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Post by Deleted on May 12, 2015 14:46:08 GMT
Had another bull calf born this morning. I need to figure out what is causing this. So out of the bull I used last year on 4 of my girls 3 of 4 were bull calfs. out of the cows that have been breed here I have had a grand total of 3 heifers born ever. I have had other heifers born here but they were not breed here. I had hopped switching up the bull would help. It did not. Of course he is the son of my bull who has given me so many bulls. It is not random chance I don't believe that year after year. It has to be genetics or environmental. It could be minerals I don't supplement much. I suppose it could be forage. I rotationaly graze and my cows are in very good condition because of it but cant see how that would equal bull calves.
My herd is heavily based on woodmagic it will be interesting to see what my colorado herd does after they have been here a while since it is completely different breeding. I sure hope they dont take the turn toward all bull calves to.
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Post by lonecowhand on May 12, 2015 16:02:49 GMT
How many years of breeding at that site, Mike?
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Post by Deleted on May 12, 2015 17:18:44 GMT
lonecow, going back to when I had my own bull his first calves started in 2012. before that I had borrowed bulls. I found this apparently the left ovary favors females and the right males. www.biolreprod.org/content/81/5/933.full |
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Post by genebo on May 12, 2015 17:23:52 GMT
Mike,
The dam has more to do with it than the sire. The sire makes fresh semen all the time, by splitting cells. The DNA strand is split in half. Since a bull is genetically XY to make it a male, splitting the strand will always make an equal number of X's and Y's. At that point he should throw 50/50 bulls and heifers.
The dam's eggs are all X's. She is XX, so that is all she can make. She only ripens one egg per cycle, usually.
Timing is rumored to have a lot to do with the sex of the offspring. If an X sperm reaches the egg first and fertilizes it, the offspring will be XX, or female. A Y sperm would make the offspring XY, or male. It is rumored that male sperm swim faster, but don't live as long. So to influence the percentage of female calves, do the insemination early. The male sperm (Y) will arrive first, before the egg is ripe, and be dead by the time the egg is ready, leaving the field open for the female (X) sperm. This timing is easy to control using AI. Using live service, you want to put the bull and cow together ahead of time.
Another way of controlling the result is by regulating the acidity of the female reproductive tract. An alkaline tract favors male sperm, while an acidic tract favors female sperm. An old wives tale says that you will get more female offspring by adding apple cider vinegar to their drinking water. That should make the cow's body more acidic. It may work. Lots of people swear by it.
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Post by lakeportfarms on May 12, 2015 17:55:23 GMT
I will say that when we had lots of apples for our cows to eat as we were cleaning up the orchard, we certainly had a higher percentage of heifers than we do now. So the apple cider vinegar may have some merit. The question is ...is it worth what it would cost to add it to the water?
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Post by Deleted on May 12, 2015 19:45:19 GMT
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Post by Deleted on May 13, 2015 13:08:53 GMT
make that 2 more bull calves. I got home last night to another bull calf.
Hans, one thing I suspect is that cows in better condition do to the rotational grazing that I do tend to have more bulls. have you noticed any connection to that. What percentages would you say you have?
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Post by lonecowhand on May 13, 2015 17:30:42 GMT
Congratulations Mike, I know you prefer heifers, but Beef steers are still valuable! The bioreprod.org study you linked is excellent, thank you.
Genebo, I've read about uterine pH affecting gender expression in human beings, I wonder if ingested vinegar affects that uterine environment.
Bill
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Post by genebo on May 13, 2015 18:03:58 GMT
Oops! Thanks for catching it! I'll edit it in the first post so it will be right.
We call them senior moments. You'll understand when you grow old.
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Post by lonecowhand on May 13, 2015 20:52:05 GMT
I understand all too well already!  |
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Post by lakeportfarms on May 13, 2015 21:20:17 GMT
Mike we've found with the rotational grazing we do seem to have a higher percentage of bulls. We thought it may have something to do with the cows being in a rather confined area, since we move them so frequently the grazing areas are small at any one time even though they are still covering some distance as they move through the pasture.
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Post by Deleted on May 13, 2015 21:40:57 GMT
I found this and it does suggest a correlation to better body condition. Bovine Article.pdf (177.2 KB) |
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Post by genebo on May 13, 2015 22:02:10 GMT
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Post by lonecowhand on May 13, 2015 23:04:18 GMT
Wow, Gene, you really had a run on cows from 2011-2014, I started looking to see if it was just our buddy Brenn, but I see Windridge Bantrybeth liked to throw bulls almost every time! Thats really an interesting spreadsheet, laid out like that! The heifer fairy has been kind to you, in fact looks like she took up residence!
