Winter calving made easier with warm weather

[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.

[tweaker101]

I agree with grassfarmer and ASRG we dont have any ropes,dogs nothing I just drive up to them in the pasture that has been set aside for the calving purpose and walk over to the calf and tag and what ever else may need to be done. But it really helps to have quiet cows and yes the first calf heifers take a little more work but they soon get the idea of how this works. We don't grain farm but I do work off the farm so this calving in the may/june works really good for us, less stress for me as it is usually nice outside unlike the nasty weather we can get in Feburary, but every situation is different and as long as it works thats what you do right?

[grassfarmer]

Speaking of contrarian does anyone else run fall
(Aug/Sept) calvers? We usually run a few but are
starting to expand the numbers. Here are the
advantages we see; no cold at calving time issues,
rapid breed back (virtually all first cycle), no scour
issues (less protein in the grass helps), no health
issues when weaning their calves - pneumonia etc,
ability to market a calf over a long period of the
highest prices i.e. Feb-August while completely
avoiding the low price period of the fall run, drought
proofing - can ship the calves early and summer dry
cows versus milking cows, better use of bulls with
two breeding seasons. If you run fall and spring
herds you can breed heifers to calve at 2.5 and run
them with the cows with no special attention. If you
buy in cows as a replacement policy you can often
pick up late (june/july) bred cows at a substantial
discount at dispersals and just slide them back to
August calvers. In our situation it gives us grass fats
to market @2 which is easier than getting them all
fat at 17 months.
Down sides of the system is it wouldn't work for
guys that are usually out of grass by August 1st and
a severe drought could cause problems. Maybe
wouldn't work as well in an area where you get
brutal weather early in the winter either. Other than
that I think it offers a lot of opportunity.

[15444]

Yep, fall calvers are a great bunch too, GF. But I think you would have an even harder time getting people to switch to it due to all the preconceived notions about it.

-Cows eat X-times more feed
-Calves have to be grain fed or they're dinks
-Fall calves are always smaller at weaning than spring calves
-You need to winter them in a barn
-Cows won't catch in winter

I can't remember them all, but I've heard a pile of them.