WHAT IS YOUR OPINION OF THE IDEAL BIRTHWEIGHT?

[SRC]

I just thought it would be neat to see what everyone's opinions were with regards to birthweights. I'm not sure what your responses will be, but in my opinion what good is a 70# or less calf? Will it ever amount to anything, or will it be a runt it's whole life? ...Will it ever catch up to those big whoppin' calves?...I don't think so, and you'll be at a disadvantage for shows....Just my opinion. Personally, for heifers i will take anything 75#-90# or slightly above, and for cows, I think one can handle a good bit more than that, but anything over 110# is a little too extreme in my opinion. I'm not saying all of my cows calve out with a big 110# calf though. What are your thoughts?

 

[knabe]

i would rather see data that fit a normal distribution with enough calves across different environments/producers or at least data that was from a contemporary group, again with a goodness of fit analysis whether or not the data was a normal distribution.  no bull is going to have calves that are all one weight. it will be a range, and it would be good to know what the distribution was and what a standard deviation for bulls were.

that way, if the data set didn't fit a normal distribution, one would know not to use caution with the bull.

obviously, there is a lot of guessing going on, the same device didn't weigh all the calves or the same person with the same tape or estimation.

if it's one's own bull, they would tend to overestimate, and if it's someone else's bull, they would underestimate.

 

[OH Breeder]

I will tell you I am not near concern with BW as much as SHAPE. Big foreheads, shoulders and butts do not usually fit too well in those round holes.   I have had a variety of calves this past months. Weight was not always indicative of dystocia. shape was. I just delivered a 135# heifer that is really neat BUT had a heck of time getting a 88# heifer out of another cow. Both cows were shaped and bred very similar. both cows were Simmi- Maine- Angus. The shape is what really made the difference. I weighed everything twice with hanging scale. After the disaster I had back to back this little cherri made my day. I will get a picture when she is little more with it.

 

[DakotaCow]

The ideal birth weight is that which will allow the cow to have without distocia and breed back quickly, depending on the latitude weather has determining factors to adjust the size and thus resistance to cold of a newborn, and finally have the ability to perform to expectations.....There is no ideal birthweight.

 

[bcosu]

I don't care how big it is as long as the cow can have it by herself and it doesn't affect her reproductivity.

If I had to have a number, I kinda like heifers no more than around 80 and don't mind if bull calves are a little heavier because hopefully they have a little more stoutness.

Maybe I am wrong but since half the birthweight comes from the cow, I would like to think that having cows that didn't come super heavy make help moderate some of the clubby bw's a little. Could just be wishful thinking though.

 

[nate53]

I would like to see 65 - 85 for heifers and 75-90 for cows!  We check cows and heifers a couple of times per day unless we see one that looks like she is starting then well go back and check on her.  Outside of being backwards or both legs back, they need to calve on their own and easily, and I've seen several of our cows calve over the past few years with backwards calves and didn't have to touch them which is the way it should be at least in a commercial herd.  There has been a lot of pressure put on low birthweights and high yearling weights in the angus breed over the past several years, because everybody wants lowbirthweight calving ease without giving up the growth!  I am happy to say that there is a lot of angus bulls out there that are genuine curve bending genetics, that come small and easy at birth and grow and match or pass up the bigger calves!  The general idea I get from this site is that you have to have big birthweights to have big yearling weights which has not been my experience at all.  Maybe that is the case with the club calf business I don't know I guess you got to look at your operation from as many angles as you can and decide what's most important.  I think there is a balance where you don't have to worry about your best cow or any good cow havinging a calf and that balance is different for every breed, and every location- feeding program.  In my short life I only remember one C section here and that was probally 15 years ago and that was a heifer and she went to town, I don't want any more of that!  Just a commercial breeders opinion!

 

[ba]

Shape and pelvic size has probably more with calving ease than MOST birth weights.I like them to be
75-90 lbs .You can have a 80lb calf shaped wrong come harder than a 95 lb shaped right. I like to
go to bed at night with not worrying and running around with the calf jacks in my back pocket.

 

[JTM]

I like the two previous posts by nate53 and ba. I think that the pelvic measurment and the head shape is really important. I like heifers to have calves around 65-75 and cows to have calves from 80-95 lbs.

 

[ROAD WARRIOR]

I will wholeheartedly aggree with the comments from others about calf shape being paramont in selection. From my stand point as a purebred breeder that sells bulls to commercial producers, the ideal is a correctly shaped calf that weighs in the neighborhood of 82 pounds. That calf is easily marketed as long as he has conrinued to excell after birth. I'm not a big fan of calves that are born in the 60's whether they are out of a heifer or not. There are a few bulls (in our breed) that do sire small calves that grow like weeds and catch their larger born contemporaries but they are the exception not the rule. I'm sure that this is the case acrossed all the breeds but I am not familiar enough with them to speak about them. RW

 

[hamburgman]

Numerous professors and cattlemen have told me shape matters more than weight.  When the continentals came over those big boys were bred to 900 pound angus cows and many people had few if any calving problems.  The problems came when they went for thicker and deeper cattle that would finish at 1200 pounds.  We have a few cows who seem to never get under the 120 lb mark, but they breed back just fine, year after year.