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Big Swede

gcreekrch

Well-known member
Wondering if you plan on weaning your later born calves the same time as you normally wean or if you will leave them on the cow the same number of days as if they were born earlier.
 

Big Swede

Well-known member
I've been thinking about that lately and what I think I will do is wean at the same time of year even though the calves will be younger. Probablay late September or early October. Calves will gain better and will have the cows in good shape going into winter.

I went to a producer meeting the other day and heard a talk on early weaning and I mean early weaning! There are some guys who are successfully weaning calves at 100 days of age. Rule of thumb for them is when they put the bulls in with the cows was when they were pulling the calves off. I know it sounds kind of extreme but the main reason they were doing it is to get their cows in really good shape going into fall, grass went way farther because there wasn't a calf out there eating part of it, and the cost of wintering cows was very little because they were so fat going into winter. Conception rates increased and replacement rates are down to about 10% per year which is a big savings in depreciation. I figure about 15% per year for our operation.

Very interesting concept, I guess now that I think about it if I wean in Sep. some of my calves could be about 100 days old.
 

RSL

Well-known member
Interesting thread. they are doing some work on this in Urbana. Weaning calves really young and then putting them on a high concentrate ration. Because the rumen isn't developed yet, they are basically like feeding pigs. Feed conversions are freakish (like 4:1 or better).
It raises some ethical issues, and some questions about what else does it affect (things like daughters learning to graze from their mothers, etc.) but it is pretty interesting research.
 

Soapweed

Well-known member
Big Swede said:
I've been thinking about that lately and what I think I will do is wean at the same time of year even though the calves will be younger. Probablay late September or early October. Calves will gain better and will have the cows in good shape going into winter.

I went to a producer meeting the other day and heard a talk on early weaning and I mean early weaning! There are some guys who are successfully weaning calves at 100 days of age. Rule of thumb for them is when they put the bulls in with the cows was when they were pulling the calves off. I know it sounds kind of extreme but the main reason they were doing it is to get their cows in really good shape going into fall, grass went way farther because there wasn't a calf out there eating part of it, and the cost of wintering cows was very little because they were so fat going into winter. Conception rates increased and replacement rates are down to about 10% per year which is a big savings in depreciation. I figure about 15% per year for our operation.

Very interesting concept, I guess now that I think about it if I wean in Sep. some of my calves could be about 100 days old.

Another way of looking at it would be that the cow is only being "used" for a hundred days. When I had a fall calving program, I tried two different methods. One was early weaning and roughing the cows out in the hills. The August-born calves required quite a bit of feed to get them through until they were sold the following August. The system I liked better was to leave the calf on the cow until she was just about ready to have her next calf, in other words wean the calf after it sucked the cow for eleven months. The calves weighed like lead and the cows didn't get as obese as many fall calving cows tend to get. There are a lot of different ways to skin a cat, but one way or another you've got to use a knife to take off the hide. :wink:
 

Big Swede

Well-known member
I agree with your 2nd method Soapweed for fall calves. I've seen fall calving cows get so obese on grass with no calf sucking them down that there were calving problems because their pelvic area is so loaded with fat. With spring and summer calvers the fatter they are going into winter the better.

Wyoming Rancher, I intend to feed them myself because we raise all the necessary feed needed. My plan is to background them until March or possibly April and hit the grass market. One thing that has me concerned with this method is while these young calves are on the higher concentrate ration I'm not sure if I know how to limit their gain so they will be in the right condition the following spring at market time. I suppose a couple months on that ration and then a switch to a high roughage ration through the winter is the answer.
 

Faster horses

Well-known member
We have a rancher friend who is a good businessman.

He wonders why producers want calves to not gain much during the winter; that they cost you each day you own them. His theory is feed them to gain good, sell them early in the winter and go buy some back for grass cattle (to sell or to keep). You've turned your money twice that way...

Just food for thought.
 

rancherfred

Well-known member
Big Swede said:
Wyoming Rancher, I intend to feed them myself because we raise all the necessary feed needed. My plan is to background them until March or possibly April and hit the grass market. One thing that has me concerned with this method is while these young calves are on the higher concentrate ration I'm not sure if I know how to limit their gain so they will be in the right condition the following spring at market time. I suppose a couple months on that ration and then a switch to a high roughage ration through the winter is the answer.

Is there some reason that you need a hotter ration for them early on? Why not just use the roughage ration from the time you wean them. You really don't want them rolling fat at 500lbs when you take them to the barn. Ideal would be to grow the frame during the winter, and if you don't have the pasture to run them on grass take them to the barn a little green. Another thing to consider is to sell them on the video for that window the previous summer.

Our target start date is May 15, so we usually start getting early calves the first week or so of May. We wean the first of November, so that usually gives us a 4-5 month old calf at weaning time. We have them on a roughage ration consisting of about 4-5 lbs of oats and approx. 10lbs of hay. The hay is a 50/50 mix of alfalfa and sorghum/hay millet grass. I think we are gaining about 1.5lb a day on that. Depending on the animal they can be doing a little better. On that program we can pretty easily have a 525lb steer calf to deliver in mid-December. The heifers have been sold in past years for late January or early February delivery at 5-550lbs. I don't remember when your new start date is for calving, but you will probably have to really rough them to get them to the April time frame weighing 5. I think our heifers would probably be pushing a 600lb average right now.
 

Big Swede

Well-known member
Last fall is the first time I ever limit fed weaned calves and it worked pretty good. They were on a ration that was a third alfalfa and two thirds corn silage. My target rate of gain was 1.5# and as tough as the winter was I'm not sure they hit that target. The feeder market got kind of hot there in January so I decided to sell 2 loads of steers. They averaged about 600# and on that day it didn't matter if a steer weighed 600 up to 800 they brought about $680 per head. I've been the one selling 800# steers for years and not even getting paid for the extra feed that it was kind of nice to be selling green calves once for just as many dollars. It's crazy but the buyer gets 200# for nothing. They can't put it on for nothing but they can buy it for nothing.

As we get to this time of year there is even more demand for green steers so if I had kept them till now they would have been weighing in the low 700's yet still green. Might have been worth it but I didn't feel like feeding them that long plus the silage pile was getting short. I'll need to check the markets to see what those calves are bringing now.
 

Northern Rancher

Well-known member
We just weaned last week-I suppose the average age would be9-10 months-they wintered out licking snow with their mothers and bale grazing. We might peel a heavy end off and sell into this hot market-but the rest will go to grass and then into the feedlot.
 

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