I've got a 13 months old heifer that is pregnant. I've been watching her in the field and she seems to be losing a bit of condition and putting on a bit of belly, so had her scanned today. Possibly 5-6 months in-calf . It looks like the culprit is a rig. He was rubber ringed because he has no sack at all, and when I do them I do them extremely carefully and if I haven't got two definite testicles, I leave it for the vet. I now leave them all for the vet as it happens, because my farmer friend down the road had the same problem with a rig getting everything pregnant and it created havoc.
It might be just the one as we have scanned most of the others but it's not certain yet.
And of course, it isn't a big heifer, it's my shortest, smallest, stockiest non-short which is what I was trying to breed .
Not a good day! I think it's the only day I can say I prefer sheep.
is it worth terminating it? i know it doesnt always work, but we have done 2 like that. 1 terminated the other didnt. not a pleasant thing to do but it might save your heifer and you alot of trouble/money/worry.
i think iam right in saying even at 6 months the foetus will be still small and should slip out ok.
If you heifer is reasonable well grown, I would think hard about terminating the pregnancy if you wish to breed with her at a later date as I had a similar situation where the bull had got to a heifer which was far to young to be in calf so we injected her and i never got her in calf again.
I also brought a 6mth old heifer many years ago and she was already unbeknown to us in calf to her father, she rejected the calf and did not have any milk but i bottled reared it and left her another 18mths before i put her back in calf and she never looked back.
If mum is back in calf I'd leave a young bull on for at least 6mths longer if he's not pulling her down, I often left the calves to wean them selves if their mums are staying in reasonable condition. if his mum is not back in calf I guess it depends on the height of the bull calf in ratio to his mother. I would certainly not run a young bull over 6mths with heifer calf's of a similar age and if he's a big lad he could I'm sure cover older ones at that age.
Unless he is an acceptable good animal and you plan to keep him for breeding purposes I would get him castrated much less trouble. :p
Clive, I imagine the rig was Dexter rather than cross-bred given that it was mature enough to impregnate 5 to 6 months ago, or has time gone faster than that?
A crossbred could be more of a worry, but in either case she may need a caesarian, but so might any cow at any age for any reason. At least you know to watch her.
She probably needs feeding up in the earlier stages and controlled intake in the last month, so the calf doesn't get any bigger than necessary.
Discuss this with your vet. Certainly monitor her forage intake very carefully (no concentrates) ... from our past experience it is more than likely she will require a caesarian, especially if it was the rig and his sire was an angus. If she was a non-short heifer probably not a worry.
As a matter of course we now estrumate all our heifers three weeks after the bull has been removed and we're using Dexter on Dexter. I presume the culprit in your case may have been a rig.
We have had no after effects - any retained heifers go on to get in calf at the right time without a problem.
I've now looked carefully back through my records and she was moved to an all female group six months and one week ago. So she is definitely over 6 months pregnant. The vet said she can be induced early but did not recommend it. I think that's what she said, I'll ask again.
Some of the others may be pregnant because they were in a group of 50 mixed, but most had only been with the rig for 10-12 weeks, so he is now removed and all females I do not want to breed from and all small/younger ones will be estrumated in a few weeks time.
It's a Dexter rig but from a line that produces quite large calves. If it was from my Beaver line I would be less concerned as they are always born very small, but it isn't.
She's lost a bit of condition but she's OK. She was outside, so now I've brought her in and put her with the Moms & Calves group.
I'm going to get the vet to do all castrations from now on at about 3 months, both dexters and composites.
Just spoke to vet who said to take it full term and do a CS. So I'm just going to pen her up, keep her especially clean and ready, and control her feed etc.
I think we paid closer to £400 for a c-section on a 19mth old heifer who calved last April. She has recovered very well but I have kept her away from the bull to give her a full year off before being served again.
We used to have the occasional one in the milking herd and one of my first bought in Dexters had stolen the bull, so she needed one but went straight back to the bull and calved fine next time.
In my opinion it is a good idea to get her in calf soon enough for her to half her first natural birth before 3 years of age.
Surely as long as the vet that did the op doesn't say that there is likely to be a problem and she gets in calf OK, she should be kept.
. It looks like the culprit is a rig. He was rubber ringed because he has no sack at all, and when I do them I do them extremely carefully and if I haven't got two definite testicles, I leave it for the vet. I now leave them all for the vet as it happens, because my farmer friend down the road had the same problem with a rig getting everything pregnant and it created havoc. 
