Pelvic measure data?

[aj]

I calf hood vaccinated and pelvic measured 25 replacement heifer calves at about 9 months of age. The average measurement was 13 x 11.61. What are some of the larger show heifers measurements around the country. Is there any data bases for pelvic measurements etc.. My heifers were all Shorthorn-Red Angus composites except 2 purebred Shorthorn. Their average BWt's 72.5 pounds. The vet rejected 2 heifers because of unacceptable measurements. Thanks in advance.

 

[BroncoFan]

I'm surprised that nobody has commented yet. More people should check the pelvis on their heifers. I believe when you focus too much on calving ease you are shortening the long bones. The pelvis is also a long bone. So you have to keep breeding smaller and smaller birth weights to compensate.

 

[aj]

When you say shorten up do you mean the verticle height of the pelvis opening?

 

[BroncoFan]

I believe I'm saying the whole pelvic bone as a whole including height, width, etc.

 

[Mill Iron A]

I have been around a lot of people who used to pelvic a lot of replacements. Then after so many years they realized they were mostly getting rid of the smaller animals anyway. I help A.I. on a lot of large commercial ranches and anymore we just tell them if they are to small pelvis and they cut them off to sell right then and there and this seems to work well. I completely agree with the selecting for calving ease narrowing pin width. So not sure that helps. I agree with you but I'm wondering if there needs to be a different approach to  truly measure what we are talking about. In the same breath if we got rid of the ones that couldn't calve when all of the contemporaries calved to the same sire just fine we might be better off doing it that way.

 

[aj]

The Red Angus has the epd that deals with maternal calving ease...........I think this is a great tool if the accuracy is up there. I think that this would indirectly measure pelvic area. Wasn't it Cherokee Canyon .......or some bull that ended up having daughters that had some kind of pelvic problems? I would agree that larger cow have larger pelvic areas......usually. I would think that just culling off the bottom 10% might be an adequate approach.

 

[b_kackley]

What ever happened to pelvic measurements on Bulls? Years ago we bought our bulls from the bull test here in Ohio (no longer exists) they always listed the pelvic measurements of the Bulls and we always used this info. I would like to know the pelvic measurement on Bulls as well as heifers.

 

[librarian]

I helped commercial producers do pelvic measurements every year they culled the bottom 10% based on height. But they still had calving problems. The vet told me to think of the pelvis as a rectangle with the long side vertical. No matter how long that side is, if the width is too narrow there will be problems.
Also this is where I learned about Angus heifers out of calving ease bulls not making the best replacements. These were the same folks who had used Summitcrest bulls like Phred, then decided the calves were too big. Then they went to calving ease and that didn't work out either.
I think this is a hazard of promoting Shorthorn bulls to the calving ease generation of Angus. Our bulls come from cows with the ability to have big calves. I hate to see that traded away for low BW.

 

[Mill Iron A]

completely off subject librarian but I like that bull you have in your avatar. Is he yours?

 

[BroncoFan]

We bought a cow a few years ago as a bred heifer a few years ago. To make a long story short Uncle Kracker (who is no where near calving ease bred her. Well when she started calving we loaded her up because we thought the calf would have to come out the side. This cow laid down while going 80mph down the highway and calved on her own. When we got to the vet the calf was up and sucking.

 

[librarian]

completely off subject librarian but I like that bull you have in your avatar. Is he yours?

It's not exactly off subject because Ralph Larson selects hard for maternal excellence.
So, yes. I took a drive to YY in Montana and got him and a paternal half sister. CCL6 x Dover breeding. I wanted Natural Service from CCL6th.
He's *, but just because one of the Dover cows wasn't registered. He's 100% Shorthorn.
Awesomely and just by luck, the heifer is bred to 4508.
All this calving ease starts with the cow, I don't know why we forget that sometimes.

 

[Dale]

CE Maternal is one of our priorities.  How does pelvic area relate to CE maternal (CEM)?  Surely the shape of the calf enters in somewhere.  Patrick Wall wrote that serious breeders need to breed for CEM.  Like selecting for a good Shorthorn disposition, the older I get, the more I like unassisted calving.

 

[Mill Iron A]

I am completely shorthorn illiterate but I do know that the epd they have should be directly comparable to red angus. Please post bigger picture and asa # and I think I should be able to fumble my way around from there.

On the CEM discussion... one of my absolute favorite bulls in the red angus breed is Cherokee Canyon but last I checked I think he was -16 CEM and this was legit. He had a big pelvis but all the daughters had a bone that stuck up and got in the way. So yes I believe CEM but again it's not one of those things you can even look at until the bull is heavily proven.

 

[aj]

The Black Angus breed is getting to have some huge cows in their high growth performance line. I assume that these cows have big pelvic pelvic areas......or not. If the Shorthorns have huge pelvic areas because the Shorthorn breed has huge cows......is that really a differentiated advantage, or just a statement that Shorthorns have big cows?

 

[librarian]

Here you go Mill Iron. He's getting stouter everyday.
Reg# AR4222338

 

[librarian]

I tried to figure out how they calculate these calving ease EPD's.
Pelvic measurements are not factored in. It looks like its CEM is some formula based on birth weight and "calving score". Calving score depends on subjective information on degree of calving assistance in heifers provided by the breeder.  That score will be statistically reflected in CEM- near as I can tell.
CED is a relative prediction of the likelihood unassisted births in 2 year old first calf heifers bred to a given bull.
CEM predicts likelihood of unassisted births in the 2 year old first calf heifer daughters of a given bull.
(as I understand it) Speaking for myself, I'd predict based on the pelvic measurement and some pertinent linear measurements.

"Calving difficulty is less common in mature cows, so the calving ease EPDs were designed as a genetic tool directed toward heifers.  In coming up with these scores, birth weights on all calves from the Angus Herd Improvement Records are used, but calving scores on just the first calf heifers are used in the genetic evaluation.  Heavy calves at birth tend to be associated with higher calving score, and the scoring is from 1 to 4, with 1 being an unassisted birth and 4 being a C-section birth.  Abnormal presentations are excluded from the evaluation; the main criterion is size of the calf in determining whether it will be easily born or not.
“Bulls with more favorable CED EPDs tend to have favorable CEM EPDs also, although this relationship is not perfect,” says Northcutt."
Qq
http://angusicon.com/2012/04/epd-excuse-me-please-decipher

 

[aj]

It looks like to me that natural selection would sort out the pelvic measuring problem. So I assume that there would be possibility of reaching the balanced state. But man will prevent this from happening because of assisting births and keeping the resulting offspring. I know of a couple Red Angus bulls that are supposed to be easy calving direct AND their daughters are supposed to be designed for easy calving.

 

[librarian]

Natural selection favors a pelvic geometry that looks to me like the cow is meant to deliver while standing so she can be on guard.

 

[jchandler16]

I found this an interesting topic and went ahead and bought a rice pelvimeter for me to check the pelvic area of my heifers and was wondering if the formula for determining calve size was accurate for show heifers as well? meaning a show animal is grain fed and will gain more weight faster and at a younger age then a commercial heifer who is grazing and receives supplemental forage. so does the added weight on a show animal give a false result?

 

[aj]

You can pelvic measure at 9 months right up to the time they calve....so age makes a difference. If you compare within herd that doesn't matter. I think 80% of show heifers are ruined as there rumens get burnt up with a high grain ration but that is a good question. If heifer replacements were on a real decent ration it looks like their bone development would be about the same or better than a high grain diet. Now if they were creep feed as a baby calf.......I don't know.....and then you have pellet creep vs. a high grain creep as differences.