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Teen Mother

3K views 26 replies 11 participants last post by  aoconnor1 
#1 ·
My daughter traded "up" for a May1,2016 club calf heifer. It appears she is bred. The previous owner is a meticulous record keeper and has a date on his calendar where she jumped the fence and was in with a bull for the afternoon while no one was home. If that date was the only time, it would put her due to calve at the end of November. She is a growthy heifer but a November calf would mean she was calving at 18 months old! Can anyone tell me if they've ever had something that young calve out safely? One rancher friend thinks she's fine but I'd rather lutalyse than lose a cow
 
#2 ·
Most likely she will be fine, depending on the type of bull that bred her. (It's odd that "a meticulous record keeper" would not have opted to abort the pregnancy at the time.) It's unlikely that she's not pregnant, but the vet could tell you for sure. You should also ask your vet's advice about terminating at this point in time.
 
#5 ·
Most club calves have a good chunk of shorthorn in them. Shorthorns are usually large in the pelvis and very capable of having a young elephant with no problems. The problem comes in when you get into the Maine Anjou stuff, and sometimes a dash of Chi that can give you 125 pound birth weights in some of the clubby stuff. Throw in a little simmy and it doesn't help either, depending on the simmy. If she jumped in a with a clubby bull, there could be trouble. That said, I've had two shorthorn heifers calve unassisted at 15 to 17 months. Mine are not clubby, just production animals, and every once in a while, they get bred by a herd bull while they are still on the cow. Just a product of the high fertility of the breed. Usually an advantage that club heifers would have is an accelerated feeding program, so they get a good bit of growth early. Pumping the feed during pregnancy could be bad, if the heifer is overly fat, and has a big calf growing too, then that could be bad. I would definitely keep an eye on her, but it is definitely not necessarily a death sentence for her. I would inquire as to what she jumped the fence with. If it was a low birth weight Angus, I wouldn't worry much at all.
 
#6 · (Edited)
Two bulls in the pasture...a chi-Maine club calf sire and a low birthweight Hereford heifer bull. And the heifer is half Charolais, dam had two sets of twins before her. Breeder warned us she prolly needed to be luted. Our fault not his. We tossed her out to pasture when we got her and she was wild so we put it off then "forgot". I'll add short video of her with our limousin meat steer from the other day

IMG_4740.mp4.mov
 
#7 ·
Joan, that is the type of situation where there are no if's, but's or maybe's for me. I've twice bought in a heifer that had turned out to be in calf too young and once the completely wrong breeding - Jersey to Simmental. In both cases I got the vet out, he did an internal and was able to give me a rough idea on the growth of the calf and what to expect. After discussion, I made the decision to induce because I would rather have a live cow and a dead calf than take the risk of losing both. In each case there was a premature calf that survived - and the Jersey/Simmental became a huge cow that I still have and milk her. The money spent on the vet and his input was money well invested.

On the other hand, both cows may well have calved without problems but I'll never know and wasn't about to take that risk for the sake of a couple of 100 dollars in vet bills. That has been more than paid back since. And Haypoint's photo is one I have seen to often on other farms and once on my own. Not fun having to pull a calf, or even worse, cut it up into bits to save the mother.

Cheers,
Ronnie
 
#8 ·
All comes down to size of the heifer, and more importantly the distance in her hips. Many a pinched hip two year old that should have become hamburger has calving issues, even bred to a "heifer" bull. Cows retained out of heifer bulls can be especially bad. Little and narrow begets little and narrow. But chi-maine chaorlais crossed stuff in the club world can have notoriously huge calves, calves too big for any cow to have without risking an assist here and there. It all comes down to how bad you want to gamble. At least you have a date to work with, that is a plus.
 
#9 ·
We had neighbors that had a feedlot cattle operation. Usually once or twice a year, they would end up with a too young heifer having her first calf at their place. The only problem they ran into was the young lady not wanting to be a momma.....if that happened, I got a phone call that said "are you still raising bottle calves? if so, we have one for you." I agree with the others though, have your vet come out and take a look at her.
 
#12 ·
We had it happen a few times and in all cases the calf was born unassisted and the heifer wanted to mother it and had enough milk. But that was a maternal breed, Tarentaise.

I would not terminate the pregnancy this close to term. I would watch her like a hawk and keep the vet on speed dial. And especially, don't over feed her.
 
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#13 ·
Vet coming out week of Oct 1...had emergency call out and cancelled our appt. I had two friends who breed angus and Hereford take a look and they THINK she's big/wide enough but agree a palpation is in order. Their suggestion is for a November 9 induction, two weeks prior to calving date based on previous experience etc but agree that vet experience/diagnosis is paramount. I will definitely post when she/he comes out next week
 
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#14 ·
Short story long we are FINALLY getting vet here tomorrow for the palpation. Last week was an absolute clusterf.....8 acres and a wild heifer meant no vet. We finally had a hillbilly cattle drive and got her home behind the halter broke steer ( only two properties away) and into a small enough pen to wrestle a halter on her. Our hay guy was here Saturday (raises Charolais) says she's wide enough but thinks she's got twins on board. So do we...or at least we are praying because she is massive, huge, wiiiide...sigh
 
#15 ·
I was thinking about this yesterday - great minds think alike, or so they say.

Don't go making mountains out of molehills until the vet has seen her - my experience has been that most people haven't a clue as to whether a cow has a single or twins until the twins are on the ground. Look forward to hearing the results of the visit.

Sounds as though she can be a bit of baggage too:D

Cheers,
Ronnie
 
#16 ·
Vet here. THINKS calf is average sized not huge. Uterine arteries ARE relatively similar indicating a POSSIBLE twin, but not a for sure at all. He is relatively confident she will be fine given her growthy nature and wide enough between the hips. Much relieved although we will be super watchful
 
#19 ·
Right, now you have some idea of what you're working with and that is always a relief. And I guess the vet would be available if things turn to custard? We now wait until the end of next month:)

Cheers,
Ronnie
Well, her due date is during our Thanksgiving week break, the day before Thanksgiving in fact. So we will have 5 days before due to watch. Of course, a vet call ON thanksgiving Day would be an emergency call out fee, so I'm betting on that being the day she calves if anything is to go wrong
 
#20 ·
We brought our other cow and her calf home today ( cow was off being bred and ended up spending whole summer at the ranch). Her heifer calf has matured into a chunk! The good news is that our rancher friend has offered us the use of her MOOCALL calving detector. It should help us keep a close eye on our springing heifer
 
#21 ·
So. On Wednesday, my friend and angus breeder, kathy, came by. I had her take a look at teen mom and we both agreed that she looked "close". Wednesday evening we kicked the goats out of the box stall and brought her in so we'd have lights ( and easy access if vet help was needed). Agreed with daughter on a schedule and I went to bed. Daughter went out at 11 and 1. At 1, she called me out because there was " a bubble". Mom up n down with a couple good hard pushes. At 2:00, we saw what we thought was a hoof and mama let me do a check. Two hooves and a nose, all right at the "exit". We gave her til 2:30, then we put on the chains and pulled. Took both my daughter and I to get him pulled, a hard pull from snooter to tooter, but we did! He's 70-80 lbs according to my rancher friend but we will try to get a weight on him tonight. He's a sass and ALWAYS nursing. Hoping her milk comes in a little stronger today. Giving her a little alfalfa with her hay, and some 14% stock pellets and loose minerals. Calf got 1.5 bo-se. Glad she went right on her due date!
 
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