Twins!

[lakeportfarms]

I'll post the photos later, Sheril and I are tired and need some sleep...but our 14 year old chondro cow, Louise, had twins early Easter Sunday.  Looks like one short legged boy, and a long legged girl.  The sire of the twins, King, was born on Christmas day a little over two years ago of all things...

[wvdexters]

What a surprise Easter gift. Congratulations!!! Enjoy

[cascade]

Fun!
Will be interesting to test the girl.

www.vgl.ucdavis.edu/services/freemartin-cattle.php

[otf]

Hope that all is going well with them!
Gale

[lonecowhand]

Congratulations on the two-fer, Hans and Sheril!
That's cool that you may have both types in one go. Now you get to think of names for these two cuties!
Is there ever a such thing as identical twins in cattle that you've heard of?

[cascade]

Yes, Identical twins occur, but they are much more rare...

Here's an interesting article about twins

www.thecattlemanmagazine.com/archives/2011/04/rmg-april-2011.html

[Donlin Stud]

Im not sure my blood pressure would cope with twins

Congrats to mum and bubs arriving safe'n'sound

[lakeportfarms]

Well, it's been a hectic couple of days...Early Easter Sunday was quite an experience.   I'll try to be as brief as possible here, but Louise started showing signs of calving late Saturday, but nothing significant, so we went home for a couple of hours to get something to eat and take care of some things.  Around 11, we drove back to the farm and checked up on her, where she was definitely starting to have contractions and doing the usual sniffing the ground walking in circles so Sheril watched while I took care of some other things.  An hour or so passed and she was up and down a couple of times, and pushed a bit, but it wasn't progressing as fast as we would like to see.  We gave her a bit more time, and then decided we should see how the calf was presenting.  Uh oh....we didn't feel a head or legs, and it felt like a breech.  So then came the process of trying to find the legs and bring them around.  We managed to get one, but the other just couldn't be found.  At this point the calf had to come out, mom was getting a bit tired and she looked like she was ready to lay down again.  So I pulled on the one leg, and out came the calf without too much effort.  I did a quick check, it was alive, and I cleared the nose and face and quick check of the sex where I saw teats and pronounced it a heifer, but I was just looking quickly.

Because of the fact it was a breech we checked her again and found two front legs!   Wow!!!  Twins!   The head of the second was turned to the side and backwards though, so the calf had to be pushed in a bit to get the head in the right position.  We managed to get the front legs to where Sheril could also pull, and out popped the second calf, a boy!   Louise was great the whole time, we didn't even have her tied, she just stood there in a 12x12 stall.  The first one was definitely a long leg, and the second was clearly a short leg.   Both dun (the sire King is dun, and so is Louise.

The shorty was pretty good about finding the teats, but the long leg one (that was breech), didn't really seem to be interested.  Sheril got the electric clippers, shaved Louise's udder (a lot of long hair from the winter still on it with some mats), and then washed it with warm soapy water, dried it off, and then tried to get all 4 teats going with a nice milk stream.  She then rubbed the milk on the udder.  Eventually she was able to guide the long leg one to take a drink.  By then it was about 3 am, and we were tired.  We left them in the stall to go back and get a few hours sleep.  We slept in a bit, then went back over to the farm to check on everything.  All looked well, but the long leg one still didn't seem to be too interested in having a drink.  We went to church and then Sheril's uncle had a family get together (they're right down the street now, which is nice).  Later that evening we went back, and Sheril tried to get the long leg one to drink again.  Stubborn thing, and Sheril did a bit more investigation and realized that I had made a mistake...It was actually a bull calf!

So we have two bull calves, one long legged and one short legged.  Sheril chose Mike for the shorty, and Louis for the long leg boy.  The sire is King, who is out of Shamrock Mike and our cow Fisher Creek Farm Luc.  Louise is out of Flo's Gracie, who was also Shamrock Mike's mother.  So there is a lot of Mike in the genetics and we thought it would be a fitting name.  And Louis fits since the dam is Louise.  

Anyway, it seems that Louis (the long leg bull) is drinking just fine, and he gets the left side of Louise's udder.  Little Mike gets the right side.  It could be that Sheril was trying to get Louis to drink from the right side and that is why he wouldn't

[otf]

Wow, great work getting those calves out alive! And even better having two of the same gender. You know we need to see more photos when you get a chance. Hope she continues to nurse and mother both okay!

Gale

[genebo]

Good job, Hans. Congratulations.

[lonecowhand]

Congratulations on Two Easter Bulls, what a long ordeal!

