|
Columbia City, Indiana | I have a friend who is an Angus breeder and leases some of my Herefords to use as "recips," so we end up with little black calves being raised by Hereford mamas, which looks strange till you get used to it. Anyway, in the spring of '07, we had a cow who we had no record of putting an embryo in give birth to a vigorous, healthy Angus bull calf. This was the first calf born. The rest of the cows calved, until I had a cow and a heifer left. By this time, it was early-May and I was out of hay. The pasture was growing good, so I decided to kick the last two out and let them calve in the pasture. By this time, the first calf born was about a month or so old. Four days after I kicked the last two out, there was a new Black baldy bull calf out in the pasture. I was sure he belonged to the last cow I had kicked out, because it was obvious that the heifer had not calved. However, this cow, who had done an excellent job of raising her calf the year before, had no interest in the black baldy calf, and he had no interest in her. To make matters even more strange, the new calf was following the cow that was raising the first Angus bull, and she was licking him and letting him suck. It was the spring of the year, and I was busy hauling and delivering seed, so I decided to let them go and see what happened. The baldy calf continued to follow and suckle who I thought was the wrong cow. About 5 weeks later, the cow I had turned out was back in the woods bawling, like she had a new calf. Sure enough, I walked out to check on her and there was a dead heifer calf laying there. Major bummer, but now I had a real question. I called the vet and told him that one of those cows had a calf, then waited several weeks, and had another. He told me that there is 1 chance in 10,000 of a cow you put an embryo in getting pregnant from the embryo, then still cycling and getting bred by the bull. That's what happened to good old #70. She not only carried two calves to full term, and gave birth to them several weeks apart, she kept her condition all summer, cycled normally, and was bred by the bull last summer. This spring she gave birth to a beautiful baldy heifer calf, who I'm considering keeping in hopes that she'll be as fertile and docile as her mother. The vet said he had heard of this happening 3 times in his 30 years of practicing. Oh, and the kicker is that since we had no record of putting an embryo in #70 to begin with, my Angus breeder friend didn't want the Angus bull, though he was 90% sure he was a full brother to a heifer that sold in fall of '07 for 20,000. So, since he's not biologially related to any of the cattle in my herd, he is now my herd bull. And his baldy brother met his demise about a month ago. He now resides in my freezer. Too weird to be made up! | |
|
Funny calving story...
