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Calving Season

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gizmom

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Molino, Florida
I just finished up calculating(I hope I did it right I suck at math) our calving season for our 2010 calf crop. We bred 87 head, sold one as a bred cow, had two lose calves at calving and two slip calves after we palpated. We have 82 calves on the ground based on exposure dates 63% of these calves came in the first 30 days of our calving season, 22% the second 30 days, 7% the third with 2% calving after 90 days.

In the 7% group six of the cows are over ten years old, one was a 2006 model having her 2nd calf.

in the 2% group both were 2006 models on their second calf. Without going into alot of detail, I will just say that we made some bad management decisions with these cows and carry alot if not all of the blame for them calving late.

What do you want as far as calving season, I have heard that some want less than 60 days. I just don't know if we will ever even make the 60 day mark, but it is a goal we are striving for. I hope I did the math right.
Gizmom
http://www.gizmoangus.com
 
Faster Horses, thanks for the input, we are not going for 90 days our goal is 60. The cows calving outside the 60 day range will be removed. I don't know that we can do better than 60 days here in Florida. I have discussed this with Dr. Lamb who is with the University of Florida beef unit, and they are on a 90 day calving with their herd. I want to have great fertility, but I don't want to ask cows to do something that due to enviornment is not feasable. I don't know that you can compare Montana to Florida. But I may very well be wrong, which is why I started the thread. How many folks living in the south have a 45 day calving period or 60 day? I don't know the answer, but would love to get that information.

Thanks
Gizmom
 
You won't close it up much with '06 models just having their second calves. :?


Pick your bulls up after 60 days the first year and move it up 5 days every year.
Soon you will have a herd calving in 45 days, just ship the open ones. :D

Find a good mineral your cows will eat.
 
Big Muddy

Where are you located? I see it is the big Muddy Valley but being geographally challenged your gonna have to tell me where that is.

Gizmom
 
gizmom said:
Big Muddy

Where are you located? I see it is the big Muddy Valley but being geographally challenged your gonna have to tell me where that is.

Gizmom
Click to expand...

I am right on the US border in southern Saskatchewan(Pretty much like Flordia) pretty close to the corner where Montana and North Dakota meet. :D
 
Having been to Montana (only once and loved it) I can tell you that it isn't a thing like Florida. We were there in August, I never broke a sweat IN AUGUST! I just can't imagine that here in August you step outside and within minutes your soaking wet, it is like walking in a sauna. You know the reason we talk so slow is the dang air is so heavy we have to lift the words out of our mouths.

I go back to the question is it even possible to have a 45 day calving season in this part of the country. I am not saying it is impossible, I would just love to find someone from this area that can tell me they are doing it. Your system would work, and that may be what we do, but before I stick my neck out I want to know that it is possible where I live to do it.

On the up side of living here in Florida it is going to be in the 60's over the weekend and I am going fishing....so living here does have a few advantages lol.

Thanks for your comments, and please understand I am not disagreeing with you I have watched your operations on here trust you know what your talking about. I am just trying to educate myself on what will work where I live.

Gizmom
 
I'm sure ranching in places like Florida has it's own challenges but as ranchers we all have to work around them. Working with nature seems to have the most success such. We calve in late April and May where you should probably be calving in January so you can get your cows rebred before it get hot and humid. Probably your hot season would equate more to our cold time as more of a maintenance period for the cows after weaning.
 
I would agree, our summer is the heavy stress time for our cattle. We may need to look at moving our calving. At this point we start in the middle of September, (and it is still hot) if we were stictly commercial I would say we need to calve in January, however all of the registered bull sales that we particiapte in are geared toward bulls that are two years old in November. So we have to weight all of the varables out to see what is going to work best for our program. How long is your cold season? Our heat last until about Mid October and it is getting warm moving toward hot by mid April. And of course hurricane season goes from June 1st through the end of November and from past experience having calves in the middle of a hurricane just sucks.

Gizmom
 
We wean our April/May calves off in October and the cows go back to the hills until they need to come home for feeding. That can be anywhere from Mid to late November until January. We have had them stay out grazing all winter but can't count on that. We have had snow on the ground since mid November this year and I doubt we get much open ground until March some time. Our worst storms can come in Feb and March with April close behind.

We do have quite different challenges but that's what make life interesting. :D
 
And I have to admit I love every minute of it! If we didn't have challenges wouldn't life be dull. I see some of the pictures you guys post and just can't imagine what it is like for you in the winter. I honestly don't know if I would be in the cattle business, I am a wimp when it comes to cold weather!

Gizmom
 
I would agree that heat wouldn't be conductive to conception rates.
However, your cattle should be acclimated...as are ours to cold...
We have learned that cows get ready for rebreeding BEFORE they
calve so that's an important part of what you are trying to do.
How's their nutrition at that time? In Sept. how is your grass?
I would imagine your grass would be washy, so along with mineral,
I would suggest some dry matter. We have customers who put
out an old bale of hay or straw in the spring and it sure helps settle
the cattle down. In the north, most of the spring grass is very
nutritious, but it also is high in moisture. So putting out some dry
matter at that time really helps. Interesting that they WILL eat it.
(Count us among the ones who didn't think they would.) :p
Dry matter is important and is one requirement of a cow. And
it gets overlooked in many cases. We used to say that cattle 'chase'
grass in the springtime, actually what they are chasing is dry matter.

FWIW
 
Our grass is good from April through the end of June. By mid July it has really gone south on us. We are able to plant winter rye which is really good and it starts coming up about December and will last until April, when the weather is right. This year winter grazing hasn't done well at all it has been to cold for it to grow. So our cattle are having to make it on Hay and protein tubs along with minerals. Our younger stock (first and second calf) are fed about four pounds of pellets per head a day (mixture of soy hull and corn gluten) and hay and minerals. We adjust the minerals based on time of year, if they are on rye pasture then we have them on a high mag mineral. The last few years have not been good for us with winter pasture, this past year we only planted about 30 acres and it didn't come up at all. Needless to say that hurts in the pocketbook.

Gizmom
 

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