dcbehle
Well-known member
We have had an extremely unusual breeding season. Of note, we have a tiny herd and are hobby cattlemen.
After 6 years of over 70% success with AIing our cows and heifers, we hit on only 22% of them this year. It has been a humbling and expensive lesson and I'm curious if anybody else has had a bad spring with breeding?
My son started an Angus herd in 2006. He has a passion for cattle and will be starting his agribusiness degree at UNL next week. We have had great support from a few area cattlemen and it has resulted in a small but successful herd. Our most recent calf crop that we sold averaged $3,250 last year. This year we have by far our best bull calf and heifer calf on the ground and are excited to market our spring born calves out of Soo Line Motive.
The big problem we have is that we had our preg checking done last Friday and found that only 1 of our 3 cows and 1 of our 3 heifers settled in breeding to Soo Line Motive. Only one of the pregnancies was from our first cycle of breeding in early June. One heifer settled after a 2nd breeding cycle. We did notice that 2 of the 3 heifers that were bred in early June came into heat during the last week of July while being exhibited at our county fair. One of our cows was bred twice, but we have not noticed any other signs of heat. Our cows are checked and fed distillers range cubes daily and are in a rotational pasture grazing that has been in very good condition this year outside of a few weeks in early July when we had an extended dry spell.
The cows were all around a 6 for body condition score when bred and have maintained it through the summer. One of the cows came back in a 4 score from winter pasture, but she improved her body condition all summer long and is the only one to settle during the early June breeding. We purchased the semen from our ABS rep and the semen never left the tank until moments before breeding. The tank is properly charged and the other semen that was in the tank has been used this spring and summer with excellent success.
We used CIDRs and Select Synch protocol from ABS with a timed AI 74 hours after the CIDRs were pulled and the PG was injected. 2 of the 6 were observed in standing heat 12 hours prior to breeding and all but one of the females felt firm when breeding. The one heifer felt marginal and never showed signs of heat again until late July. The breeder who helped us owns a dairy farm and breeds 15 to 20 cows/heifers each week on his dairy and has been doing this for over 20 years. As many cows as he has been around, I know he has a great feel for what will likely settle and what will not. He has bred our Angus since 2007 and this is the first time we've had more than one not settle after the first breeding cycle.
No cleanup bull is used as we've never had more than 6 to breed in a season and have never had an open cow come fall.
Finally, we used KAMAR heatmount detectors on the one suspect heifer after the first breeding to assist us with our visual daily inspection. After 15 weeks of daily monitoring of our small herd, we have only witnessed two come in heat in the pasture since the original breeding and two heifers that came in heat while being at the county fair. These animals are very docile as every animal that we've raised has been in the show ring at some point in their life. Everything we have over 6 months of age can be haltered in the pasture with just a few range cubes in hand.
Has anybody else had a rash of unsettled cows/heifers like this? Any chance that we had a bad batch of semen? All semen was from Soo Line Motive and this was our 2nd year of using him. Last year every female settled after the first breeding. This year we purchased the first round of semen from our ABS rep, and we got a few straws from another breeder for the two females that came in heat in late June.
After 6 years of over 70% success with AIing our cows and heifers, we hit on only 22% of them this year. It has been a humbling and expensive lesson and I'm curious if anybody else has had a bad spring with breeding?
My son started an Angus herd in 2006. He has a passion for cattle and will be starting his agribusiness degree at UNL next week. We have had great support from a few area cattlemen and it has resulted in a small but successful herd. Our most recent calf crop that we sold averaged $3,250 last year. This year we have by far our best bull calf and heifer calf on the ground and are excited to market our spring born calves out of Soo Line Motive.
The big problem we have is that we had our preg checking done last Friday and found that only 1 of our 3 cows and 1 of our 3 heifers settled in breeding to Soo Line Motive. Only one of the pregnancies was from our first cycle of breeding in early June. One heifer settled after a 2nd breeding cycle. We did notice that 2 of the 3 heifers that were bred in early June came into heat during the last week of July while being exhibited at our county fair. One of our cows was bred twice, but we have not noticed any other signs of heat. Our cows are checked and fed distillers range cubes daily and are in a rotational pasture grazing that has been in very good condition this year outside of a few weeks in early July when we had an extended dry spell.
The cows were all around a 6 for body condition score when bred and have maintained it through the summer. One of the cows came back in a 4 score from winter pasture, but she improved her body condition all summer long and is the only one to settle during the early June breeding. We purchased the semen from our ABS rep and the semen never left the tank until moments before breeding. The tank is properly charged and the other semen that was in the tank has been used this spring and summer with excellent success.
We used CIDRs and Select Synch protocol from ABS with a timed AI 74 hours after the CIDRs were pulled and the PG was injected. 2 of the 6 were observed in standing heat 12 hours prior to breeding and all but one of the females felt firm when breeding. The one heifer felt marginal and never showed signs of heat again until late July. The breeder who helped us owns a dairy farm and breeds 15 to 20 cows/heifers each week on his dairy and has been doing this for over 20 years. As many cows as he has been around, I know he has a great feel for what will likely settle and what will not. He has bred our Angus since 2007 and this is the first time we've had more than one not settle after the first breeding cycle.
No cleanup bull is used as we've never had more than 6 to breed in a season and have never had an open cow come fall.
Finally, we used KAMAR heatmount detectors on the one suspect heifer after the first breeding to assist us with our visual daily inspection. After 15 weeks of daily monitoring of our small herd, we have only witnessed two come in heat in the pasture since the original breeding and two heifers that came in heat while being at the county fair. These animals are very docile as every animal that we've raised has been in the show ring at some point in their life. Everything we have over 6 months of age can be haltered in the pasture with just a few range cubes in hand.
Has anybody else had a rash of unsettled cows/heifers like this? Any chance that we had a bad batch of semen? All semen was from Soo Line Motive and this was our 2nd year of using him. Last year every female settled after the first breeding. This year we purchased the first round of semen from our ABS rep, and we got a few straws from another breeder for the two females that came in heat in late June.
