Heifers in calf to their father

The Real Elmer Fudd

Has any one got any experience with heifers in calf to their father or half brothers?

I bought a batch of heifers off a friend of mine who was in the building trade and is in financial difficulty. One of them sprung up a tiny elder within a fortnight of me buying them and calved at the tender age of 14 Months (as per her card!!!). Both heifer and calf are fine but the calf is more like a lamb than a calf and is either out of the father or a half brother of the heifer. He genuinely didnt know she was in calf and offered to take them back and refund my money but i no he cant afford to so i said id keep them as all was ok.

Problem is i have them a month now and ive only caught one of the other heifers bulling. None of them look in calf but neither did the one that calved. If they are incalf, it would be to their father or half brothers like the one previously mentioned. im getting them scanned next week but if they are in calf, should i be expecting little toy calves like the one calved or other deformities due to inbreeding? im thinking the calf i have is so small due to a combination of the heifer being so young, inbreeding, and i dont think she carried to full term.

also how far incalf is it til they are past the point of injecting them?

reilig

That's the problem with inbreeding. You don't know what you're going to get. Stunted calves are common. But its also common that the calf will be too big and you won't be able to get him out at calving time. "Crooked foot" is also another symptom of inbreeding - the calf won't stand up for a few weeks and when he or she does, it will have crooked feet and be unsaleable.
I'm not saying that any of the above are guaranteed, but there is a greater risk of them happening.

Thankfully its something that i don't have much experience of - I saw the above with an elderly neighbour a few years back.

ideally they have to be injected within 6 weeks of being bulled. I think it will work up to 12 weeks, but after 6 weeks, there is more of a chance of it not working.

The Real Elmer Fudd wrote: »

Has any one got any experience with heifers in calf to their father or half brothers?

I bought a batch of heifers off a friend of mine who was in the building trade and is in financial difficulty. One of them sprung up a tiny elder within a fortnight of me buying them and calved at the tender age of 14 Months (as per her card!!!). Both heifer and calf are fine but the calf is more like a lamb than a calf and is either out of the father or a half brother of the heifer. He genuinely didnt know she was in calf and offered to take them back and refund my money but i no he cant afford to so i said id keep them as all was ok.

Problem is i have them a month now and ive only caught one of the other heifers bulling. None of them look in calf but neither did the one that calved. If they are incalf, it would be to their father or half brothers like the one previously mentioned. im getting them scanned next week but if they are in calf, should i be expecting little toy calves like the one calved or other deformities due to inbreeding? im thinking the calf i have is so small due to a combination of the heifer being so young, inbreeding, and i dont think she carried to full term.

also how far incalf is it til they are past the point of injecting them?

jeff greene

I wouldn't worry too much, inbreeding or linebreeding has been used for yonks to breed desirable traits in the breed, look back at some prominent bulls in history and you'll see several shots of certain bulls on both sides of the pedigree.

Over the years we've had the odd case with stock bulls and never had disasters, infact they were better in some cases.

The Real Elmer Fudd

thanks lads,

I have them 5 weeks now so id say they are well past the 6 week stage if they are in calf. it could be a case where i have simply missed them bulling but i check them every morning at 7.30 so i thought id have a fairly good chance of catching them.

On the bright side i had intended bulling some of them anyway and beefing the rest and the bull they are out of and possibly in calf to is the nicest charlaios bull i have ever seen. He paid £3,000 punt for him 9 years ago and he still going strong, throwing super calves and is as quiet as a lamb. Not sure what he'd be like on heifers though, could be a bit of a pull.

I think if any of the rest of them are in calf it'll be a case of fingers crossed and hope for the best.

any other comments or suggestions are more than welcome

blue5000

Had one this year and it looks normal so far, as already said pedigree breeders did it years ago to breed for certain traits, called 'in and in' I think.

tismesoitis

a friend of mine sez line breeding if it works in breeding if it does'nt:cool:

The Real Elmer Fudd

Got the rest of the heifers scanned last night. None of them are in calf so happy days. Some of them havent had there first heat yet but will start in the next week or two and few others just havent cycled for awhile for some reason so thats why I havent caught many of them looking the bull. Main thing is they're not incalf to their father and wont be calving down at such a young age.