Calving Woes

[S.S.A.P.]

We calve over 250 head starting in Jan - in a 9 stall barn. It can get hectic, making sure things get paired up before throwing cows out in really bad weather - to make room for new pairs. The calves get left in the 3' center alley. If at all possible we let them calve outside then pull them in as quick as possible. The barn is hand -cleaned so calving out in the pen helps a lot ...
We have a calf-warmer, which didn't see much use this winter (knock on wood). The barn was used last night but hopefully in a few weeks when the commercials start the barn lights can be shut off 8) We also have 8 cameras rotating through the 2 outside pens and a couple in the long, narrow barn. Those cameras have paid for themselves a hundred times over!!

 

[scout]

uusally the 1st of march calving works really well for us here, but this year the cows started a week and a half early which made us hit some pretty tough storms. I ran most every thing through the barn the first two weeks. lucks been a little tough this year lost 3 so far 2 to the cold and1 got laid on . those are the 1st calves ive lost here since we moved to the sand.

 

[jodywy]

I have a small pasture; I feed a little hay in it in the Evening after I turn the cows into my big lot and feed an hour before sunset. The cows have to walk thru a gate a small corral and another gate. I can usually get a fair look as they move thru. Any cows that stay back in the pasture get put in the small corral then into an old barn. Usually they will have a calf at their side by 10:00PM. We have very very few calves before 4 AM I do have a new barn and some panels to get cows in out of the lot if need be. We will get March temps -10to -15, usually clear nights they are around zero F. around 8 I let the cows without calves back down into the pasture. After making sure everybody has suckled good pairs go out another way and I can put feed out in the lot and not make deep ruts as the ground is froze up good.

 

[3words]

TizHot what you need is 2 ptz camera's,one for your holding barn and the other one about 20' feet in the air in your corral.You can control both camera's from your house and watch it from your t.v,and look at all the cows as often as you want,and you can get a lot of extra sleep.I calve 170 cows and start calving 3rd week of january,and it's a one man operation.I should be done calving but it went so good,i went and bought another 40 cows to calve in march & april.

 

[RSL]

Unless you can use it to shelter equipment/vehicles afterwards, I'd save my money, avoid building a new calving-shed and just hire a reliable & trustworthy night-calver.

Good idea, but easier said than done! You can't hardly find help like that
anymore.

Pretty much have to get married to find help like that.
I guess a guy could pull the bull at night in the summertime.

 

[3words]

Unless you can use it to shelter equipment/vehicles afterwards, I'd save my money, avoid building a new calving-shed and just hire a reliable & trustworthy night-calver.

Good idea, but easier said than done! You can't hardly find help like that
anymore.

Pretty much have to get married to find help like that.
I guess a guy could pull the bull at night in the summertime.

LMFAO!!Good one RSL.

 

[Anonymous]

Unless you can use it to shelter equipment/vehicles afterwards, I'd save my money, avoid building a new calving-shed and just hire a reliable & trustworthy night-calver.

Good idea, but easier said than done! You can't hardly find help like that
anymore.

Pretty much have to get married to find help like that.
I guess a guy could pull the bull at night in the summertime.

Amen... About 1AM on my checks I had a cow calving I was trying to get in the barn and she was being cantankerous...Finally got her thru a gate on the pen outside the barn- was going to close the gate and run her in and when I went to swing the gate I found it was buried in a huge snow drift... A cell phone call to the house- brought Grandma with a scoop shovel so I could get the gate shoveled out and closed- and we ran her into the barn... She's my bestest 4AM backup.. :wink:

 

[C Thompson]

Holy smokes. Three pages of mysery. I wonder what the cows would say if they could post here. This early calving would sure be a lot easier if winter didn't keep happening at the same time every year. Hang in there. Climate change is coming. Holy Smokes.

 

[Silver]

Holy smokes. Three pages of mysery. I wonder what the cows would say if they could post here. This early calving would sure be a lot easier if winter didn't keep happening at the same time every year. Hang in there. Climate change is coming. Holy Smokes.

