Nine in Five

by IBBA Communications Coordinator Peyton Waldrip

IBBA member Clarence Tays is a Brangus breeder in Cookeville, Tennessee. An Ultrablack® female named MISS LOF 144, or “Lollipop,” was born into his herd on Aug. 30, 2009. After Tays’s granddaughter, Elizabeth, showed the heifer in 2010, the female was sold to a neighbor: Randy Randolph.

Randolph is a commercial producer of Angus and Ultrablack® cattle. He says MISS LOF 144 was two years old when he bred her for the first time. “She was on a lot of feed and not a lot grass and she didn’t breed the first year,” Randolph explains.

With the first breeding attempt behind her, MISS LOF 144 went on to have twins in 2011, twins in 2012, a single birth in 2013, twins in 2014, and twins in 2015 for a grand total of nine calves in five years.

“She hasn’t had hormones; her calves have all been naturally-sired; all of the births were unassisted; and all of the calves have survived,” Tays says. “The cow is the product of a Salacoa Valley bull and a female from my operation.”

The first two sets of twins consisted of a bull and a heifer. The single birth was a bull. Two heifers came from the fourth pregnancy, and the last set was a bull and a heifer.

Randolph says he tries hard to practice good feed management and herd management to make his operation successful. He has participated in management classes when they are offered, and he says he encourages other cattlemen to participate, too.

After hearing this story of a female producing nine calves in five years, we asked Joe Paschal, PhD., to weigh in on the subject. For more information on reproduction and its heritability, click here continue reading in the following article, entitled, “Reproduction, Twinning and Genomics.”