Summer Calving

[grassfarmer]

smcgrath76, I'm mildly interested in the concept of July calves. We bred a few opens back in the fall of 03 which calved first week of July. The bigger calves will be over 900lb now. It might be a way to sell 1000lb yearlings into the August trade at less cost than calving at more traditional times of year. I wonder how well conception rates would hold up breeding cows late enough in the season to be July calvers, year in year out, if they were rearing calves?
Mine were not a problem because they were open the first year and came forward to May calvers this year.

[smcgrath76]

in all honesty we prefer May/June calves. It seems as though the July ones just don't grow as fast (possibly to do with environmental conditions/gut development at time of weaning).
Our master plan is to wean 4-5 month old calves in September. This gives us not only low cost cow herd management, but hopefully good marketing flexibility. We can push calves to finish, background, breed heifers, etc. In the last two years of BSE, as nearly as we can determine, this program has netted us at a bare minimum at least $75 more per head than the traditional calve early/selled weaned calves program.
As we progress down the road with our marketing/managing program I expect this to become even more important, although hopefully I am wrong after tomorrow's ruling.

[cswilson]

I tend to like May/June calves a bit better too-they seem to be just a little better able to take the cold weather after early weaning. August works really good for my breeding program as my homegrown A'I crew hasn't went back to school yet. We finish everything so calf size at weaning is kind of irrelevant really.

[grassfarmer]

Our current policy is calving April 15-1st June with the target next year of being off feed and onto banked grass entirely a week before they start calving. We aim to fenceline wean October 1st which hopefully gets it over with before the cold weather and gives us all the marketing options that you mention.

No, I was looking more at the July calving as a second herd option - double cow numbers, calve one group later, half bull costs etc. I would treat them more as early fall calvers than late spring ones - leave calves on cows until Christmas then wean and save feed on cows - banked grass or swath graze most of the time. The calves would give the option of grassing through to August which would help manage the spring grass flush.
My main concern would be that they didn't get rebred quickly enough if we had a dry year - I don't want to drift into September/October calving in this climate as it would be tough to get them then to breed back to July.

[smcgrath76]

GF - Just a couple of thoughts/questions...
Will this fit your pasture rotation? Can you truly double the number of cows you run? Are you using regrowth to run these cows on?
I think you have the right idea about weaning calves in December (or earlier) as cows milking over the winter take a pile of feed (as we discovered with the Fall calvers we bought).
Will these slightly later calves finish at a different point in the year from your slightly earlier ones? If so when and on what forage resource?
I think it could be a great opportunity to spread out marketings and really expand your current market as long as you have really planned through resource use and timing (I am sure you have or are).
Interesting to see your comments.

Thx,
Sean

[grassfarmer]

Sean,
I'm looking at the possibility of renting land from an older couple close by rather than doubling the stock here. Mind you when I see how well managed grass grows here in a good year I definately need more cows on the home place too! Cows are skim grazing some fields now that will be banked to calf on next spring. Put cows in a field yesterday and measured orchard grass plants 5 feet high, timothy 3 feet and clover close to 2 feet - tough to drag you feet through the thickness! It shows me the potential of land that up until 4 years ago never got above an inch high under permanent overgrazing system. I have winter fed on this field but haven't re-seeded or fertilised it.

In answer to your questions the bulk of my cattle sales are still into the commodity market with less than 10% being sold as grassfed beef. I target selling preconditioned, weaned calves some into the late December trade and some in the January - Late March period. I can be flexible with numbers and dates but need calves out of here before calving starts again. I have looked at retained ownership, with entry in the spring, in a custom feedlot but it has not attracted me over the last two years. I do like to background calves over winter as I have the time, skills, facilities and appreciate the manure they leave me. It's a way to add value to my output.

I'm not at all interested in weaning into the auction and selling into the Fall run as it looks to me like the low price period of the year. August is tempting because it is a high price market for yearlings generally.

[FRENCHMAN]

Frenchman - out of interest what size, weight, breed, age are the dams of your 67lb calves?


Sorry to be so late in replying . 2 yr heifers were in the 1000-1100 range lb range. About a 5 or 6 frame score. Heifers were out of m-4 , m-3 beefbooster, shorthorn and angus cows sired mainly by gelbvieh bulls.Some from hereford bulls.I believe lowest weight was 52 lbs out of a Hereford heifer.

[smcgrath76]

GF - we are currently in an expansion phase as well, and working on some rental agreements. Once our fencing is done on the land base we have secured, we fully expect to be able to run 200 pairs, and will have several other groups out on long term lease.
We are actually planning, instead of running the full complement of cows to run around 150 pairs, and fill the rest with grass cattle (perhaps custom grass cattle when the market and grass warrants.
We think this will give us a bit of pasture/drought insurance as we can choose not to run grass cattle in a dry year. The nice thing with later calving and backgrounding calves is that we have the option to finish calves/sell calves in the fall or spring/or grass calves.

[grassfarmer]

Frenchman, thanks for replying - those are remarkably light birth weights for Galloways.

smcgrath76, That's very similar thinking to my own. I want to get onto a certain scale operation and want to run mainly cows. With drought at the back of my mind it would be a nice fit to run custom (or owned) yearlings to help with the spring flush of grass. I don't know if I could pull the trigger on pedigree cows in a drought. It takes too long to build a herd just to sell them off in the first dry year. Hopefully in this area we shouldn't have to worry too much about drought.

[FRENCHMAN]

Frenchman, thanks for replying - those are remarkably light birth weights for Galloways.

Grassfarmer what is normal Birth weight range for Galloways. One thought Maybe I was not feeding as good as in previous yrs.They did however get the cream of the crop.Heifers were swath-grazed ahead of the cows last winter.