The Agri Post
February 26, 2016
Tough Times Call for Good Management By Les Kletke
Rare Triplets Born By Harry Siemens A cow having triplets is very rare, for sure. The odds for a cow having triplets is about 1 in 105,000, but for this cow to have three females, three of the same gender, the odds are about one in 700,000, said Dr. Kerri-Rae Millar, a mixed animal veterinarian at the Morden Vet Clinic. Dr. Millar commented on what happened to her brother Jay Sprott, a cow calf producer at Miami, whose Red Angus Simmental 1,500 pound cow had 3 healthy female calves, 90, 80, and 70 pounds on Feb 11, 2016. “I have been fortunate enough to deliver a set from a dairy cow, diagnosed on ultrasound, a set in another dairy cow, and have my own brother have a set within the last 8 months, specialist no, lucky vet yes,” she said. Her brother, Sprott was not anticipating this at all. He had gone out to the barn, moved her into a maternity pen, and when he came back there were three calves, all healthy. “They were all born by themselves which is also fairly unusual with triplets, too. Quite often they get tangled up and sometimes need a little help,” said Millar a vet based in Morden.
Jay Sprott, cow-calf producer from Miami said the female triplet calves are almost invaluable as top-notch replacement heifers.
“Lots of reasons when a cow has twins for being born dead, or born weak and then dying,” said Dr. Millar. “Especially to have three that are alive, strong and healthy is pretty awesome. Getting a picture in the morning of three healthy calves’ sure beats getting a call at three in the morning asking for help.” Sprott, Dr. Millar’s younger brother calves out about 400 cows and raises his own feed, corn silage and alfalfa. Asked when he knew this cow was going to have triplets, he said
he did not. “She had the first one, weighing about 90 to 95 pounds, put her in a pen by herself and figured that would be a pretty good year for her,” he said. “Lo and behold I come out in the next check and she’s had another two calves, all three up sucking and everything.” Sprott, who is 29 years old and a seasoned cattle producer of 12 to 15 years said the Red Angus Simmental cross cow did not look any bigger than she normally was, and after having three calves,
did not look smaller, weighing maybe 1,500 pounds. With three calves, 90, 80 and 70 pounds, that is a lot of weight he admitted. Sprott loves farming, loves the animals especially, has farmed all his life, starting into the cattle business buying one for 4-H, at 10 years old, kept on expanding since then. “When I graduated from the Ag Diploma course at the University of Manitoba in 2007, I quickened the expansion, and expanding since then,” he said. He farms with his parents Rick and Lynn Sprott, making the cattle his project, but converting more and more of the crop land into cattle land. “When I’m converting grain land into to cattle production, I mean I’m using it to grow corn silage, alfalfa for hay and annual ryegrass also for hay,” said Sprott. “I also seeded 160 acres of pasture that’s close to my yard so I can rotational graze for my fall cows and calves them out in mid August to October. We have a base of 960 acres that could be used for grain production and I also have another 180 acres of alfalfa for hay, which I rent from other grain farmers that they use for their own rotation in their grain operation. I have native pasture at
The new president of the Manitoba Canola Growers Association said the next couple of years would require good management to make a profit on any crop. “We are at a time where we will need to make decisions on the best economic return from crop inputs not just maximizing yield,” said Chuck Fossay who was elected President at the Association’s recent meeting in Winnipeg. The remainder of the executive includes Clayton Harder of Narol as Vice President, Brian Chorney from Selkirk as Secretary and Jack Froese of Winkler as Treasurer. Fossay said that while he expects genetics of the crop to keep increasing at much the same rate they have seen in recent years, it might not be in the producer’s best interest to target maximum yields. “With prices of the past years we have been targeting higher yields and we might find that our best return is at 45-50 bushels an acre instead of 60,” said Fossay. “That is something we might have to look at as an association and making recommendations about where the best return for producers is.” He said that while current prices are lower than what they have been in recent years there is still a possibility to turn a profit on the crop. “Depending on the input costs that producers have they should be able to see some positive returns but the margins are tight,” he said. Fossay cited budgets from a presentation by Dr. Michael Boelje at Crop Production Days and said while it seems strange, for a producer it is best to lock in prices that minimize loses. He said, “Locking in losses, might be the best strategy for you if you cannot pencil out a return, at least it should be close to break even.” According to Boelje’s presentation high land costs is one of the reasons producers in the corn belt would not be able to see a profit this year. “We are also having some of those concerns with land prices though not to the extreme of American farmers but there is a real concern out there about rent prices especially when land lords hear of profits the past couple of years, but those are not the case going into 2016,” said Fossay. Fossay said that canola producers are seeing the advantage of the lower Canadian dollar. “There is no doubt that is our advantage at this time and if the dollar stays around 72 cents (US) we should be alright but again everything depends on the weather,” acknowledged Fossay.
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