Factors affecting pregnancy rates and calving difficulty in commercial beef heifers

Factors influencing calving difficulty in beef heifers.

Records of 547, 2-yr-old heifers of three breed groups were used to evaluate the relative influence of dam's body and pelvic measurements, calf birth weight, sire birth weight and some relative measures (ratios) of calf birth weight and dam weight at calving on calving difficulty. The data were analyzed by regression and least squares procedures. The full model explained 32.5% of the variation ...

Calving Difficulty in Beef Cattle

Genetic, phenotypic, and environmental parameter estimates of calving difficulty, weight, and measures of pelvic size in beef heifers.

The heritabilities for and the genetic, phenotypic, and environmental correlations among calving difficulty scores (CDS) and measures of size of the pelvic inlet were estimated using 547 records of 2-yr-old heifers from three synthetic breed groups. Calving difficulty score was treated first as a trait of the dam and then as a trait of the calf and was analyzed on three scales: raw scores from ...

COW/CALF MANAGEMENT Minimizing Calving Difficulty in Beef Cattle

Calving difficulty (dystocia) contributes heavily to losses in production in beef cow/calf herds. The obvious losses are due to calves or cows that die at or soon after calving. Less noticeable losses are due to delayed rebreeding, more open females, an extended calving season and increased labor costs. While occasional dystocia is almost unavoidable, through proper management, cattlemen can mi...

Factors Affecting the Efficiency with Which Beef Cows Become Pregnant after Calving in Northern Australia

Michael McGowan, Kieren McCosker, Geoffry Fordyce, Dave Smith, Nigel Perkins, Peter O’Rourke, Tamsin Barnes, Louise Marquart, Don Menzies, Tom Newsome, Di Joyner, Nancy Phillips, Brian Burns, John Morton and Sandi Jephcott. 1 The University of Queensland, Gatton, Qld 4343. 2 NT Dept of Primary Industry and Fisheries, Katherine, NT 0851. 3 QAAFI, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Qld 4072....