Those dealing with the most misery today will have the biggest smiles in November :wink:

 

[Big Swede]

If I was calving now I'd be feeding the alfalfa that is for sale. Don't let em bluff ya C. Thompson. :lol: :wink:

 

[Soapweed]

If I was calving now I'd be feeding the alfalfa that is for sale. Don't let em bluff ya C. Thompson. :lol: :wink:

But look at all the selling expense and auctioneer fees you wouldn't have had to pay. :wink:

 

[C Thompson]

Hello Silver, Holy smokes to you too. Do you own a calculator or would the big smile have your eyes so screwed shut that you are doing the math in your head? No offence but really! Holy Smokes!

 

[randiliana]

Well, it seems to me that I remember a pretty terrible snowstorm in this country a couple years ago. (I'm sure other areas have had the same problem) It hit here in the middle of April, and sorry I can't remember the exact date. We came through that nasty storm and I don't believe we even treated a calf for anything, let alone had one die. Month old calves are pretty tough, we gave them a 3 sided shelter and a calf shelter and that was it.

Well, shortly after this storm the 'gov't' came out with a program that would pay for calves that had died because of the weather. There were guys around her, April calvers, that lost 40-60 calves in that storm.

I'm fairly sure, feed or not, that the calculator would have a hard time working around that little loss.....

 

[Silver]

Hello Silver, Holy smokes to you too. Do you own a calculator or would the big smile have your eyes so screwed shut that you are doing the math in your head? No offence but really! Holy Smokes!

As a matter of fact I do have a calculator. And a calendar. When I put them both to use I discover I have about 150 days to do a years work not counting calving. That means rejeuvenating hay land, haying, fencing, you know the routine. Why the heck would I want to squeeze calving into that? March calving losses tend to be less than later calving due to health issues incurred by muddy / wet / changing temps etc.
When I go to the salebarn my calculator tells me that larger calves bring home more dollars. My calculator also tells me that more dollars keeps the banker happy.
My calculator tells me how much hay I can expect to put up on an average year, and what my range should carry on an average year. Turns out I can generally put up hay for more cows than my range can carry.
So when I manage to unscrew my eyes long enough and do some fiddling with my calculator I realize that a little bit of hard work for a few weeks can dramatically improve my bottom line, and save me working double duty with other seasonal chores a little later on.
This may not be the case in everyone elses situation, but it's kept this outfit more profitable and efficient than when it calved later those many years ago.

 

[3 M L & C]

Where we are calving in the spring you can have bad weather now just as easy as in January. Now we can't move back any farther than now because we farm more than we have cows so that's a priority. Usually start planting mid april so usually spraying and such end of march. The past few years here the weather has actually been better for calving in January so that's what I'm going to keep doing. I'm not doing anything else anyway so a little extra labor just keeps me from getting an even bigger "winter belly". This subject is one that everyone has an opinion and everyone else is wrong. Point is if your really belive in something you can find a study somewhere that agrees with you. Weather its putting starter fertilizer on when you plant or what time of year you calve.

 

[randiliana]

Personally, I could care less when anyone else calves. I do have a bit of a problem when other people 'preach' that their way is the way I should do it. We all have reasons we do what we do, and I see no reason that anyone else should run down someone else's system. You want to calve in May, good for you, I have friends that calve then, I've also got friends that calve in January. March works for us...we have our reasons.

 

[Soapweed]

Thanks, Randiliana, Silver, and 3 M L & C. A guy could get an inferiority complex being so stupid as to be calving in the wintertime month of March. Thanks for putting it all in perspective, and to give me reason to keep on keeping on.

 

[randiliana]

:roll: :lol:

 

[per]

Ha, ha, we always have a robust "when is best to calve" conversation each spring. Hardly anyone wants to stretch their paradigm either way except for Big Swede but I sure do get a kick out of the passion for each and every argument. My observation after a pondering this question and observing weather in my location for several years now is that there isn't a perfect calving time. That is what makes the conversation fun.

I sure wouldn't want to be calving in the spring storm that plundered northern Alberta and Sask. Any storm that drifts a train to a stop could be counter-intuitive to calving.

 

[jodywy]

I thought Kit Pharo had all the anwsers :shock: