Thread: Wagyu calves

Just get some Pitt Island sheep and beef becomes peasant food in comparison

Originally Posted by rugerman

I got a "white" Galloway ( I put white in quotes since it was actually black), as a pet/house cow but it was mad as a meat axe. Jumping fences, and after chasing the TB testing guy out of the yards ( he declared it " too dangerous to test"), I decided it wasn't coming out of the yards alive. A quick call to the home kill guy and an hour later I gave it a 30/30 pill to chew on just before the homekill guy turned up, since I knew if it saw him it would be over the top of the yards and stampeding across the paddocks. Some of you guys will know the look, head up high, tail up and a super mad look in it's eye like it's gonna run over everyone and everything. Anywho as the guy was skinning and gutting he kept going on about what a great eater it was going to be. Well yep, marbling and great fat levels and that was just on grass. Never again, if I go house cow again I will stick to a jersey. Lesson learned

we have them here "pandas" the farm staff call them..beautiful animals and good to handle...as calves they fight you for two days then latch onto teat and stay on like limpet..tongue is different to dairy stock,harder and more pointy,they do well on rough graizing from all accounts...the older bulls not unlike belgium blue in muscle tone....pandas because of the black nose,ears and huge eye lashes....seriously cute calves.... never heard of black galloways,either white or banded yes...but not black....

Will find out next year, running a team of belty bulls with a herd at the moment

Originally Posted by Chelsea

I have been trying to convince the farm owner to use short gestation Belgium blue instead of short gestation x bred at the tail end of calving. We do AB all mating. But he’s worried about calving difficulties because they are such big units but I believe they have been “refined” to be easy calving. Still haven’t convinced him but once he gets a taste of one he won’t be able to resist.

We used 40 straws of Belgium Blue last year in addition to the Charolais that we usually use. Cool calves, but significantly more calving difficulties. Back to all (aside from Sexed Friesian) Charolais this year

Originally Posted by Rich007

We used 40 straws of Belgium Blue last year in addition to the Charolais that we usually use. Cool calves, but significantly more calving difficulties. Back to all (aside from Sexed Friesian) Charolais this year

More difficulties from size? That’s what farm owner is worried about but I see LIC I think it is has advertised “easy calving, SG” straws.
We are currently cleaning up with Angus and then SG dairy. All our SG dairy are trucked so I’d rather use a sought after SG beefy and sell them if not rear them.

Originally Posted by Chelsea

More difficulties from size? That’s what farm owner is worried about but I see LIC I think it is has advertised “easy calving, SG” straws.
We are currently cleaning up with Angus and then SG dairy. All our SG dairy are trucked so I’d rather use a sought after SG beefy and sell them if not rear them.

Mine were 'easy calving' too (although through CRV). There were certainly some big calves, but then we had some big Charolais calves too with far fewer issues.

I guess I'm just saying, be aware that the calving may be easier than normal for a BB, but it will be harder than you are used to.

Agree with the idea of creating additional value in the calves, we haven't bobbied anything for 6 years now.

you fellas shoul look into stats for them ones they had in late 80s...LIC were doing it out of hamilton,ruakura think it was......always stuck in my mind just how easily the heifers handled calving,others spoken too said the same. If I remember rightly the first cross bulls were used on heifers and the older cows had pure straws to get the bulls,the heifers went over seas....

The only Red Devon I have seen was Big Red who lived at Owlcatraz when that place was still open. Allegedly the biggest steer in the southern hemisphere. He was lame and still let me scratch him. I used 14 Wagyu straws over our Jersey herd this year, I'll tell you about it in 8 1/2 months time...

Originally Posted by Rich007

I guess I'm just saying, be aware that the calving may be easier than normal for a BB, but it will be harder than you are used to.

Some info I found for Belgian Blues is that on average the cows have 4 caesarians in their lifetime, and up to 10!
But it sounds like it's not purely a calf size problem, the cows also tend to have a narrow pelvis.

Originally Posted by Cigar

Some info I found for Belgian Blues is that on average the cows have 4 caesarians in their lifetime, and up to 10!
But it sounds like it's not purely a calf size problem, the cows also tend to have a narrow pelvis.

Interesting, I hadn't thought of the cow itself playing a role other than the genetics passed on to the calf. In my experience calf shape plays as much of a role as the size - particularly the shape of the shoulders and head.

I would say 30% of our x bred dairy that have wagyu end up assisted calvings, all to different degreees. a little less this year but we put in extra measures that helped. Our wagyu calves were all very close size to the calf pictured earlier in the thread. We even had a horse of a jersey x calf this year that was so stunning first light took him with the wagyu. That was probably one of the most difficult calvings we had in terms of size, I actually cried while calving her!
I would have thought BB couldn’t be much worse than that surely. I suppose I just hate the waste of sending calves on the truck at the end of calving. We are using Angus straws until the SG dairy start but Angus seem to flood the market every year.

Originally Posted by Chelsea

I would say 30% of our x bred dairy that have wagyu end up assisted calvings, all to different degreees. a little less this year but we put in extra measures that helped. Our wagyu calves were all very close size to the calf pictured earlier in the thread. We even had a horse of a jersey x calf this year that was so stunning first light took him with the wagyu. That was probably one of the most difficult calvings we had in terms of size, I actually cried while calving her!
I would have thought BB couldn’t be much worse than that surely. I suppose I just hate the waste of sending calves on the truck at the end of calving. We are using Angus straws until the SG dairy start but Angus seem to flood the market every year.

30% is a horrible figure, probably a good enough reason to avoid them for this farmer! I like low input farming and quiet animals.

ok i feel have to poke bit of hard earned wisdon here....hooking calf onto block and cow being towed is not ideal...the usual set up is cow in head bail and rope DOWN to ground behind her....so angle of delivery is downwards to help things go naturally.standing on rope tied firmly is often more than enough pressure....its all in the timing..... bugger going back to bull that gave issues year before....find something easier on the girls,they have hard enough time of it as it is..... more than enough heifers go gaga as it is without additional stress of traumatic calving...

they sure are tasty but absolutely dumb as fuck..... mate had one run into a supporting pole of his shed and ended up killing itself

Originally Posted by Ben Waimata

30% is a horrible figure, probably a good enough reason to avoid them for this farmer! I like low input farming and quiet animals.

Yeah only seemed to be the wagyu but we found other factors that contributed to it also. Went a lot smoother this year. Our cows tend to get very fat very easy pre calving and have big calves.