Saturday, February 27, 2010

Calf surprise

Well dh went to the weekly sale barn and came home with a little Angus x Simmental heifer. Side note: dh is no longer allowed to go to the sale barn :) Anyway, she's here and is a sweet little thing with a sad story. Born half of a twin, her mother died a few days ago when the VERY large bull attempted to mount her and broke her hips :( Fortunately we happen to know the farmer that this little lady came from so we are hoping for great thing from her :)

5 comments:

goatlady said...

Hope you didn't buy her to breed her. Female cows out of twins will not breed.

Tracy said...

Is she a bottle baby? How old of a heifer is she? You going to post a photo up?

Tracy said...

I'm not sure about what goatlady says. That is not universally true, and depends on whether the other "half" of the twin was male or female - do you know?
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Multiple+births+in+cattle+are+rare,+and+not+always+desirable-a013565215

Tracy

Janelle said...

She is on Treva, who has taken right to the little thing as if she were her own. :) It is most probable that goatlady is correct, the other half of the twin was male. The article you posted was also very informative. Pics coming soon, there are tons of surprises ;)

Tracy said...

Well, what goatlady said helped educate ME, too - because when I decided to delve deeper into the topic of freemartins, I found it can also happen (much more rarely) in goats. We just had a doe born in the female/male twin pair (the male died). Althought this probably won't be the case in our situation (since it is rare in goats) it is good to know these things.