snow

[Reitnorf]

Has anyone out there used snow as a water source for backgrounding calves?

[Sawbones]

I've had good luck with cows licking snow but have never backgrounded calves. I would be very concerned about waterbelly with feeding hay and restricting water for steer calves

[Sawbones]

I've had good luck with cows licking snow but have never backgrounded calves. I would be very concerned about waterbelly with feeding hay and restricting water for steer calves

[smcgrath76]

I would echo that. We run cows on snow, but not calves. Cows should generally be on maintenance and depending on condition and calving schedule can even slide a condition score or two. Calves have a lot of work to do with growing, rumen development, recovering from weaning, etc. I think snow would be a tough go for them even to get the level of intake required. We have had calves out in winter but have always either had water available or trucked in the rare circumstances.
If you are going to try it, make sure the snow is not dry and/or crusted.
On a similar note there is some interesting work bring done at the WBDC backgrounding calves on swaths and on bale grazing. I am thinking we might even be able to drop our chores at home from 3 hours a week to 1 or 2, and totally eliminate cleaning corrals (backgrounders are corraled).
I am looking for some work on leader/follower corn grazing but haven't found much good stuff. I was thinking we could lead graze calves and then follow up with cows.

[kato]

We graze corn, and for the first month or so it's pairs. The calves do extremely well on corn, but then again they're still nursing. We're not sure how much the milk is impacting the gain. We find that in that month the calves grow a lot, and the cows all put on some good weight, even though the calves nursing them are pretty big.

We wouldn't background without water, fearing waterbelly and digestive issues also, but I would bet that if they are swath grazing their water consumption would be less.

[per]

I'll echo Sm and Sb and suggest caution on snow watering the backgrounders for the same reasons. Especially now as the snow becomes crusty on top and sugary down below. Our swath grazers will always choose to walk for water no matter how inconvenient the location.

Sean we have done our back grounding on swath grazing and bunch grazing for several years now. Manure spreading and less work are sure a bonus. I am going to grass so am not concerned with big gains but those are also possible depending on what they have in front of them. We have used green feed (barley, oats, triticale etc) as well as grass (grazed into the season to make it mature later) and second cut alfalfa for swath grazing. No perfect system and all have varying degrees of issues but every year I have overall been happy with the results.