Winter calving? Why?

Just wondering.

John

I had 9 calve this past weekend, in the 20's and snowing. All 9 hit the ground 'running'. Only thing better would have been if it had been a little colder earlier to kill the mud under the snow. I calve outside without shelter. Yes, I lose calves. Last winter was warm and wet, my death loss was up in the 8% range b/c of the mud. Normally, gaining 2# per day on the cow that extra 2 months of age at selling equals 60# additional calf to sell on each one. 10 of these equals one 600# calf lost.

For me, forget hot weather calving. Flies, cows get too hot, calves get stress, ugh. Its got to get to the low single digets for it to be really dangerous on the calves (hypothermia before nursing). We rarely get that for any lenght of time. All my calving is outdoors, on pasture, limited shelter (land is rolling so there are some natural windbreaks).

You are right about mud and hay rings. I went to a geotextile pad 5 years ago. Every year, even moving the rings every feeding I was getting someone trampled. With the pad, havent lost a one to trampling. I usually unroll one when I feed, to get the cows to leave me alone and gives them some bedding on the pasture. Worked great up to this year. At $50 for a 4x4 inside stored roll, I stopped feeding hay and went to feeding only round baled silage. Cows would still go for that roll until I started feeding pearl millet and seedling alfalfa silage, OMG!!!! Cows stood right at the gate waitng for me to feed, turned up there nose at anything else.

Early calving = heavier sale weight. Always wanted to sell in October so we didn't have to feed them, usually ends up being early January lately because of mild winters.

Go into the dairy business and you can calve every day of the year. :>)

Allan

Our calves hold up better when its frozen and dry and not when its muddy with wet snow. After a cow calves we throw the pair in the barn for a couple of days just to make sure everything is going right. If it gets real cold like 40 below, we try to get as many in the barn as we can and go out every hr. Its also kinda hard to get any field work done when checking the cows every 3 hrs.

" bigger calf by selling time" sell two months later no problem there.

Calving shed? Whats that for when you calve when its warmer.

I hope I don't make anyone mad but I think its all braggin rights for the early calvers.
Biggest calve in the fall, first done calving.