pdieten

pdieten t1_j6nccuq wrote

Reply to comment by Diplodocus114 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

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.

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pdieten t1_j6luacs wrote

Reply to comment by 1955photo 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

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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pdieten t1_j6ls2de wrote

Reply to comment by Raichu7 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

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.

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pdieten t1_j6lq9wk wrote

Reply to comment by RealDDDeal 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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemartin

"A freemartin is the normal outcome of mixed twins in all cattle species which have been studied. It does not normally occur in most other mammals, though it has been recorded in sheep,[14] goats,[15] and pigs.[16]"

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