Premature Twins Out of One of My Angus Heifers!

how's it going guys and welcome to today's video normally out here on the ranch it feels like it takes forever for the first calf to finally hit the ground there will be weeks of me staring at these cows trying to figure out who's got the biggest bag who's got the biggest belly and who's gonna drop one first and then there are those other years when things start happening when you least expect it that's what we're talking about today on farmer Tyler ranch [Music] earlier this week when I pulled my truck into the ranch here in the morning to feed cows I was met with a sight that I was not expecting to see for at least another three weeks that was a new calf out here in the corral but it wasn't just one new calf it was two new calves a set of twins like I said I wasn't expecting to see calves for at least two or three more weeks out here and after going back and figuring out when the Bulls got put in and all of that I'm pretty confident in saying that these twins are about three weeks premature and guys they look every bit of it I'm guessing when I carried him back there that they probably weighed somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 pounds apiece the smallest calves I've ever seen because the twins were premature because they were born to a first calf heifer and because well they were twins it didn't make sense to leave everybody out in that big Corral because it would be too easy for one of the twins to sort of get lost and forgotten about so the best thing to do for them was to bring them into this small working Corral that is now occupied by butcher steers they weren't here then but I just wanted to keep everybody in close quarters so that when the calves got up and decided that they wanted to nurse mom would be right there and it would be a little bit easier for them to get it done what I should probably explain to those of you that don't know is that twins are actually pretty uncommon in cattle and the way that I always kind of think of it as a cow's brain is really only wired to take care of one calf now there are exceptions to that rule I've had cows give birth to twins out in the field and raise them up with no problem just fine but that's really the exception to the rule generally what happens is that after she delivers both twins the first one that gets up they just sort of walk off together and the other one is left behind and really the mother doesn't even realize that she's left one behind because in her mind she should only have one calf the simplest way that I have found to combat this is if you can catch them early enough to put all three mother and both babies in a small pen together so that she can't walk off and leave one and then when either one of them decides to get up and get a drink mother's right there and they don't have to go searching for her anyway by the time I got both of the calves and the mother and the working Carell over there it dawned on me that I should probably be documenting what I'm doing so I took a few pictures it was dark so video was was tough and wouldn't have turned out good anyway I took some pictures on the first day and sort of films throughout the rest of the week what I've been doing with them and I'm gonna roll that now from the looks of this heifers bag she wasn't making much milk so at the end of the first day just as sort of a safety precaution I offered both twins some colostrum from the bottle just to see if they were interested in it just to make sure that they were gonna get some in that first 24 hours [Music] it was difficult to tell whether either twin had nursed yet they both look like they had empty bellies to me but it didn't seem to matter because they were not interested in that bottle [Music] by the end of the first day a couple of things were becoming clear number one both twins despite being premature we're actually quite healthy and vibrant not uncommon to see them running around the pen and sort of plane which was a great sign and the other thing was that the mother actually seemed pretty receptive to both of them which was a huge surprise to me because a lot of times the first calf heifer doesn't even want to take care of one let alone two despite all that positive news the reality was that she really wasn't making enough milk to feed two calves I mean she's barely making enough milk to feed one so keeping both calves with her and letting her raise both to me just doesn't seem fair to any of them because for the rest of this year both of those twins are gonna be dragging her down just always nursing her down to dry and they're both going to be getting shortchanged every time they eat as well so because of all this the decision was made to separate them we'll let her raise one by herself and then we're going to raise the other one on the bottle [Music] [Music] I got the little heifer twin home and I tried to give her the bottle again she just really wasn't having it at the ranch it really wasn't having it here either so what I'm hoping that means is that she was able to nurse on her mom a little bit today and got some of mother's colostrum because that's far better than anything I'd be giving her and you know maybe she's just not that hungry I think that I'm gonna wait just kind of let her settle down a little bit cuz the ride over here probably stressed her out so a little let her settle down for a couple of hours and come back later tonight with the bottle and try it again if she won't take it then then we'll just wait till morning and we'll just keep trying to tell she takes it she eventually will mmm are you ready for your breakfast well it's right there [Applause] smelly clothes [Music] [Music] it's almost been a week since the twins were born here on the ranch and really the only question that remains is how are they doing now so let's go take a look [Music] I'd say it's so far so good here at the ranch the calf that I left here for her to raise and her seemed to be getting along pretty well usually when I look out here they're not too far from each other and she's letting the calf nurse no problem which is always a concern with heifers sometimes they just don't like to do that the calf nurses a lot which tells me that she's probably not given a ton of milk but on the other hand when the calf is up if I walk out here to look at it it'll usually run away from me and you know it attacks healthy and spirited so to me that's all the proof that I need to know that the calf is getting enough to eat number 44 here the mother of the twins actually did need some assistance in this process but it was not with delivering the calves it was actually with shedding the afterbirth after a couple days she still hadn't cleaned out yet so I had to go in there and manually remove it and I will post the video about how to do that later in the week probably not a video for everybody because it is a little bit gross but if you raise and breed livestock it is something that eventually you're gonna have to do now let's go take a look at the calf that's going to be raised on the bottle well it happens to be afternoon bottle time for this little calf so I'm gonna go mix up a bottle and we'll feed her and see how she's doing okay got it I got it since I've had the calf here I've been giving her three bottles a day that's one right in the early morning before the Sun comes up try to give her one at lunchtime and then one in the evening before she beds down as with any bottle calf it always there's a learning curve to get him to learn how to nurse I try to teach him to find the nipple on their own so that I don't have to hunched over and stick the bottle in their mouth the whole time and like that when she lets go of it once she's done head-butting my leg she might find the nipple again I don't know now you're making me look like a liar here there you go I'm not sure what the future holds for this little girl I mean let's be honest we all know what happened with the last bottle calf it wouldn't shock me if something similar happens again at least this is a viable female so we might be able to breed her one day if she grows enough that's gonna be the issue being premature and breeding raised on a bottle she's got two strikes against her already for really getting to be what would be considered good breeding stock but we'll see what she looks like we'll probably keep her on a bottle a little bit longer than buddy was just for that reason so all we can really do is wait and see what happens thanks for hanging out at the ranch with me today guys and I hope I'll see you again on farmer Tyler ranch [Music]

Channel: Farmer Tyler Ranch

Views: 27,178

Rating: 4.9665871 out of 5

Keywords: calves, cows, twins, angus, premature twins, beef cows, cute baby calves, cute, farmer tyler ranch

Id: QxxDV9-AjIM

Length: 12min 39sec (759 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 02 2020