Our first set of twins!!

[SKF]

Yesterday we had our first set of twins. Unfortantly we have a bull and heifer. We have had a few problems with mom taking care of both calves she is happy as long as she has one. She keeps leaving one calf and only taking care of one but we have been we have been busy chasing her down with her 2nd calf. I figure once they figure out who their mother is they will keep up but right now which ever one gets left it will follow the first cow or person it sees. What are the odds that are heifer is not a freemartin?

 

[clubcalve]

We had two sets of twins this year one of the pairs I always had to take a calf to her that lasted for about two weeks

 

[LN]

If you have the cow with other lactating females you'll be surprised by how sneaky twins can be. We had a set this year and they were always sneaking milk from other mommas. It was pretty amusing to watch.

Odds that she isn't a freemartin ~10%

 

[CPL]

Congratulations. Your heifer probably has a good chance of being a FM, however if she turns out pretty good that test is not too expensive.

I take it you're planning on leaving both calves on the cow? When do you wean your calves? If you only leave them on for about 4 months or so it might not be a big deal, but if you don't wean until 8 months you could see some problems. Hope everything goes well, but normally twins are more of a headache.

 

[SKF]

Congratulations. Your heifer probably has a good chance of being a FM, however if she turns out pretty good that test is not too expensive.

I take it you're planning on leaving both calves on the cow? When do you wean your calves? If you only leave them on for about 4 months or so it might not be a big deal, but if you don't wean until 8 months you could see some problems. Hope everything goes well, but normally twins are more of a headache.

We are going to try and leave both calves on the mother and then we will try to wean at around 4months. Of all the cows to have twins it would to be the crazy cow. Most of our cows are very tame excpet for her so getting her penned up with her calves is hard to do. The only reason we keep that crazy cow is because she has very nice calves. The kids are enjoying the twins since it is something different and they are cute. Just really wish they had been the same sex.  My daughter named them Johny and June.

 

[HT]

We had a set of twins born last year, the cow weaned 1100lbs of calf! There is a good chance she is a FM. But theres a chance  bull calf will be fertile.

 

[linnettejane]

cute calves and i love the names!  <cowboy>

 

[Jill]

I hate twins, give me one good one any day of the week.  Your bull should be fine, but chances are your heifer is a free martin, it's usually pretty easy to tell, good luck.

 

[DL]

There is some evidence that a bull twin to a heifer has decreased fertility - but he should not be sterile

There is about 95% chance the heifer is a freemarten - you can spend a lot of money on testing or wait until she is big enough and have her palpated or ultrasounded to see if she has all the appropriate parts. You can also do (or have your vet do) the "test tube test" which I think was covered before (basically with freemartens the tube doesn't go very far in the vagina) ....I personally think twins are fun and it is always interesting to watch them learn to steal ! Good luck

 

[kanshow]

Yea, there is a good chance the bull will be fertile and the heifer will not.    We usually check them similar to what DL described at weaning - or when the rest of the peer group is starting to cylce good.   

Twins are a mixed blessing..  we had 7 sets this spring and I have to say when I was bottle feeding 6 calves I HATED twins.  However when we were able to foster most of them over to cows that had lost calves - thus allowing some good cows to stay in the herd, all was well.  We ended up with 2 bucket calves that we didn't have a cow for and one of those will be shown by our 5 year old daughter as a bucket calf. 

Cow-raised twins are horrible thieves which is the reason we usally try to pull one off.    We had a set of cow-raised twin heifers that made it to the replacement pen last year & calved this spring.    They are both raise nice looking singles this spring as first calf heifers BUT..  they have to be kept separate from all the others as they (the grown twins) will suck on any cow that lets them.  They will go to town this fall.