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Why we calve in May

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rancherfred

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Twelve years ago, nearly to the day, we had a blizzard hit that killed 10% of our calves and drifted some as far as eight miles. That was the beginning of the end of our winter calving. Now twelve years later, we have yet another late March/early April blizzard that is the worst of the entire year. It reinforced once again why I will never go back to winter calving.

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Ahh, come on :). I don't blame you, and if calving later can work for you, I don't blame you one bit. Think of all the nice green grass you'll be calving on...be sure and post those pics :D . Thanks for posting.
 
Yep its a fact. Nebraska has worse weather than Alberta. (ok maybe an observation)
 
rancherfred....and anyone else into late calving....do you have an problem with cows calving when the weather is HOT? Here in SD, it can easily get to over 100% with high humidity in late May and June. We had some bad experiences back when calving began in April and went well into June. Sure would like to get past these late storms! But starting mid-April isn't working well with early calving neighbors.

Does anyone have experience with electric fences helping keep cattle where they belong? We have pretty good four wire fences, but doesn't keep bulls where they belong, either. Wonder if adding some hot wires to those fences would help?

mrj
 
per said:
Yep its a fact. Nebraska has worse weather than Alberta. (ok maybe an observation)
Click to expand...
Northern Alberta gets hit pretty hard. Those pics look to be the norm,Grande Prairie & Peace country
 
Mrs.Greg said:
per said:
Yep its a fact. Nebraska has worse weather than Alberta. (ok maybe an observation)
Click to expand...
Northern Alberta gets hit pretty hard. Those pics look to be the norm,Grande Prairie & Peace country
Click to expand...

I am so glad I live here. Nice weather, big league sports, Philharmonic, Opera(not), close to every odd and unusual warehouse for parts, view of the mountains, paved roads, international airport, horse tracks, car tracks, mud bog tracks, lots of opportunities. Still some vast tracts of native pasture. Thank you guys for letting me see all there is to be thankful for right here....Oh and day trip distance from the gopher museum.
 
I well remember that blizzard on the 7th of April in 1997. We came through it unscathed, and didn't lose any baby calves. The weather had been nice up until then, so all the lakes and ponds were open. After the blizzard quit, the temperature got pretty chilly and the water froze over. Two days later, on April 9th, we got another nine inches of snow. There was not much wind that night, so the snow didn't drift too badly, but a slight northeast breeze was prevalent. I had 250 yearling heifers in a pasture with a good windbreak on the southeast side. They weathered the blizzard in fine shape in the protection of the windbreak, but two days later that northeast breeze blew them to the southwest corner of the pasture. A big shallow pond which was iced over and covered with snow was on that end of the pasture. Several heifers blundered out into it. They didn't have the instinct to turn around, and before morning thirteen head died while standing in less than two feet of water. On the bright side, it could just as well have been the whole 250 head, so we were fortunate in this regard. A later calving date would not have made any difference for us in this case.
 
Most of the guys I talk to in the past month are telling me they wish they weren't calving yet like me. My Dad was second guessing me last summer when I told him I was moving my calving date later but he has changed his mind in the last month too. I'm sure there will be other problems to deal with calving on grass but fighting snow and cold and sickness and death loss is not my idea of an enjoyable calving season. It should be fun shouldn't it? Life's too short to endure the kind of stress all my friends and neighbors have been going through these past few months. This analogy of calving this time of year came to me the other day. It's like playing Russian roulette with Mother Nature except instead of one bullet in the gun it's about half loaded. Some years you get lucky but the odds of getting a year like this is always there.

I'm with you rancherfred, bring on the grass! :D
 
I think the biggest calf killer blizzard we had up here was a few years ago the first week of May (back when I started calving mid April)...Even calves a month or older were buried in snowdrifts or stomped into the ground when the cows hit the fencecorners....
The yearlings that were on pasture ended up up 10-20 miles away....Southeast fence corners were all gone- everywhere.....Cattle allover the highways- wandering everywhere- especially the yearlings...

I remember almost 40 years ago when we sold out the dairy part of the partnership- it was suggested to sell out the whole place- especially all the work of the cropland and irrigated hayland- and relocate to a ranch south of Miles City on the Powder River country (be a neighbor of Faster Horses :wink: ) and Dad was absolutely against it... His argument was all the areas had their droughts (as we live on a semi arid desert), and we had the tough long cold winters up here more often-- but at least we didn't normally get as many of the calf killer type spring storms as they did down there in SE MT and thru SD and northern WY and NB...
He may have been right...
 
mrj said:
rancherfred....and anyone else into late calving....do you have an problem with cows calving when the weather is HOT? Here in SD, it can easily get to over 100% with high humidity in late May and June. We had some bad experiences back when calving began in April and went well into June. Sure would like to get past these late storms! But starting mid-April isn't working well with early calving neighbors.

Does anyone have experience with electric fences helping keep cattle where they belong? We have pretty good four wire fences, but doesn't keep bulls where they belong, either. Wonder if adding some hot wires to those fences would help?

mrj
Click to expand...

