white colored. The father was an Ayrshire bull red and white colored.
The twins consisted of one black&white bull calf and one red&white heifer calf!
I am not all that knowlegeable about coloring/marking genetics, so I don't know what the odds of that are.

Anyways, glad you got a live heifer and one healthy calf out of the deal wstevenL.

[gone-a-milkin]

I think twinning is a genetic trait, like it is in people.

[randiliana]

Originally Posted by Up North

We usually get one or two sets of twins out of 80 birthings a year.
Our last set was odd. The mother was a Holstein/Ayrshire cross who was black&white colored. The father was an Ayrshire bull red and white colored.
The twins consisted of one black&white bull calf and one red&white heifer calf!
I am not all that knowlegeable about coloring/marking genetics, so I don't know what the odds of that are.

Anyways, glad you got a live heifer and one healthy calf out of the deal wstevenL.

That really isn't that surprising, obviously the cow carried the red gene, and passed it on to one of the twins. That would have been fraternal twins.

We had a set of twin heifers a couple of years ago out of a black baldy cow(Hereford x Black Angus) bred Red Angus, one twin was solid black and the other was a red brockle face. We still have both of them and they will calve next spring.

[copperhead46]

Twins seem to run pretty often in Dexters. I think they are more common with them that a lot of breeds. Glad you got one out of the deal anyway.......
P.J.

[genebo]

Congratulations on your nice, healthy calf. I'm sorry about the other one.

Genebo
Paradise Farm

[Dodgegal79]

Up North, Ayshires are where the holsteins came from. Thats why the colors showed up like that.

[ozark_jewels]

We had one set of twins(bulls) out of 30 calvings last year. If I hadn't been there one would have died. The first one was out and alive but the second one came breech with his legs in a squatting position. I had to help her with that one.

[Dexter_Cattle]

Hi Steven,

Which one had twins?

We had twins once here.

TTYL
Dan

[sungirl]

We just had a set of twin heifers last weekend. Never said anything, as it is a normal thing in our herd's bloodlines. Nice healthy twin heifers, both red & white just like momma.
We would have lost the first one if I hadn't went to check on her, it was left in the sac when the second one was coming out.

Patty.

[wstevenl]

Dan,
The heifer that we think had twins was Sonya, the heifer that we got from Marian Van Beever. So, the surviving calf is from Hershey, Ethan's bull. The cow we got from her was Little Bea and she had a dun, probably polled, bull out of Klondike. She didn't even look that big, but I knew she was pregnant because I could see the calves kicking this past week.

[Up North]

So here's a question about Twinning.
We have a cow due soon who herself was a twin to another heifer calf.
Would the statistical probability of her throwing twins be any different than her herdmates that were born as singles?

[Dodgegal79]

Yes i think there is. I am surprised she fertile, but maybe the genes are changing to allow this. Same as cats, orange tabbys were always male, not anymore, females are popping up too.

[wstevenl]

It's not the fact that they were twins that makes them infertile. It's that the female was with a male in the womb.

Doctors seem to think that twins in the family make you more likely to have them so it shows to go ya that it should be the same for cows.