Twin Update

[cracehole]

but then again maybe thats only in the dairy breeds idk

 

[shortyjock89]

They must be twins to bulls then. There is no reason for heifers that are twins to heifers to be infertile.  It's a bovine thing, not just a dairy thing.

 

[wpenrod]

My uncle has dairy and he has had many sets of twins, the ones that have been both heifers have always been breedable, you must have had something else wrong with your pair

 

[DCC_Cattle]

Shawn, those are great looking heifers! I would be proud to raise a set of twins like that!  (clapping)

 

[OH Breeder]

not to rain on the parade but as far as i know twins male and female are born infertile. I show dairy on the side and the only timee I can show a heifer is when it was a twin because then it's basically a bull to the dairy farm. I was told that the chance of them being fertile was 1 in 10,000 but that may be distroded odds.       Maybe it's diffrent from breed to breed but as far as I know all the dairy breeds are effected.

triplets in beef cattle to average one in 105,000 births and it being more likely to occur in Brown Swiss (one in 3500 births). Quadruplets were extremely rare, occurring naturally at the rate of one in 665,000 births with again Brown Swiss having the highest incidence.Twins are classified as either fraternal or identical twins based on their origin. Fraternal twins originate from two separate fertilized ova (eggs) due to multiple ovulations by the cow while identical twins are a result of the single fertilized egg (embryo) splitting during early development. Therefore identical twins, like cloned animals, are genetically identical. Fraternal twins are more common than identical twins. It has been reported that only about 10% of the naturally occurring twins in the cattle populations are identical. One phenomenon of fraternal twins is that when they are of different sexes, the female is very likely to not be fertile. It is estimated that 95% of the heifers born twin to a bull are not fertile and are called freemartins.

Your concept is correct that in mulitple births of different sexes the likelyhood of females being fertile is low to none. But in the case of same sex mulitples most research states that there is not an increase  in inferitlity. What was more rare about the birth was it was a single embryo transfer and it split. There was only one egg left is how we knew there was not a case of multiple eggs implanted.

 

[shortdawg]

nice calves - I like the 70 heifer the best but both are nice

 

[cracehole]

ok well i just wanted to put that out there, I wasnt sure how or why my heifers are infertile but they are