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does feeding time relate to calving time?

H

Hoop

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This AM I was just in after 2 am check and I remembered a question that I"ve had for a while. An oldtimer years ago told me that if you want more calves born in daylight hours you feed them as late in the day as possible. His theory was you get them eating and it put their blood flow to digestion and less to reproduction, kinda put the birthing thing on hold for a short time. sounded good. We feed around 5-6 pm and I've kept track for he last four years and we've run about 70-75% calve between 6am and 6pm. Now this year is all out of wack and we are running almost opposite so far. I was wondering if anyone else has thoughts on this subject????
 
There was some recent discussion on this subject (few weeks ago) on this board. Basically, I think there are several beliefs but I don't think you'll find any definitive answer.
 
Big Muddy rancher said:
kolanuraven said:
YES


I feed at or about 5PM.....haven't had a calf born @ nite in years.

I'm a believer!
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Do you mean you delegate night check to some one else? :wink: :-)
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It must be cold as you can't seem to read... :lol: .................haven't had a calf born @ nite in years...all daylight calvers!

In fact, the last one is in the barnshed right now working up to it.

Our weather is FLOOD STAGE...so she gets the barn for the next day or so.
 
It'a a bunch of hooey. We always fed in the morning, and almost all our cows (about 95%) would calve between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. That was my time to watch them, and husband would do 11 p.m. till 5 a.m., he hardly ever found a new calf.
 
Shelly said:
It'a a bunch of hooey. We always fed in the morning, and almost all our cows (about 95%) would calve between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. That was my time to watch them, and husband would do 11 p.m. till 5 a.m., he hardly ever found a new calf.
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Are you sure he actually went out and didn't just land on the couch on the way by? :wink: (not that that would ever happen at our house).
When we used to calve earlier and feed cows, the late feeding worked for us pretty well.
Now that we calve on grass in May and June, I honestly don't have a clue when our cows calve (even narrowing down the day can be hard) and would struggle to tell you when our heifers calve. We basically show up every so often and count calves, but we have to be very cautious about Calving ease on bulls.
 
This is the first year I've tried it, and I believe it has helped. In past years it seems over 50% would calve at night, this year about 25% have. Still too early in calving to tell for sure, but I think has helped. It makes no difference to me feeding morning vs evening, so I'm going to keep doing it.
 
In the most convincing study to date, 1331 cows on 15 farms in Iowa were fed once daily at dusk, 85% of the calves were born between 6:00 am and 6:00 pm. Whether cows were started on the night feeding the week before first expected calving, OR 2 to 3 weeks earlier, made no apparent difference in calving patterns.

So this study claims it helps. That doesn't mean you can not have calves at night. It increases the chances of daylight calving but NO guarantees.

And that was the best out come of the studies done. IN most it increased the incidence of daylight calving by 20% . Which can help but in inclement weather a real stock man will still check at night.
 

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