Probing

[bulldog]

Hey all,
Well, I Bop is no longer in the world and Lilly is all alone again. So I am a chainsaw wood carver, and had agreed to carve something for a dairyman in exchange for a heifer calf. He called this morning and said that he just had pure Holstein heifer twins born this morning. What percentage of twins are free martins? And is probing a sure thing? Are there any other problems usually associated with twins if they turn out not to be free martins? Any advice would be great, thanks!

[ozark_jewels]

Twin heifers should be fine. Freemartins come from having twins that are bull/heifer. Twins that are the same sex should be fine. Even the bull from a bull/heifer set of twins should be fine. I believe it is only the heifer in a bull/heifer twin set that is affected.
I know of several sets of twin heifers that both are now full grown productive cows.

[Trisha in WA]

If the twins are both heifers, they won't be free martins. They will mature smaller and thus you may want to breed her to a smaller breed of bull.
Trisha

[randiliana]

Agreed, heifer/heifer twins are both good. We just calved a set of twin heifers out this spring.

[topside1]

Don't bother with that probing business if you know their background and the owner.