The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Cattle => Topic started by: crimson on September 03, 2014, 09:30:31 pm
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I have a 1 year and 2 months heifer that was mistakenly bulled ( i think anyway ) by a young bull that escaped. The heifer has a very large belly , she wasn't normally that big when she was younger. Its a fairly small heifer for its age, would it need to be cut open if i am correct?
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what age was she covered, how far gone is she?
what breed is she and what breed is the suspected sire?
there are jags for this scenario that you can collect from your vet (2 jags a month apart i think)
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:wave: 2 of my bought in angus heifers recently calved they are of similar age to yours . they were caught by there father :o . first one was a suprise the second we were expecting .both calved on there own and both calfs seem fine and have only 1 head ,4 legs etc . would have rather it didnt happen but it could have turned out much worse .
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what age was she covered, how far gone is she?
what breed is she and what breed is the suspected sire?
there are jags for this scenario that you can collect from your vet (2 jags a month apart i think)
Angus calf to a shorthorn bull( not a very good one too)
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How old will she be when she calves?
We've just had a teenage pregnancy, a British Blue x heifer to our bull (an Angus.) She's calved at 17 months. She needed help calving - a strapping great calf - and it needed support for a few hours having had a difficult birth, but apart from that all has been well. We were worried she wouldn't have enough milk so had been caking her for that, which may have been a partial cause of the calf being large, of course. So far, one month on, with plenty of cake and good hay plus grazing during the day, she is managing very well - and the calf is a stonker!
(Mum is called Wanda, partly because she was born in the winter indoors, and used to wander about at will, and partly because when she was young her tail hairs fanned out and she looked as though she had a fish tail.)
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We had a lim x heifer calve at 20 months after escaping into the main herd of cows, she was kept in so we could keep an eye on her. Everyone was expecting trouble as she had gone to a lim bull and she was quite small. She had a textbook calving one lunch time whilst we were all having dinner! She was a little shell shocked and didn't know quite what to make of the calf but once she got to know it was hers she was fine.
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In my experience you can usually see the teats developing at 5 months on a first time calver. That is, you can easily see them without having to bend down. So this gives a pretty good estimation of when she's going to calve.
The important thing then is not to overfeed her, in order to keep the calf size down. So hay/grass and minerals are quite sufficient, although if you've plenty of spring grass you're better putting her on a bare field with hay or straw, as loads of nutritious spring grass will result in a big calf.
We have had quite a few teenage calvers over the years as we keep the bull in all the time. But I've found we've had least problems where the heifer has been kept outside so presumably excercise plays quite a part in a trouble free calving. So if you want your heifer to calve inside then leave it till the last minut before bringing her in. You'll know when that is as you'll see her suddenly bag up.
By the way, we've never had to have one cut open yet.
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Ive cut open one or two! ;) but I have to admit if you follow the advice given its normally fine