vanridge
Well-known member
Last night we got a phone call from my brother-in-law, who just happened to be driving past the pasture where we have our bred heifers and 3 cows with no calf. He had noticed a grey creature walking among them and was sure that it was a wolf so he went to check it out. Turned out to be a strapping grey bull calf from one of the cows. She was open last fall when we preg checked her but we really liked her so we kept her and gave her another chance. She has had 3 really nice calves and the only reason why she was open is because she only had one shot with the bull in the spring. Well, we brought her home and the only pen she could go in was the one where we were keeping the bull, so in January we gave her a shot of Lutalyse. She had been with the bull for 4 weeks. She was put in a pen with just cows and we left it at that. She was over weight this spring and we were concerned that she would still be open because we hadn't seen her cycle and we figured she was probably just too fat. She went with the heifers to the pasture this spring and we check them once a week. We looked on Sunday, everything looked normal, so we left but apparently we should have chased her up, because she calved on Tuesday. I have to say its an impressive calf, just born at completely the wrong time for us! Was wondering if anyone else had a story similar to this? My mother recalls when they were still in Europe a holstein heifer got bred way to early, they Lutalysed and she calved at 17 months of age.