What is the highest percentage of one sex of calves out of a herd bull?

[Will]

I have have a bull who out of 45 calves he has just had 4 heifer calves and for a guy who sells heifers to pay the bills it really stinks.  Has any one else had an experience like this with a bull?

 

[oakview]

The worst experience I had was in the late 80's.  I synched 7 3 year olds, bred them all on the same day.  100% conception, 100% bull calves.  I suppose those Dreamboat bulls would be worth something today. 

Yours is the largest scale, one sided story I've heard.  Just wait until next year when the odds even out.  The Cubs have been saying that for years, though, so don't hold your breath. 

 

[Shorthorns4us]

Wow that is quite a percentage all one sex!!  This year- I wish I had your luck-- I really wanted all bull calves to make steers to go to my feedlot guy.  With the prices they way they are for feeders-- I would really like a big bunch of steers to market in the fall!
EF

Maybe you can find a breeder with some nice heifers and do a "swap" so you get a heifer for one of your bulls!  Then you can market the heifers. 
If you are close-- I would look at a deal like that!
EF

 

[LLBUX]

Six for six bulls out of my old herd bull.  Two more coming in June.

 

[justintime]

When we brought IDS Duke of Dublin from Ireland in the 80s we had 23 calves from him in his first calf crop. We had 22 bulls and 1 heifer calf. Duke was also used in another herd that year as well.

We have a exceptionally high bull to heifer ratio this year as well. We had a heifer today so that brings the total to 15 heifers out of 83 calves.

 

[Cham2135]

We have had 8 color me ups.... All heifers. Only one cow left to calve.

 

[jbzdad]

bred our Daffy Donor for heifer matings.. 3 embryos ..suh, Maine man and ltd edition and one AI with Suh... all bulls!!

 

[Charo]

A bull gave us 41 heifer calves on 55 calves it's near 75%, as charolais breeders we prefer bulls. Most of the bulls  were horned or scurred, our customers wants smooth polled...

 

[hedgesjp1985]

A few  years ago a friend had 14 heifers and no bulls out of his pb limi bull.  I bought two of the heifers and ive gone three years with all bull calves out of those heifers. 

 

[Rocky Hill Simmental]

I've had 2 different herd bulls over the past 9 years. I've had about 65% heifers born in that time by those two bulls. Two of those years I only had one bull per year.

In 2012 I started AI-ing some of my purebred cows and I am FINALLY getting some good bull calves.  ;D

 

[HAB]

This year we are running right at 80% bulls.  We have a good demand for bulls, but have way more demand for our females...

 

[Doc]

This year I've had 4 hfrs and 1 bull by my SMF Solution bull at my place. At Springlake we've had 6 hfrs and 3 bulls by SULL Looker. Overall we are at 19 hfrs and 16 bulls with 14 more to go.

 

[Cham2135]

Update... Our last cow bred to color me up calved... Heifer twins.

 

[oakview]

Murphy's Law for Shorthorn breeders is that if you want roan heifers to sell, you will get white, horned bulls. 

 

[Limiman12]

While clearly way out there on the curve, I do think there is a biological reason that screws things past 50/50 in either direction.......  I have spent considerable time pondering human families where daughters from girl only families only have daughters and it seems to go that way scewed for a few generations, or in the case of a friend of mine, who had one brother, his dad only had brothers, his grand pa only had brothers and his great grandpa only had brothers.......  So my reasoning.......

Sperm are not identical.  Male sperm are more fragile, swim faster, don't wait as long, and are more subject to non ideal vaginal/uterine conditions.    Female sperm are more durable but don't swim as fast........ 

In humans, I can make a hypothesis that mothers of daughters family trees may perhaps be explained by this.  Perhaps the women have slightly different pH then normal?    It is also why men who smoke or are in smoky places a lot, or have saved on a nuclear sub, or in a nuclear power plant or any other source of environmental pollution tend to have great higher odds to have daughters.......

I have no theory on humans that have family trees weighted to boys, I don't buy my friends theory the
At the men in his family are so manly they don't have girl sperm (though I waited five years for him to tell me he was having a girl to tell him he was clearly only half the man he thought he was;-).  )

However.  With that information from human sperm transposed to cattle here a some hypothesis........

1) young bulls tend to throw more bull calves in my experience......  Is this because as they are learning the ropes they maybe are slow getting to the hot cow?  Or that they keep re breeding her putting new fast swimmers in the mix repeatedly.  Either way would mean the cow is getting bred late in the cycle when the egg is more likely already there.  Meanwhile our older bulls that get the hot cow bred and move to the next tend to throw heifers 60/40...

2) could a rush of heifers go back to the summer and nutrition?  Perhaps mineral imbalance, or nutritional deficiency or heat wave or something to put the cow (or bull) at less then optimal condition screwing the odds to the hardier female sperm

3) could some cow families release the egg later or earlier relative to standing heat?  Dropping the egg early more bulls, dropping the egg late, more heifers.  Could an environmental trigger also cause a delay on Gnrh dropping the egg?


I have always wanted to play with AI timing and breeding late and breeding early and seeing how much that would change heifer bull ratio.....  Problem is we AI only a few and I am not willing to risk missing many for an experiment.....  But I do cheat the 12 hours one way or the other depending on what I am hoping for.....

 

[5PCC]

I could be wrong...but I am a nurse...I was taught in nursing school many years ago that each time it is 50% chance to be female and 50% chance to be male. Just because the last 10 were males, does not mean that there is a greater chance that the 11th one will be female.

 

[RyanChandler]

^ that's just a generally probability.


I like where Limiman's mind is headed.  I'm constantly trying to make those type of correlations to better my understanding.

 

[DLD]

When I bought my first set of black cows, I bought 25 units of Pistol Pete semen 'cause I really wanted some Pistol Pete daughters to keep for cows.  Used it all (over 2-3 seasons) and got 22 bull calves and 0 heifers...

Once in awhile I've had a calf crop out of a natural service bull go a little over 70% one way or the other, but over time most will fall somewhere between 50/50 and 60/40. 

 

[Duncraggan]

I'm a firm believer in that irritating Irish fellow being the final determinant. <beer>

I've also heard some theories about the cow facing the rising or setting sun, can't remember the exact recipe though!

If you get any results with your recearch Limiman, let us know!

 

[Limiman12]

We are currently at 46 live calves without losing one this year........  Of our first 9 calves, 8 were heifers.  They were all AI pregnancies except for two which were sale barn cows, one each from those two......  So our first seven AI calves were all heifers and we certainly did not breed as late as some do.......  The rest of the AI calves were all timed breeding, got bred about four hours later then the ideal according to the schedule.....  Five heifers four bulls......  So at one point we had12 heifers and five bulls when we started getting the natural service calves.....

We used two rookie bulls last year,  Tonight we used the 26th blue tag,
Had to open a new bag is why I know,  We tag bulls with blue, heifers with white......  So since a 12-5 start, the two young bulls produced 21 bulls and eight heifers.......

Don't know if that counts as "research" but it supports my hypothesis.