I've heard it said you should have the heifers calve ahead of the cows.  So I put a couple heifers in with the bull a couple weeks ahead of the cows.

Had the first heifer calve last Thursday. Nice healthy calf at first but evidently heifer didn't feed it. Calf died.  I'm 600 miles away at the Gin show in Memphis.  Neighbor says heifer cleaned her calf and appeared to have a good bag but just didn't work with this bull calf to get him to suck.  Calf died Saturday.

Heifer didn't seem to show much interest in the calf or protective instinct. Definitely something I could have addressed if I had been there. 

Have not had this problem in two previous calving seasons but then had them all calving together, heifers and cows. Both years have had experienced cows calving ahead of heifers. No problems.

For an absentee herd is it maybe better to have cows calve first or at least at the same time as the heifers to teach them the ropes?  Or should this BWF heifer have been hamburger?

Another difference this year is that all previous calves have been out of Hereford cows and heifers. Is the BWF heifer (Hereford dam, Angus sire) just less likely to be able to calve and start nursing her calf without attention of some sort?  

Jim at Dawn