[jamshundred]

Oh Hans.  Such adorable,  I have always wanted twins.  The watch kettle never boils!  congratulations. Lots of meat for the freezer.   Those look like good size calves. Poor Momma. 

Judy

[jamshundred]

Hans

it was mentioned to me that no one on the thread has mentioned free martin genetics in twins. . I knew you would know and I just did not stop and think that an opportunity existed for those not familiar with this issue with twins.   The free martini status is present in about 80 or 90 per cent of heifers born with male sibling.  TWin fetuses share fluids during their growing process and these include sex genes. A female will thus share male characteristics will her sibling that will reduce their reproductive abilities or render them infertile. This is a simplistic description and specifics are easily accessible to those with an interest with a google search.   

A local Dexter friend had a pair of twin males. One of them stayed very small and the other grew rapidly and was beefed. The tiny one was weak as a calf and he was bottle fed. He is now about five years old and such a gentle pet he still lives in the back yard. He is a very pretty bull but his testicles are not "normal". 

Judy

[lakeportfarms]

Hi everybody, I've been super busy this past week but it turns out that both were boys, so the freemartin issue won't apply in this case. But it's pretty cute to see a shorty bull and a long leg bull, both dun in color, with their 14 year old shorty mom Louise. They're still in the stall, the melting snow and thaw here has our ground so muddy I can't begin to describe how bad it is, other than I have just scrapped a pair of socks after having a knee length boot sucked off while I'm in the middle of their feeding area (yeah, not entirely all mud as you might expect) and having to walk in it to go back and try to extract the boot.

It's supposed to be sunny and in the lower 50's though for the next few days, and I'm starting to see a hint of green grass on the south facing slopes...hooray! Maybe we'll get some photos this weekend if we have some time.

Anyway, both boys are doing well and drinking well, and we're making the exception with Louise and feeding her grain on an increasing basis with vitamins and minerals mixed in in order to try to keep her in good shape and even put some weight on her, because she's pretty thin now.  I think she's having trouble with just grass, because her teeth are worn now.  She'll be pampered for some time to come, she's such a pretty cow, out of the same cow as Mike was too. We'd like to breed her once more to a nice bull and try to get a shorty girl from her.  But for now she is so proud of her boys!

This is Louise:
dextercattle.org/pedigreedb/ponyweb.cgi?horse=11924&HorseName=shamrock%20louise&Page=1&Sort=0

[Deleted]

"yeah, not entirely all mud as you might expect"
I would be surprised if there was any of it mud. We can call it organic material if that makes you feel better about walking through it barefoot.
at least you didnt get both boots stuck at once resulting in a face plant

[wvdexters]

Mudd!   I can't tell you what we call it here.    The rule we use is it's fertilizer unless you step in it - but Then it's called .   LOL  I have never done the complete face plant, but I have gone to my knees once or twice.  And yes, more than one sock has gone into the burn barrel.

I can imagine that it must be terrible up there right now.  With such a high water table and flat ground, there would be no place for it to go.  It get's pretty bad around here in the lower areas, especially where the ground is soft and they walk a lot - like around the water tub.   But the higher sections do dry out pretty quickly so they can lay up in there.  We also try to feed on the knolls so the hay stays drier. 

We have never had twins here, but we have a friend who had 3 sets last spring.  Two from a mother/daughter and another from an unrelated cow.  They breed angus and I believe he got lucky and they were all same sexes. 

Louise is a beautiful cow.  Really, really nice.  I hope you do get a dwarf heifer from her.  Is this her first set of twins? 

[lakeportfarms]

We put Louise out of the stall yesterday since it was so nice outside, and it looks like spring has finally arrived!  I can actually see some green grass now, but it has a lot of growing to do!   Hopefully it dries out some so I can get into some areas of the pasture that Louise is presently in by herself that got mudded up last fall and get some annual rye and clover started.  Things have really improved in the past week...

So here she is with her twin boys, one long legged and one short legged as you can see!  I'm happy to have her out of the stall, since she's so old (I suspect her teeth are worn), thin (especially after the cold winter and carrying two calves all winter), and has two calves on the ground now we have no choice but to get her on grain now to keep and hopefully increase her weight.  She tore a ligament last year, and the vet said to get the weight off then. Now we have to try to get some back on her with twin boys sucking her dry all the time.   Anyway, since we have never fed grain in the past and only grass/alfalfa hay, the manure in the stalls was fairly easy to manage, but with the grain like we're giving to Louise, it becomes a slimy smelly tan color mess and needs constant cleaning.  I really like the grass/hay diet a LOT more!