M-J-G
Member
That's up to the individual's level of tolerance, but it's not something I'd be prepared to put up with for any reason, it's simple as that.
Pedigree Breeders, compromising welfare?
- Thread starter capfits
- Start date
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
BB bulls over a dairy herd are a strange one. The much shorter gestation period of the BB means that calving ease (from a dairy animal) is much better than you might imagine from looking at the resultant animal. At the other extreme, a Charolais generally has a much longer gestation period, leading to big, hard pulled calves, hence you see very few dairy bred Charolais calves in the marts these days.
For the record, we had far fewer calving problems with BB's on dairy cows, than ever we did with Charolais, Limousin, Hereford or AA sires. Only Salers were ever any better for calving ease. Back in the days of live exports giving a £3-400 calf price, we used BB over almost all of our dairy heifers, with no more calving problems than any other bull.
GenuineRisk
Member
- Location
- Somerset
In a truly ideal world, I would have a small herd of salerx dairy heifers as recips. Being high health here, buying them in is a nightmare as we need to blood test first, of course,
Slightly off topic and not aimed at you as you breed terminals buy anyone putting in maternal embryos Rhigos put them in the same need of cow ie an aa embryo should go in at least an aax cow. Not very good breed advertising when a breeder is selling great maternal bulls when all their recips are a different breed!
CharcoalWally
Member
- Location
- West of Scotland
For me , there's only ever 2 excuses for a C section in an animal , and that's in the case of a deformed calf where the cow cannot possibly deliver it naturally, or where the dam has a torsion that can't be straightened.
Now is that a case of sweeping intolerance or is it a case of commercial farmers setting sensible, ethical personal guidelines in light of an uncertain future governed by either falling , or non existant, future support , a lack of labour units on modern farms meaning that there frequently isn't somebody that can dedicate a part of the working day to solely sitting watching a cow calf , and a growing awareness of the need to market our industry as a "duty of care " profession, as , whether we like it or not , our urban cousins are repelled by tales of "factory farming, " and un-natural lives and un-natural births being forced on domestic farmed livestock. Don't even bother to attempt to compare it to a human C section, they won't want to hear that. They'll simply think that a human being has a voice to articulate a sentient choice and describe their problems, but an animal hasn't. Therefore, tales of livestock farmed in other parts of the world in a "natural life, " become an appealing alternative when selecting from the shelf at point of purchase.
No, we should be doing everything possible in our control to eradicate un-natural births in farmed livestock for a wide variety of reasons , but for no greater reason than surely the animal herself would choose birth to be as easy, natural and quick to recover from as possible.
Now is that a case of sweeping intolerance or is it a case of commercial farmers setting sensible, ethical personal guidelines in light of an uncertain future governed by either falling , or non existant, future support , a lack of labour units on modern farms meaning that there frequently isn't somebody that can dedicate a part of the working day to solely sitting watching a cow calf , and a growing awareness of the need to market our industry as a "duty of care " profession, as , whether we like it or not , our urban cousins are repelled by tales of "factory farming, " and un-natural lives and un-natural births being forced on domestic farmed livestock. Don't even bother to attempt to compare it to a human C section, they won't want to hear that. They'll simply think that a human being has a voice to articulate a sentient choice and describe their problems, but an animal hasn't. Therefore, tales of livestock farmed in other parts of the world in a "natural life, " become an appealing alternative when selecting from the shelf at point of purchase.
No, we should be doing everything possible in our control to eradicate un-natural births in farmed livestock for a wide variety of reasons , but for no greater reason than surely the animal herself would choose birth to be as easy, natural and quick to recover from as possible.
- Location
- Lincolnshire
I'm just an arable farmer / engineer who got into sucklers over the last couple of years but what struck me most is what I see as the dire state of breeding and lack of commercial reality across the suckler beef industry.
Any difficult calving, hours and hours spent faffing around, attendance by the vet, let alone C section renders that animal an immediate loss making unit.
There are many different breeds all of varying degrees of commercial weakness such that even the experts can't recommend a problem free cross that will reliably turn a profit in terms of ease of management and producing something the market wants.
Animals that would sooner kill you than look at you, can't give birth naturally etc are no use to a commercial farmer at all and are a public relations disaster. It's a no brainer but it keeps on happening.
The only people who seem to be getting are grip are the Stabilisers from what I've seen.
With pigs and chickens we see uniform easily managed commercial hybrids but with plenty of rare breeds left for the enthusiasts to mess about with.
Why can't beef do this?
The only cows I've seen that are worth having are Lim X Friesian, maybe put to an Angus bull for ease of calving. But the supply of heifers isn't there.
Rant over. I'll get on now.
Any difficult calving, hours and hours spent faffing around, attendance by the vet, let alone C section renders that animal an immediate loss making unit.
There are many different breeds all of varying degrees of commercial weakness such that even the experts can't recommend a problem free cross that will reliably turn a profit in terms of ease of management and producing something the market wants.
Animals that would sooner kill you than look at you, can't give birth naturally etc are no use to a commercial farmer at all and are a public relations disaster. It's a no brainer but it keeps on happening.
The only people who seem to be getting are grip are the Stabilisers from what I've seen.
With pigs and chickens we see uniform easily managed commercial hybrids but with plenty of rare breeds left for the enthusiasts to mess about with.
Why can't beef do this?
The only cows I've seen that are worth having are Lim X Friesian, maybe put to an Angus bull for ease of calving. But the supply of heifers isn't there.
Rant over. I'll get on now.