What's humidity? Our weather isn't normally, (I use that word cautiously), real hot in the May-June time period. Now having said that, I have seen it 100F in early June during the worst years of the drought. I can't really say that it caused us problems with calf health or cow breed back. We had a late summer calving herd for a few years as a result of a lazy bull. Those calves were coming about the first of August and those poor little guys suffered like you can't believe. I remember seeing them laying in any shade they could find panting like dogs. Once the hot weather was passed though, they did fine. In western Nebraska the humidity never stays high for very long. There is an old joke out here that even when it is raining the humidity is only 50%.

Our health problems, as they relate to later born calves come at weaning time. We seem to have had more respiratory problems in the last few years than we used to have. I don't know if it is a trend or just a coincidence. It has only been the last 2-3 years that respiratory problems have really kicked us in the seat of the pants, so it may just be the year.
 
Every time we have this conversation about later calving all the negatives from the last 50 years comes up. Yes we can have a blizzard the first week of May. In this area there was one last year and there was also one back in the 60's. I can handle something like that, every 40 years or so. My kids might have to deal with the next one. With weather forecasting like it is you could head them right back to the corral for old time sake if you thought you needed to.

Making the switch is something you have to want to do. Nobody is going to talk you into it. Timing of calving is such a traditional thing on every ranch that nothing anybody says is going to change your mind. If you never get tired of the fight and the next generation thinks that is the way to do things too then why change. A few years ago when I was getting 30 calves a day during a 3 day blizzard it got to the point where I thought to myself, "What the hell am I doing this for?" and since it is my hope that one of my kids will take the reins someday I thought "Why would they or anyone subject themselves to this crap?" It doesn't have to be this hard.

Like I've said before if you're happy and your family is happy and your bankers are happy then life is good. If one of the 3 aren't happy then you might want to think about a different way to do things.
 
Wow, I wouldnt never guessed that you have so extreme weather there in America. I've been browsing this forum sometimes and founded out that you have alot of extreme coldness and blizzards there? Uh, I've allways thought that winter is hard here in finland... What about summer? drought??
 
mrj said:
Does anyone have experience with electric fences helping keep cattle where they belong? We have pretty good four wire fences, but doesn't keep bulls where they belong, either. Wonder if adding some hot wires to those fences would help?

mrj
Click to expand...

Is your fence all hot? If so that's your problem, you need to add ground wire(s).

With an all hot system, the ice/snow acts as an insulator. The electricity goes through the animal but can't go through the ground back to the ground system. With a ground wire they touch both wires at once and get the full shock. I had a problem with this about two years ago, calves would back up to the fence and push through, sometimes just climb between two wires. I added a ground wire between the top two and problem solved. I build my fences with hot/ground alternating now. With your four wire fence, you may be able to get away with disconnecting the jumper to that second one down and tapping that into the ground system. With your undergates you'll need a second insulated cable for the ground, don't skimp and use bare wire. If you get a crack in the hot wire down there you'll have direct ground into the ground system. Also, the wire will corrode and have more resistance, eventually it could break.

Kencove has a double underground wire. Two wires wrapped together. One is single insulated, one is double. I use the double for the hot. when building fence you'll save a little money because you don't need insulators for the ground wire. Although, you could go ahead and insulated them and use a double throw lever to make that wire hot or ground depending on conditions.
 
mrj, the main heat related issue I encounter with late season calving is that cows sometimes drown a calf if they head for a dam, dugout, or creek. I don't know why but I believe the cow is simply getting overheated by her labor and wants to cool off.

It's not often but it can and does happen if the cow has access to surface water. That hasn't been an issue for a long time, but will be for me this year.
 
P.A.L said:
Wow, I wouldnt never guessed that you have so extreme weather there in America. I've been browsing this forum sometimes and founded out that you have alot of extreme coldness and blizzards there? Uh, I've allways thought that winter is hard here in finland... What about summer? drought??
Click to expand...

We have been in a long term drought since late 2001 or early 2002. Through those years we have had some wetter spells, but then we always return to drought. Temperature can swing wildly in the High Plains. Two weeks ago, before we had the bad weather hit we had several days of 70F+. After the last storm rolled through we ended up with some temps down in the teens. That can cause all sorts of problems with calves respiratory systems.
 
We calve the majority in May/June and haven't had any troubles with heat. The heat trouble seem to come in August when we breed. Our breeding rates did drop off a little from it.(two years ago during AI it was from 95 to 110 degrees that entire week.) But it is well offset by the less amount of labor, facilities, and live calves at calving time. We do have a spring calving group and a fall calving group, but this is for marketing reasons only (Easier to sell 150 - 200 bulls from several different age groups than it is that many of all the same age) Anyway, if we could sell that many of the same age, they would all be born in May/June. Although Fall calving is pretty easy too, just take more winter feed. It seems to have stopped the sicknesses we always have with spring calvers as well, like overeating. On grass we hardly ever even see a calf born or even help one. The heifers do it in a 1/2 section and the cows in 7 quarters. We ride on the cows in the morning to way and tag and check the heifers at sun up and sun down. They just seem to do it better without seeing people.
 
If a cow is trying to have a huge calf when it's warm then I can see where she might get too hot and quit. If you have some birthweight issues in your herd then May and June might not be for you. But then 135# calves are trouble no matter when you calve.
 

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