Extra long gestation?

[bunny]

I've got a question and hope someone out there has an answer. We have a 3 year old cow, had her first calf last year. We thought she didn't catch last year, we took the bulls over to the neighbors on July 6th last year. She just had her second calf on Wed. We had to assist. We weighed him today and he was 118 pounds. Any ideas?

[cowman]

When I AI ed a lot sometimes I got some that went over a bit but the longest I ever saw was 14 days. Your cow should have been due about the middle of April so forty days or more overdue? Don't think that can happen, but not sure? Maybe there was a bull in the woodpile, sort of thing?

[bunny]

Thanks for the info cowman, no bull... Unless it was the young bull calf we had at the time. He was born April 1st last year??? No sure if that's possible either.. The neighbors say it was a moose!!!! :-)

[cswilson]

Ohhh cows can go over as long as 21 days-not very often but can happen. Just like some bulls are very short gestation-we've aied to some ewasier calving Angus bulls for customers and they've been almot half done calving before their start date. We had our own little experience withlong gestation yesterday-used up some odds and ends of semen aiing last year-used a higher BW bull than I normally would use but was only 5 straws. Well we had a huge calf-unassisted but he must of been bent up in the cow cause his back feet are knuckling over. Maybe it was just the day yesterday cause we also had the biggest foal ever born on our place-not a happy ending there had the sack over his head but two of us couldn't lift him in a truck-just like loading a big whitetail buck.

[grassfarmer]

We once AId a heifer with an easy calving Limo bull that had zero chance of being bred by anything else later. She calved at 300 days and the calf was tiny - 65lbs or so!

[cswilson]

Ohhh I bet that young bull is the Daddy-I had a little red poll cross bull I was going to use for a gomer-we fixed at 71/2 months after we saw him riding out in cows-I got 23 calves off the little bugger the next spring.

[bunny]

Thanks for all the input guys, but is it really possible for a bull that young to breed???? 142 days???

[cswilson]

It's possible for heifers that young to conceive so anything is possible. We need a few of those kind to balance out some of the infertile duds.

[cakadu]

Where there is a will, there seems to be a way. Some just happen to be a little more precocious than others. I know we have found that with our young rams, so I can't see where bull calves would be much different. We had a couple of lambs born earlier this year and the only "culprit" out there was one that we thought couldn't or the ewes wouldn't let him - we were wrong. Good healthy lambs so things worked out well - we now know better for next time.