Hans , do you have any sort of spread sheet-like format of info like this? All your cows run a Managed Grazing Program, right?
I'm trying to wrap my head around the evolutionary advantage of having bulls when the cows are well fed!
Bill
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Post by lakeportfarms on May 14, 2015 1:39:41 GMT
You could do the same with our breedings, and then click on the date to sort. We don't have a lot of ours registered in the ADCA though so you'd be missing quite a few, and we haven't registered all of the steers (bulls). I do have an Excel spreadsheet with all of the information on our herd, and the spreadsheet cell is set up to change colors with certain traits, like A2 status or chondro status, etc....
Our herd is all still in the sacrifice lots...the grass is growing now, but we wait until it gets going well before they go out. Our high today was still only 44 degrees, and lows in the upper 20's tonight and tomorrow night, even with a breeze off the lake. Good thing our apple trees haven't blossomed yet! That said, our grass is really coming in thick and lush. Every year of managed grazing provides a lot of improvement into the next year.
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Post by Deleted on May 14, 2015 14:16:52 GMT
gene, can you think of any management changes you may have made that unknowingly influenced it. Minerals maybe? I did find one study that seemed to find a correlation of Ca to K ratio and also sodium. However the short abstract was very confusing and seemed to contradict itself. I was not going to pay to see the full thing.
lonecow, I was having trouble with that theory to. But it does seam like they found a correlation to weight.
Ours would be much like hans an incomplete picture. I dont register steers and dont register bulls unless they are sold or used.
Hans, the rotational grazing does level off. I have some areas that have been in it the longest and they started off good to begin with that I think have peeked. I dont see much improvement in those areas each year.
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Post by genebo on May 15, 2015 0:24:28 GMT
Mike,
At around the time that my ratio changed from predominantly male to predominantly female, I had a goat come down with pregnancy toxemia. The vet blaimed it on low calcium levels in her body. I had my pastures heavily limed with calcium carbonate and changed to a loose mineral with a higher level of calcium.
I haven't had my pastures limed again, but I'm still feeding the same mineral I switched to back then. It would seem that what I did would make the pastures and their bodies more alkaline, favoring males.
A short time after the goat got sick, I began baling my own hay. Native grass fields that had not been limed or fertilized or seeded in many years. The hay was filled with every kind of green, growing things. That could have given them a more balanced diet than the cultivated hay that they formerly got.
I'm sure there are other factors that may have influenced it, but I can't guess what they might be.
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Post by Deleted on May 15, 2015 13:48:03 GMT
Our soil base here is lime stone. Their should be no shortage of that in the soil but some other mineral could be suspect.
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Post by wvdexters on May 16, 2015 13:06:33 GMT
We're expecting Kate's third calf this week. So far 2 dwarf bulls so we are really hoping for a little heifer this time. Fingers crossed.
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Post by genebo on May 17, 2015 1:35:44 GMT
Get out there in the rain and do the heifer dance.
Post pictures.
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Post by lakeportfarms on May 17, 2015 13:20:59 GMT
Hope you get your heifer this time Karrie!
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Post by wvdexters on May 23, 2015 23:34:18 GMT
Well, after making me wait an x-tra 2 days, I found a new little addition in with Kate this morning. All I can say is that you just must be a heck of a dancer Gene, at least better than me because yes.................it's another boy. LOL
Yep. But he is a cutie, and a really nice calf. Probably in the upper 30# range, all black, and already a bit of an explorer.
They're doing great. He must have been born sometime during the night/ very early morning. I found them at 6am and he was up, belly full and looking all around. Nice and easy.
Now for the name, I hate to admit it but I only had a girl's name picked out. We'll have one by tomorrow. And as for that heifer dance, I'm expecting some lessons next month. At least a "secret" step or two.
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Post by lakeportfarms on May 24, 2015 1:54:58 GMT
Sheril and I always say "healthy is good!" Is that it for calving season?
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Post by genebo on May 24, 2015 2:43:41 GMT
Who is the Daddy?
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Post by wvdexters on May 25, 2015 3:41:07 GMT
Yes, just expecting one this spring. We named him Jacob and he really is a nice little fellow. Jet black and really solid. I'm guessing a dwarf like his mama; she makes the prettiest calves. One thing for sure he definitely won't starve. LOL He was sired by Jams Jessin Gaim who "visited" with us last year.
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