Cattle Reproduction

In almost all cases, no. A calf "born" at this age is usually a calf that has been aborted by the cow due to things like stress, disease, malnutrition, etc. In this stage of gestation a calf's lungs are quite undeveloped and the calf itself is quite small so that it's survival may be jeopardized and in serious doubt.

There is some confusion here. Are we talking about triplets that this cow of yours has given birth to, or two consecutive calves from two consecutive births over a two- (now three) year-period? Whatever the answer is, I'll cover both.

As far as triplets are concerned, a cow has a sixth sense of telling that one of her calves, regardless if it's a single calf born, a calf from a twin birthing or triplets, may be sick or unwell that it will not survive, and that it may be not worth having that calf around because of its health status. There is no explanation for this, other than sometimes cows just do that because they have some sort of intuition that we humans cannot understand nor know about. So when that happens, that calf that gets rejected by the cow will be reliant on the humans to care for it and to work hard to ensure its survival. That is what you will have to do if the case is a cow caring for triplets, including regular bottle-feedings.

If, however, this is a case of a cow allowing two consecutive calves from past births to continue to suckle on her, you really need to analyze your management criteria to the care of this cow, because that would be exactly the reason why this third calf wouldn't get milk from its dam. These "first two calves" should have been weaned a long time ago, especially her first calf. By now her first calf would be at least 24 months of age, and this is far too old to have it continue to suckle on its momma. This animal needs to be weaned as soon as possible (ASAP). The second calf no doubt would be around 10 months old, also overdue for weaning. You should have weaned this second calf two months ago before the third came along. Now this cow does not have enough nor adequate colostrum to give to this new and third calf of hers, and because you have failed in proper weaning management of her calves, you may have compromised the health and welfare of this third calf. If you want to fix this, wean those two older animals (they are no longer "calves" at 24 and 10 months of age, respectively) immediately and get some colostrum in that calf IF and ONLY IF that Number Three calf is less than 12 to 24 hours old. I say "if" because beyond that, colostrum is no longer effective to the calf as a form of passive immunity.

Hopefully, however, that the situation you are in is the former (triplets) and not the latter (older "calves" still on her).

Not if you have no idea of the genetic and hereditary history of both going back several generations. You're better off, just to be safe, to breed the heifer to an unrelated bull.

Yes

Disease or a blockage in the gut will cause a calf to stop eating. This is something you need to take up with your local large animal veterinarian immediately if you wish to have a hope of saving the calf.

This all depends on the breed. As such, your veterinarian would have a better idea of what the optimum pelvic size is for your particular breed or breed-mix of heifers you are wanting to get bred.

A couple months after the cows have calved.

1/1000 births = 0.001% of calves are born as twins.

No. Cows and bulls are different. Though they are of the same species, they are not the same gender or sexes. Cows are female and bulls are male. This is very obvious just by looking at them--especially if you know what to look for.

They don't. Calves are pulled through the cow's vagina, not the anus.

In the story "Old Yeller", the heifer wouldn't nurse her calf because she was afflicted with "hydrophobia," better known today as rabies.

artificial selection artificial selection

It depends on what kind of calves you want, where you're located and what breeds are available. Charolais is good for a terminal calf, Brahman for high hybrid vigour and for selling calves with more ear and more tolerance to heat if you live in warmer areas, Hereford if you want maternal calves (or Gelbvieh, if you're looking to increase cow size and take advantage of H.V.). Another Beef Shorthorn bull is ideal if you're wanting a uniform, Shorthorn herd or wanting to go towards being a "purebred" or seedstock breeder. Or if you want to increase your herd numbers before opting for the crossbreeding option.

Absolutely NONE. Do not give any pain meds to a calf if it does not need it.

The function of a bull is to operate as half of your entire cow herd. In other words, his job is to breed your cows and sire as many offspring as he can in his lifetime with the many cows and heifers he is offered to service and as many cows and heifers allow his services.

