Holstein Twins

[marlowmanor]

Actually, a freemarten has no ovaries. Their reproductive tract ends where their urethra enters the vagina. I have found many of them over my many years of AI breeding heifers. Their vulva is usually quite small, and undeveloped. You can check a newborn calf with a pencil. If it goes into the vagina more than 4 inches, the calf is not a freemarten. However, be sure to use the blunt end of the pencil, and don't use a lot of pressure.

Thank you for the clarification and that information. That is very useful information.

ETA: I am no cattle expert, heck I'm no expert at any livestock, so I really appreciate someone sharing this kind of knowledge. I know I didn't know you could check a calf with just a pencil.

 

[rd200]

There are some sets of heifer/bull twins where the Heifer turns out to be okay. You can have your vet take a vial of blood and they send it in and like 2 weeks later you get the results back to if they are good or not. I want to say that the average is 8% that is good in the end, which isnt a whole lot, but i think the test is only $40-50 and if the calf is good, around here a newborn holstein heifer calf is worth anywhere from 200-400 depending on genetics, etc.

 

[SDragon]

My granparents own a dairy farm. I have herd that it is the male's sperm that produce's twins or singles but I have a hard time believing this. They had one cow that had about 6-7 sets of twins with 1-2 singles. Three of those sets of twins were female/female. One of the calves, caught something and died, but they still have 5 half-sister, twins around their farm. My grandparents get a new bull every 1.5- 2 years so it cant be the bulls that are making twins, cuz all of those sets have different dads. The oldest set of female/female twins are preggers right now so I am curious to see if their mother had a gene that increaded the chance of twins, and was maybe passed on to her daughters.