overweight in-calf heifers - help please

[blackcow]

We have two short heifers expecting their first calves at end of April and June. How can I get some weight off them as I am concerned about calving problems. They have not been fed concentrates over the winter and have only been on poor quality grazing during the day and in at night on barley straw with access to a high mag bucket lick. They have had hay during January when snow was on the ground. We expected them to lose condition during the cold weather but haven't done.

[Broomcroft]

Shorts particularly can look enormous coming up to calving and it can be surprising what size calf they can deliver without much trouble. You could introduce nice clean straw as forage, but that needed doing some time ago really, but better late than never I suppose? I would still give them some hay as well to maintain them. Sometimes hay can look poor quality but be high in feed value unless you have had it tested you may not really know. Make sure any licks they have are not high protein versions, or soft ones that they can chew. They need their minerals somehow.

We've just calved two 14 months old (non-short) heifers accidentally in calf to an Angus bull. One calved with some help (a big calf) but we did not need a jack, and the other one who was small, had to have a CS. Just be ready with the equipment you may need and keep a close eye on them. When the water bag shows, have them penned and be ready to call the vet if in any doubt.

Good luck.



Edited By Broomcroft on 1270197910

[Duncan MacIntyre]

As Clive says it is surprising how they manage to calve. You do not say what age they are - I would be wary of cutting back feeding too much now because you do not want to limit the growth of the heifers. The calves will continue to grow at much the same rate no matter what you feed the mothers, but if you are too enthusiastic about dieting then the mothers will not grow as much as they should and your are actually more likely to have bother. Just reduce a little bit, nothing drastic. Calf size is to a great extent dependent on good nutrition in the early stages of placental development, and this is now past. So having been well fed in early pregnancy the size of calf is to a certain extent predetermined, just be sure the heifers keep on growing themselves.

Duncan

[blackcow]

Thanks for comments. We waited until they were 2yrs before putting in calf as we wanted spring/summer calves so they will be 3 this year.
We have been using very good quality feed straw as forage, it is what I use for my donkeys. They only had the hay during the really cold spell. It is not so much the size of their girth that concerns me as that is the calf, but one cow has large fat deposit lumps either side of her tail. The smaller cow has put on weight around her rump area and it is difficult to see her hip bones !
I may try and post a photo over the weekend.

[Mark Bowles]

It can be a tricky balancing act to get it right with the shorts. You really need to know your animals, ie their backgrounds, to have an idea wether they will be of a type to put weight or a type that do not carry the weight so much. If you have a type that is prone to getting fat and is big enough at 18 months then i would put them to the bull and not wait until they are older. Only one of my heifers have been held back until 23 monthes before she saw the bull and that was because of her overall size as apposed to her fitness. What i tend to do on my short first time heifers is use a junior bull (12/24 months) instead of my full grown senior bull, just to make sure that there is no damage on service from the bulls weight on them.
As the others have said, it is probably too late now, but be aware of the situation at calving so you can be ready to step in if there is a problem.

[Broomcroft]

PS. I've also just had 3 calves by cows that didn't get in calf last year because they were overweight and they still have fat lumps everywhere. All 3 had very small calves, again to an Angus not a Dexter but the fact they were fat did not translate into the calves for whatever reason. All other calves have been bigger. It surprised me I have to say, as I was expecting real trouble. So they may not be big calves when they arrive?

Maybe the calves felt the lack of room, send out their chemical distress signal to get me out of here a bit earlier? I can't remember these cows having small calves before!

[Saffy]

Hello Clive,

With the cows I have farmed in the past, I found the cows that tended to put on too much fat themselves often didn't milk well and didn't seem to have big calves.

Yet I have one Dexter cow that I can get no weight on, even though I dried her off early. She puts everything into the calf when she is in calf and then milks like crazy. I am feeding her broken wheat at the moment just to try to prevent her being total skin and bone.

I shall dry her off even earlier next time.

Hopefully these cows will have small calves.

I know that fat deposits around the milk producing areas in the early years, can greatly reduce an animals ability to produce milk for the rest of its life. Maybe fat deposits around the uterus, prevents a big calf?


Stephanie

[Broomcroft]

Yet I have one Dexter cow that I can get no weight on, even though I dried her off early. She puts everything into the calf when she is in calf and then milks like crazy. I am feeding her broken wheat at the moment just to try to prevent her being total skin and bone.

That's what I often get as well Stephanie. I always show people what is probably our best breeding cow when they visit, and I usually get a puzzled look. She gives everything to the calf and her calves are also good and beefy. If you went through my youngsters on farm now, you would almost certainly pick out hers as being the best (for my purposes).

Here she is in good condition. Over the winter carrying a calf and suckling one, she will look almost like a case for the RSPCA, even though I feed her nuts, rolled barley and molasses. She always has big calves, born easily. I would love to have a whole herd like this.



Her udder is a bit better than it looks in the photo and she produces a lot of milk.



Edited By Broomcroft on 1270294021