Heifers only???

[rmhay]

Here's a question for you knowlegable people out there. My cow herd is not large but so far all I'm getting is heifers born. 10 in a row. Not a bull calf to be had. We got a new yearling bull last spring. Ever heard of a bull throwing only heifers before? Even the 2 sets of twins we've had were all heifers. Just luck of the draw?

[Willowcreek]

Oldtimers say a heifer year means a wet year !!!

[rkaiser]

Had a Galloway bull that did that for a few years. We sold him after two breeding seasons and had one bull calf from at least 40 matings. He threw a few more bull calves for the fellow who bought him, but not many. Never did much investigating, and we have a number of "normal" females in our herd out of the bull?????????

[perfecho]

I quess we are in for a dry year south of Edmonton....started calving beginning of Feb and out of 55 calves (45 left)we are at least 80% bulls so far. Last year was pretty much 50/50, but it seemed to be runs of bulls and then a run of mostly heifers for a while.

[coppertop]

Last year I had all heifers until I reached the halfway mark, ended up with two more heifers than bull calves.
I am not too concerned if we have lots of moisture in the spring and summer but I would like at least some nice sunny days during calving !!

[cowman]

We had that problem last year. Got an unreal amount of heifers right off the bat. I think it was like 39 heifers out of the first 48 calves!
The boy was going nuts as heifers don't sell all that well in the fall, but I tried to be philosophical and say well "What the hell... we haven't had to pull or help any!"
In the big picture, things turned around and we got a slug of bulls later on so it came out fairly even. I believe the final count on 140 cows was 63 bulls/ 77 heifers!
I told him well" God is trying to tell you something....time to expand!"

....unfortunately....he took me up on that! 180 this year!

[poorboy]

I think that heifers have a shorter gestation than steers do. I find most years at the start of my calving that their are more heifer calves and as I get into it further the longer gestation bull calves appear and the numbers start to even out.

Seems to happen here every year.

[DiamondSCattleCo]

They say that its not genetic, however I think "they" are missing something. My last herd sire delivered me 80% heifer calves over 3 years. During those 3 years, he was mated over 150 times, so if he was going to balance out, I think he would have. The last year he was in use, I got 7 bull calves and 44 heifers.

Rod