First heifer of 2015

[lakeportfarms]

Finally, after a string of 6 bull calves, we got our first heifer since August.  And a perfect little one at that!  Mazie delivered a little 25 lb heifer yesterday morning, her second calf.  Not much doubt that she's a dwarf due to her size, and black.  At least Mazie picked a pretty warm day (for here) to do it, the temperature was a bit above freezing.  We still brought Mazie's heifer in to warm her up and dry her off by the wood stove after letting her be with her mother for a couple of hours, since the temperature was due to drop off during the afternoon.

We'll have several more calving in the next couple of weeks, then maybe a short break until March when the flood really comes.  Sheril and I are hoping to move up the latest calvers by a month or two so we can bring the into late fall calving, and reduce the numbers of December,January, and February calving when we have our coldest weather.

[morningstarfarm]

Congratulations on your new little heifer Hans.
We also have one cow that is due to calve soon and I'm hoping the weather stays a little warmer for her. Like you our others are due to calve in March or later and that's the time I would prefer, although two years ago we had a late March snow and one our little heifers almost had frost bite. That's what you get when you live close to the great lakes I suppose.
Anyway, congrats and may this be the first of many little heifers for 2015.

[lonecowhand]

Great news, Hans! Hope it's a heifer streak on the way. How are you and Sheril going to "move up the latest calvers"?

Do we get photos? I like those hearth shots!

[Donlin Stud]

Congrats Lakeport on the new arrival and a heifer to boot.

We thought we did pretty for the first time having all 2015 calves to arrive in early October (middle of spring)within a 2 week period.............very exciting until during the check period one of two heifers (Aleala)came back into heat.

But we worked out this was our fault: our shortie bull Bailey’s first season should not have been located next to the second-in-charge Anka; and one of Bailey’s chosen girls should not have been the matriarch of the herd, Midori.
She is dominant when someone is cycling, more so we think because we were running the ‘girls’ herd and a ‘boys herd’.

But never to mind, Aleala will only lag 13 days after the rush so will have plenty to watch and see how its all done before she has her very own.

And there will be next year to time it again within a very short period to help control my blood pressure and lack of sleep

[lonecowhand]

Good for you guys ,Donna. It seems like you've already got it dialed in, if the critters would just cooperate!

[genebo]

Good job, Hans.

I suspect there will soon be a trail worn in the carpet between the barn and the wood stove. You are going to have some spoiled calves that may well learn to knock on the door when it gets cold outside!

[cascade]

I'll cross my fingers for you, in hopes that she's at least 36" tall by her 3rd birthday, so she will meet the Dexter breed description.

"The ideal three year old Dexter cow measures between 36 to 42 inches"

[lakeportfarms]

Jan 20, 2015 1:27:46 GMT genebo said:

Good job, Hans.

I suspect there will soon be a trail worn in the carpet between the barn and the wood stove. You are going to have some spoiled calves that may well learn to knock on the door when it gets cold outside!

I think she's already learned Gene.  We have maybe 6" between the bottom of the door to the stall and the floor level.  When I got here this morning, I went out to the barn and found her outside the stall.  Good thing the barn door was locked !

I'll have to get a photo of mother's udder when we put her out.  It's absolutely beautiful on her second lactation.  Mazie is out of Sunshine, who is one of our traditional girls.  Her sire Timber did a pretty nice job too.  Her heifer out of Mike last year (short) is doing very nicely, and this heifer we believe is out of Dylan, who is Mike's son.  We will have to PV to be sure, because with Mike's difficulty in getting around and the young age of our other bulls with many cows to service in that herd, we ran two or three bulls in there (all Mike's) to breed the girls.  All were A2/A2, dun, chondro dwarf, and out of really nice cows.

Thanks for your well wishes Kirk.  If I measure her and she doesn't make it to 36" at 3 years, I'll just pretend I measured 36" or 38" and tell everybody that's how tall she is.  Isn't that how it's done with AI bulls?

[lakeportfarms]

Jan 19, 2015 16:41:30 GMT lonecowhand said:

Great news, Hans! Hope it's a heifer streak on the way. How are you and Sheril going to "move up the latest calvers"?

Do we get photos? I like those hearth shots!

Often times they will move up on their own, with good condition, mineral, and conditions for breeding.  I'd hope that all of the January calvers this year will become December calvers at the latest, if not November.  Gene can tell you about a few of his cows that have had calves 9 months after they last calved!  The best we've had is 10 months, but it happens fairly frequently.  A good bull helps too...Mike used to get the job done right away, but in the past year he really started to have difficulty.  The bulls we've been relying on to back up Mike have not been quite as mature.  Dylan is the oldest of the group, and he seems a little too laid back for me.  

We have an up and coming bull who's a year old that every time we look at him we go WOW!  His name is Yule, and he's out of Whoopie, who is Mike's half sister (out of Mike's mother, but a different bull).
Yule has inherited Whoopie's beautiful lines.  He tracks beautifully, is very masculine, and is a "show" bull in every respect.  We'll be bringing him to Virginia.  At the Armada fair last year, the judge selected him as Junior bull champion, beating two of the Wieringa's AGM national champion bulls, both of whom were older.  And we know next to nothing about showing, so he's off to a good start.

Well, I say WOW now when I look at him...when he was first born I told Sheril I wanted to steer him, that we already had too many nice bulls.  Good thing he was born in December and we had such a brutal cold winter so I didn't want to go out and try to catch him, and Sheril kept telling me don't!  By the time the warm weather rolled around (that would have been July...lol) he was really starting to look good.

So, unless the boss agrees I'm never going anywhere near any of Whoopie's boys again with a bander!  I'll have to take a good photo of Yule so you can all see.