- Location
- West Somerset
- Location
- Penzance
Fascinating thread to read through. Personally I am not a fan of muscular breeds of cattle, never really have appealed that much am afraid, apart from limousine. We AI our animals with top milking genetics, we are aiming for a 3-3.5 thousand ltr animal which will give good amounts off a grass based system, without the need of much pushing at all. I was thinking about embryo transfer for a time, but after what happened last time I am thinking it's better to let the cow rear her own calf. Whilst I think ET is handy, I don't fully agree with it. I think some of what is happening to these breeds is sad, because of how the market has demanded it, it's sad that we as breeders/farmers cannot dictate what the market should have instead of what it wants to have. This is partly why my family and I started to keep water buffalo, to create or rather to open up the already niche market for it, were we can dictate,to some degree, of what we can sell to it. I have a genetic goal with the herd, as I hope to take it over from my parents someday as my brother's are not that interested... When I look at how far we have come with them I feel a sense of pride with the work (must be careful here 
) the bulls we use don't only provide the milk genetics, but we also select them out for confirmation too and good growth, so the bull calves finish better, so far it is working very well. The specimens born this year, no assistance required, are brilliant and are growing very well and fast. Sorry for going on a bit.. I'll get me coat
) the bulls we use don't only provide the milk genetics, but we also select them out for confirmation too and good growth, so the bull calves finish better, so far it is working very well. The specimens born this year, no assistance required, are brilliant and are growing very well and fast. Sorry for going on a bit.. I'll get me coat 
- Location
- Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
Beef farmers can cull for temperament and for disease and make sure they go dead
Beef farmers can be honest with calving dates, calving assistance, birth weight etc
With scanning technology advancing so well, studies could be made on Salers and Jersey pelvic structures and selection pressure for other breeds to improve towards this for calving ease.
Beef farmers have different geology, weather and other environmental conditions so Stabiliser may offer some solutions but not all and just like the sheep industry there will have to be a variety of breeds to suit conditions.
Some dairy farmers don't seem to worry about more than one 400 day lactation
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
- Location
- Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
Maybe a slight exaggeration but there are a good number of dairy replacements that don't get passed one or two lactations ; fertility etc
theres a fair load of rubbish on this thread tbh . Can think of lots of non musclelly cows [shorthorn , Hereford , angus]had to have ceasers and know a man calves 100 musclelly cows for years never had a ceaser, and I know who's making a profit in the ring .
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
A lot of which will be down to the 'need' for a tight calving interval, so they don't get the chances that heifers get in more extensive systems where a bull runs with them all the time. There are always the exceptions of course, but we never sold that many from our 300 Holstein milkers for infertility, as they got plenty of chances if needed. A lot of our elected culls would likely have been in calf, but that's another argument.
- Location
- Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk
Maybe. I don't know what the average age of a suckler cow is at culling, I believe it's 6 for a dairy cow. I would imagine most dairy cows calve below 2 and a half and beef cows slightly older
also the 'no excuse for a ceasrer' post, what about the heifer yearling caught by the bull, a poor wee ill fed shorthorn , she will have needed the op
That's not really the point of the thread though. It's more about implanting embryos knowing there's a pretty good chance you will have to cut the calf out.
Also there's no real excuse for a yearling being caught by the bull. Accidents do happen but generally only once.
I didn't vote on the poll for a while but thinking about this thread yesterday from what folk have put on here some ped breeders do compromise welfare when it comes to ET which is what the OP made the thread about,
The thing that I think is worst is the use of heifers as recips and here is why
pedigree heifer gets put on to a different breed for easier calving first time, nothing wrong with that is there ?
[Many farmers would do that we use to put the dairy cows to AA first time then if they calved well perhaps put a BF on them or a different beef breed and some beef suckler farmers would not use the same bulls on heifers that they would use on a cow]
but the same breeder will use heifers from a different breed or cross breed as recips from perhaps the ped heifer [that they would not breed pure] or ped cow, with seemingly disregard to if they have a hope in hell of calving them because they are low value and can be got rid of without losing or marking the pedigree animal,
So some of these pedigree animals that we see paraded around the show rings could have had umpteen ET calves born by C section but there will be no mark on the pedigree animal and nothing will be said, in fact I don't think there is even any way to find out and I think [but may be wrong] that C sections/bad calving's from recips don't count towards the calves or the genetic dams or relations EBV for calving even if the breeder was honest and declared the calving as a c section
Can all this be right ?
at best it would be deceiving ?
at worst bad animal welfare ?
The thing that I think is worst is the use of heifers as recips and here is why
pedigree heifer gets put on to a different breed for easier calving first time, nothing wrong with that is there ?
[Many farmers would do that we use to put the dairy cows to AA first time then if they calved well perhaps put a BF on them or a different beef breed and some beef suckler farmers would not use the same bulls on heifers that they would use on a cow]
but the same breeder will use heifers from a different breed or cross breed as recips from perhaps the ped heifer [that they would not breed pure] or ped cow, with seemingly disregard to if they have a hope in hell of calving them because they are low value and can be got rid of without losing or marking the pedigree animal,
So some of these pedigree animals that we see paraded around the show rings could have had umpteen ET calves born by C section but there will be no mark on the pedigree animal and nothing will be said, in fact I don't think there is even any way to find out and I think [but may be wrong] that C sections/bad calving's from recips don't count towards the calves or the genetic dams or relations EBV for calving even if the breeder was honest and declared the calving as a c section
Can all this be right ?
at best it would be deceiving ?
at worst bad animal welfare ?
Spot on
Good post
there are those that have used this thread just to do down some breeds