Getting Heifers In Calf

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32233, 27 February 1970, Page 6

Getting Heifers In Calf

“As a veterinarian I feel that the only difficult calver is the heifer that has been pampered—that is fed rashly—in the'later stages of pregnancy and the calf has got too big,” Mr R. L. Bell, a member of the council of the British Charolais Cattle Society, Ltd, told Charolais cattle breeders and a party of Australian cattle buyers when they inspected recently imported Charolais and Charolais cross cattle at Oxford last week.

A veterinarian who accompanied a shipment of 30 cattle to New Zealand and who breeds Charolais cattle himself on the Scottish border in Cumberland, Mr Bell, said it was possible to mate a beef heifer at the age of 18 months and get away with it provided that the heifer was handled correctly. Such heifers, including the pure Charolais, needed to be fed as much as possible until it was established that they were in calf and about three months into pregnancy, when they should be put on the hill on a basic diet and given plenty of exercise so that not too much weight was put into the calf. A Charolais, he said, carried her calf about a week longer than other beef breeds—about 280 days on average—and a heifer which carried a week longer when fed heavily produced a big calf. He had calved such females at 287 days with a calf weighing 1341 b. The normal weight of a calf in a Charolais heifer would, however,' be 80 to 901 b and where an Aberdeen Angus heifer was properly looked after it would have a calf of 60 to 701 b. Beef breeds when crossed with the Charolais bull did not constitute any great calving risk, he said, and among the dairy breeds the best breed from a calving point of view was the Ayrshire with the Jersey being “fair” and the Friesian “a poor risk.” As far as conformation was concerned the beef breeds were good and with the dairy breeds the best conformation was also obtained with the Ayrshire. In selecting heifers to put with the Charolais Mr Bell said that matters to be considered also included weight for age, condition of teeth or mouth and feet and width between the pin bones, which was important in the heifer.

Where an animal was being artificially inseminated he urged that it was important from a fertility point of view to have a second teaser bull in the yards at the time of the operation and he said it was most important that calves should receive their mothers’ milk in the first five hours after birth to prevent the occurrence of calf scours.

Where a bull had just come out of quarantine after a sea voyage to this country, Mr Bell said, it could not be guaranteed that after such a disturbance it would get calves for three months Bulls sold in Perth in Scotland were notorious for being infertile for the first three months after the sale. It was three months before semen produced in an animal became mature.

Vitamin E, he said, helped fertility in bulls and heifer? and in Britain old stock men had found that hay with a high proportion of timothy

in it would promote fertility. Referring to what he said was a particularly good Charolais bull, Mr JBell said that the traditional English breeder would criticise him because he had a crooked leg but what was not a good point on English standards was a good point in Charolais cattle. “That back leg does not look right but it is a beautiful leg on French standards," said Mr Bell. A Charolais bull had to have a crooked leg to give it spring as a sire. Mr Bell said he had gone into the Charolais business as a result of trials he had done on the profitability of barley beef production on a small farm that he conducted for experiments in association with his veterinary practice. He had found that cattle containing Charolais blood were faster growers than other breeds and crosses.