Raichu7 t1_j6lolme wrote
Reply to comment by iammada in TIL When a cow has opposite sex twins, the female twin is usually born intersex and infertile. This happens because the twins blood supplies are linked, which exposes the female to male sex hormones. by awawe
Dairy cattle aren’t raised for meat unless they are a dual purpose breed.
pdieten t1_j6ls2de wrote
Depends on your definition of raised, I suppose, when I lived on the family Holstein dairy farm my parents would usually ship male Holstein calves out early for veal.
The cows were usually artificially inseminated with Holstein semen, but we kept a Hereford bull on the farm to keep the cow producing in case artificial means failed. The Hereford was much more docile than Holstein bulls so it was safer to keep him around, but the offspring of that mating were sterile so they'd be raised to 1000# as steers and either shipped or we'd keep it for ourselves if we were low on freezer beef.
Can't remember what was done with freemartins. It was a lot of decades ago.
Diplodocus114 t1_j6lwdu9 wrote
Those Hereford bulls were so docile. Local farmer had a 'Bull warning' on his field with a public footpath through.
The massive thing merely stayed with his harem and ignored passsers-by. He would sometimes approach for treats and scare people who didn't know him.
pdieten t1_j6nccuq wrote
Yeah, a regulation was enacted where I lived, and probably where you lived too, that notices had to be put up if a bull lived on the property even if all he did was stand there and chew his cud at you. Must have been sometime in the '80s, because one day when I was in my early teens Dad grabbed a big magic marker and wrote "Beware of bull" on the whitewashed doors to the barns.
Diplodocus114 t1_j6nykq9 wrote
Enter at your own risk etc. I was a kid in farming country in the 70s (born 63) and never saw a sign until the 1990s. Bulls were fine - they never left their girls unless approached - it was the curious bullocks that chased you.
Even now I would check out the undersides of young cattle before entering a field of strangers.
1955photo t1_j6lssuu wrote
A Hereford bull and a Holstein cow will produce sterile offspring? Not even Dr. Pol talked about that. Learn something every day.
pdieten t1_j6luacs wrote
Was a long time ago, I could be mistaken. The females definitely wouldn't produce. I suppose the males probably weren't sterile because the vet had to come around with the beefmaker to castrate them, but the mixed breed steers always yielded good beef.
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