blizzard

[Generation 5]

tough having livestock on days like these will be up all night keeping the little buggers alive. at least when the canola is getting the shit pounded out of it I just go to the lake and start drinking 😆 stay safe out there!

[furrowtickler]

Good luck calving , sounds nasty in some areas and a cold week coming up

[farmaholic]

It could have been alot worse here regarding snow accumulation. But the hurricane winds are hard to take.....what snow? Where?

Best of luck Cowboys!

[bucket]

As I get older I want to calve later every year.....not sure what's so tough to follow nature ....you don't see buffalo or deer having young ones in march....

[Generation 5]

As I get older I want to calve later every year.....not sure what's so tough to follow nature ....you don't see buffalo or deer having young ones in march....

agreed if never had a crop to put in the spring would be calving in may. your are lucky furrow we must have a foot and a half and still coming.

[grassfarmer]

Couldn't pay me enough money to winter calve cows. Tough enough on the cows being out in this let alone calves. It's going to be ugly tomorrow. We still had about 80% ground cover 1-2 feet deep of snow so hard you could drive on it with the tractor. Had some cows walk out over fences at the weekend on top of the snow.

[Generation 5]

Couldn't pay me enough money to winter calve cows. Tough enough on the cows being out in this let alone calves. It's going to be ugly tomorrow. We still had about 80% ground cover 1-2 feet deep of snow so hard you could drive on it with the tractor. Had some cows walk out over fences at the weekend on top of the snow.

when do you calve grass farmer? when do you wean them? are they far away from facilities for helping with problems? not trying to bash you just interested how you guys that calve on grass do it. just joined our operation three years ago so wanting to learn.

[farmaholic]

Winter calving is a tough gig. On calves, cows teats, and Mr & Mrs. Livestock Owner. Heavy fall calves are the reward but a lot of work.

This place had cattle for over 100 years, probably closer to 112, we slowly culled our way out at the end of that era. Bought grain land along the way instead of pasture. Never really had our own pasture, always rented and was a patron in a community pasture. Not that you can't seed grain land to pasture....we just never did.

Tough place to raise cattle the old way. Bales and having to feed them about 6 months of the year. Newer better ways with swath grazing or corn grazing and proper pasture/grass management . We always only salvaged slough hay and ditch hay and maybe some pothole greenfeed now and then. And carry lots of chop pails.

It doesn't matter how they are fed you can't change the weather...and they need to eat and live in it.

[farming101]

Stop Farma the negative waves are starting! That sounds like the way it was around here for way too long.

A guy in the area calved out on the prairie in May. Cows stayed in the bush for the winter. Facilities next to nothing. Always did well. He had good cows I guess.

[farmaholic]

No problem 101. Calmer seas ahead.

But boy does the sound of strong wind grind my gears...grate my cheese, drive me nuts---when for me its only a short walk!

[kato]

....

We started on Feb 3. We've got 110 on the ground so far. One frozen ear, three sets of twins. It's not hard if you've got facilities. If we were just starting out it would be different, but the sheds are there and weve got a good calving barn, so may as well have them earning money. Our yard handles cold and snow far better than mud anyway. This year worked really well because the warm spell hit right when they were calving the most. You know, that three week rush when the cycling cows were bred. It's calmed down now just in time for the blizzard. Whew! The cows are out there right now trying to call calves out of the shed while the calves just lay there all nice and dry and stare at them. One electric wire keeps the cows out of the sheds. The calves learn really fast about this shed business.

They grazed corn until a week before calving, and when they hit pasture the cows will be mostly bred and the calves will be grazing grass along with them . Works for us.

Whatever system fits your facilities and setup is the right one.

[farmaholic]

Kato. I felt sorry for those poor cows with protruding teats on engorged udders in frigidly cold windy conditions and the calves couldn't keep up to the milk production the cow had to offer in the beginning. Unless they were in an almost totally enclosed shed it could be brutal at times. At minimum they needed a damn good shelter with lots of bedding. Even the newborn calves could lose the tips of their thin ears after they were dry. But once the little buggers were a wee bit older its surprising how tough they were....just had to get them through that early phase unscathed and they were on their way. Grain fed Mamas sure helped on our farm especially if the forage wasn't so good.

[grassfarmer]

Generation5 - we start April @20th and stop 1st of June, on pasture (grass banked from last year). Don't have much to assist if you have the right cows under these conditions - maybe 2% max in a normal year. Winter calving comes at a huge additional cost in addition to the labour, bedding and housing facilities as your peak nutritional needs immediately pre-calving then peak lactation and rebreeding are all done on conserved feed during the coldest months of the year. Just never made any sense to me. We wean later and background everything rather than selling calves in the fall.
We are increasing our fall calving herd at the moment - always had some but want more. Calving mid Aug-end September gets you even better weather to calve in than late spring, don't tend to get the scours you do in spring, never get pneumonia issues at weaning and counter intuitively conception rates in November are excellent but this system requires that you have good grass through the fall. If the pasture was bare in July it's not going to work. Cows are milking through the winter this way but peak lactation is behind them when the coldest weather hits. Doesn't take great feed to bring the cows through and they have all summer to gain back condition. Selling light weight calves in May to go to grass is usually a good market.

[mcfarms]

Looks like our snow comes the next few days hopefully not as bad as the Sask and Man folks got with calving, dang cold here this morning though and everything's going in to dry off then out to lots of straw. A person needs to just run their calving to their operational needs and what market they want to hit. Hard to seed and calve at the same time if you are both the drill operator and the vet.

[perfecho]

Chose to calve in April/May instead of retiring...;-) Only 60 cows now, but not very much time into them....they are on 120 acres all winter and I let them calve there....don't have facilities there to help a cow if needed....In three years, think I have helped 2....even with heifers. We run purebred Gelbvieh, so I have to tag and weigh each one, but find that once a day...max two....this can be done. Biggest drawback is that bulls are sold in June-July or following year, but as I want to travel more, we are not keeping as many to sell. Its easy to have someone spend an hour every 4 days to feed cows, but trickier to have someone spend an hour to do chores around the yard feeding heifers and bulls.
May bring them home to a couple of 5 acre paddocks to calve in this year, but we will see.........