Winter calving made easier with warm weather

[forage]

Thank god the weather has reversed to more bearable conditions. Started calving the mature heard on 21th Feb. Started with heavy snow that night, followed by nights down to -32C. Then more than a foot and half of snow two days ago. Still plowing. Well only 38 days of no sleep left. Good luck to all of you who calve this early. So far so good no wrecks yet, tap wood.

[sumdumguy]

Great weather on the way. Good Luck with the
babies.

[forage]

Thanks, hope to get married in the near future so the night checks can be shared with a more experienced person. Takes a woman's touch durring calving. I know mom had more patience than dad and knew more about birthing than he did.

[grassfarmer]

If you move a little later in the year so weather isn't
as big a concern you'd find that the cows make
their own best midwives. I can't believe how many
people go through this two hourly check round the
clock every year. I'd quit rearing cows before I did
that. I find if you have the appropriate genetics, get
the feeding/cow condition right then let the cows
get on with the job they know best - having and
rearing calves.

[15444]

Some people just like the mental and physical workout with the early calving GF.

Not me though. I like my 2-3 checks per day, calving on grass and sleeping through the night. Oh, and no frozen ears or hauling calves inside.

[ALLFARMER]

I also would quit cattle before I would calve in
winter.

[ASRG]

Like many I quit winter calving shortly after BSE hit. Winter calving is a lot of work especially in those long cold snaps or blizzard like conditions. A lot of wear and tear on facilities and the body!

[tweaker101]

We made the change 3 years ago, would never go back to Feb calving...just crazy and expensive. We now calve in May/June less stress easier on my team and really you can't beat it...I drive out with my quad in the morning and see what new calves arrived, tag and casterate and life is good!

[kato]

We prefer to be contrarians. We start in February, and prefer it. On bad cold nights, we put the most likely suspects in the loose barn. They warm it up themselves. They get checked at bed time, and if nobody is actively calving, they get checked again in the morning. It's no more work than calving in the pasture, IMHO. Maybe less, because you have acess to the cattle without a rodeo if something needs to be dealt with. Legs can be back, and twins can be tangled in the pasture just as easy as in the barn.

We've got sheds enough for all the calves to have shelter, and when it's cold they stay nice and dry and healthy. Spring storms have become normal around here, so when we get that end of April blizzard, the calves just hang out with their mama's and ride it out. Our worst time calving last year was the tail enders at the end of April. They got caught by the storm, and then the wet and cold that followed it. The early born calves never batted an eye over it. The late ones needed some serious baby sitting.

We rent pasture, so calving 80 miles from home is not an option.

When they go to pasture, the calves can eat the grass too, since we're paying for it anyway, and they come home big. If we got a drought or hail and had a feed shortage, we would also have calves big enough to sell.

And in June we can go fishing.

[forage]

Grassfarmer, Mid wife cows just cann't seem to help a backwards calf,or one with a front leg back. I have a neighbor that only checks before he goes to bed and first thing in morning works for him but eveytime I talk to him conversation about how's calving going , "oh I lost one last night must of been born dead." his death loss last year was over 8% with good mature Red Angus / Char. cows. I often wonder just how many he would have saved if he had been checking even thou he calves may-june.
Feb calving is tough but the scours and other bugs that are associated with late calving are almost non existent.

[grassfarmer]

Swings and roundabouts forage - where there is
stock there will always be losses. I've never known a
person yet to come through a calving season
without losing something no matter how often they
check them. In general I find there are significantly
less malpresentation problems in cows calving later,
where there are getting exercise on pasture versus
being corralled for winter calving. Our cases in
recent years of calving backwards, twisted uterus,
tangled twins etc (basically the only things we have
handled) have been less than 1%. Calving on
banked grass late April/May has allowed us to
virtually eliminate scours as well. Whatever suits a
person I guess. Kato's situation with the rented
pasture makes as convincing a case for winter
calving as I've ever read.

[kato]

The rented pasture is our biggest reason, but I still don't think we'd go to later calving if we didn't send the cattle off for the summer.

The way we see it, you may have less problems with pasture calving, but when you do have a problem, it's likely going to be a bigger problem.

And that's mainly because of the difficulty in getting control of the cow. Either you've got a horse and a rope, or a good dog, or you chase her to a pen in the pasture. All three options are more difficult than sticking her in a calving pen that's right there handy.

Our cows are grazing corn and walking a half mile either way to water right up to a week or so before calving, so the exercise thing isn't really an issue. Twins and their entanglements can be, though. And it's nice to be able to give the heifers some privacy for the first day or so.

Watching that last pair trot out of the trailer and go off into the pasture is so much fun. They're gone, and we're all on holidays. I don't know who's happier, us or the cattle. LOL

[grassfarmer]

It's as easy or difficult as you make it Kato. In
our situation we calve on banked grass that is
strategically set up mostly on the home quarter,
often the fields right next to the corrals. If
something occurs I have one cow to walk into
the corrals, no dogs, no ropes , no horses. Plus
I've nearly all day to work on the problem if
need be as I'm not feeding cows by then.
Compared to having everything corralled, every
calf born in the barn for fear of it being frozen
to death, all the pails of water to haul to penned
up cows, the manure to clean out later I believe
my system is much easier. Each to their own but
I think it's notable when we are discussing the
cow sell off and how most don't want to
maintain/expand cow herds it's usually because
"it's too much work for the returns". It seems
the younger, keener operators who are
expanding mostly calve later and that's maybe
their advantage.

[ASRG]

I vote for grassfarmers method! I do it about the same. One person can usually walk a cow up if you take your time and don't get them excited.....also helps if you have quiet cattle.
Did it the other way barn/pails/cleaning out pens for too many years! If I had to go back to winter calving, I'd quit today!
kato: Glad it works for you....you're probably in pretty good shape by the end of calving season!

[kato]

We don't find our system hard at all. We do not carry water or feed to cows. Ever. They can get their own darn water and hay. LOL We let the cow out to drink and eat in a pen by the barn. Then they go back in with the calf, unless the calf is ready to go, in which case they both go out to the main pens.

February and March are months when the workload is low (sort of) anyway, so we may as well be calving. Trying to watch cows during seeding or haying would be a much bigger problem for us, even in our own pastures. Much easier when it's a five minute walk out the door, even if it is cold outside.

We have a twenty acre pasture near the yard where they go when the weather improves, but it's a quarter of a mile from any corral. So any problems that may happen out there are more complicated than any problem in the yard would be.

There are as many different ways to manage calving as there are people who calve cows. Everybody's got to find what works for them and their setup.