Medicine won't help so much as an injectible hormone will, such as oxytocin. This hormone, produced by females in order to let down milk, will aid in encouraging a cow to expel the afterbirth if it is being retained longer than it should. It would be best to talk to your local large animal veterinarian about this beforehand, however.

For beef and dairy cows, lactation period begins immediately after a calf is born. For beef cows, the lactation period ends when their calves are weaned off of them. For a dairy cow, the lactation period ends when she is not longer being milked and allowed to dry up so that she can focus on putting energy into growing the calf inside her. The dry period for a dairy cow is shorter than a beef cow's: two months for a dairy cow, and four to five months for a beef cow.

Calves do not "breastfeed," actually, because their dams, the cows, do not have breasts like human mothers do. Cows have what is called an udder, and the action to which a calf relies on its mother for milk is called suckling. The length of time a calf--particularly a beef calf--remains a suckler is for around six to eight months.

Generally a packer bull is a bull that is a low-grade beef bull intended for slaughter. It is synonymous with bologna bulls, slaughter bulls or cull bulls.

A Packer bull is also simply part of the name of a registered purebred bull, such as Messmer Packer S008 which is a Red Angus bull from Messmer Red Angus out of North Dakota, or Conneally Packer 547, an Angus bull from the Wheeler Mountain Ranch.

The generic name for a young cow is a heifer. If she is a first-calver, then she would be called a first-calf heifer, usually, though some people refer a "first-calf heifer" to a heifer whose dam was a young cow that has calved for the first time.

This question is asked in quite an awkward manner: are you asking about separating young calves (or a young calf) from a herd of bulls, or about separating heifer calves from the bull calves in your herd? Or are you asking about something entirely which wasn't put across very clearly in this question?

I'm assuming that you are referring to the middle question: separating heifer calves from the bull calves. The best time to do that is at weaning, which is around 6 to 8 months for a beef herd. When you process your heifers, make sure you give them a shot of lute (or a similar injectable hormone) to make any unknown-pregnant heifers abort, particularly if your herd is highly fertile and the heifers and bulls have hit puberty before they've been weaned, which happens more often than you might think.

As for the first question, the calf should be separated from the bull herd immediately, particularly if it's a young animal and needs its dam. A bull that doesn't know what a calf is will physically abuse that calf with the intentions to do harm or even kill. Even though some herd bulls can be great with calves, this isn't true for all of them. This is partly why many producers choose to remove their herd bulls from the cow-herd before the cows start calving.

A baby cow is called a calf, in English.

You can either buy one--off a local producer who sells such calves or from your local salebarn--or you can get one yourself by breeding an Angus cow with a Hereford bull (or a Hereford cow with an Angus bull). Even breeding a modern-type Simmental cow with an Angus bull (or vice versa) will get you a black-baldy calf.

This would depend upon the relative size of the Jersey and the Brahman in question. Jersey cows are among the smaller breeds of cattle, and Brahman bulls tend to be among the larger breeds of cattle. It may be a better idea to collect the Brahman bull and artificially inseminate the Jersey cow if you really want this cross to happen.

To add to what was mentioned above in the first sentence, a Jersey cow may be able to handle a Brahman bull if the bull was a yearling, not a fully mature 2200+ lb bull. To compare, Jersey bulls mature at around 1600 to 1800 lbs, considerably smaller than the average mature weight of a Brahmer. Thus, as mentioned above, if you want a Jersey-Brahman cross bad enough, it's possibly best to AI the Jersey cow with Brahman semen. Note, though, the bull from where the semen was collected better have high calving ease/low birth weight EPDs (Expected Progeny Differences) so that the Jersey will not have a difficult birth (dystocia) if she might if you paid little attention to such numbers.

When the cow is well past her due date and you have this sense that something's not quite right: she still looks really big, but is not giving birth. Sixth sense and a gut feeling should be your best indicator. Seriously: if you're asking questions on the internet on various question and answer sites about this very thing, you know very well something's wrong and it needs to be checked out. Next time this happen, don't waste your time posting a ton of questions regarding this: call your veterinarian and have him come out to have a look at her to see what's wrong.