dlazyj
Member
we have been weaning our calves for years and at different times have reweighed them after 1 or 2 weeks and have never failed to put on weight. good hay helps alot.
How does your ranch wean calves?
- Thread starter eatbeef
- Start date
A
Anonymous
Guest
4Diamond said:
The steers and the heifers not kept as replacements are sold off the cow as semi-preconditioned (shots at branding and again first part of Oct.), All Natural (no antibiotics, no steroids, no foreign feed substances), Sourced and IDed with ranch tags and signed affidavits....
Around here that will bring you anywhere from $5 to $10 @cwt...
A lot of calves in this area are contracted to buyers- and shipped straight from the gathering corrals in the pastures...Each of the buyers seems to have a little different protocol/brand name they prefer for preconditioning...
Aaron
Well-known member
Denny said:
Most years we background them. Some years we sell as calves. Last year I weaned about 3 weeks before I sold them. This spring, after the rings were out, they were on the trailer and out to grass. Last year they were gaining weight by the end of the 2nd week and this spring the calves were gaining as soon as they were on grass, so the rings meant I started gaining weight a week earlier.
I always hear about the 45-60 precondition protocol, but I never hear how those calves are treated or feed for that period. I have a few tricks up my sleeve to get traditional-weaned calves on feed asap after weaning. Something you definitely have to learn real quick when you buy calves from the yard, because time is money.
I will pay a 5 to 10 cent premium for pre-weaned calves. Cuts down on the fence crawling and easier to pick out the sick ones, rather than me having to deal with them later.
Overall I have been lucky to buy some decent calves with no death loss in the bought ones (although they try their hardest).
I have bought some belly nutters sold as steers and was compensated by the sales barn for 'misrepresentation'. Otherwise I would have taken a few teeth out of the previous owner. Too this day, I tell every other buyer I know, not to buy that guy's calves because he is crooked, and the prices reflect that.
We calve in April and May in fairly large pastures, riding to check and ear tag calves each day, brand early in June.
Calves are penned, roped, and hooked up to Nord-forks, rather like Sandhuskers contraption, but on the ground with a horse holding the hind feet. The bulls are knife converted to steers. All are branded and turned loose to join the waiting cows. I believe it took less than two minutes for each calf last spring. We had a big crew of excellent cowboys/girls doing the work.
Soon, we will give the recommended pre-weaning shots, wait a couple weeks or more, and fenceline wean. We have two locations where we reinforced the barbed wire fence and have fenceline water so the calves and cows can see one another and 'talk' through the fence, with pasture on each side. This year, we probably will start feeding hay and probably feed barrels immediately, given the drouth results of little hay to graze.
After a short time, variable due to grazing availability, they will go into our backgrounding lot. They will be sorted for size and sex, replacement hiefers and smaller ones, smaller steers and larger ones. They will be fed ground hay with some form of grain added, rations calculated to what we want each pen to gain. It is a little complex, but we have minimum amount of equipment (feeder wagon, tractor, and grain barn) and a young friend has a hay grinding business we hire). We are fortunate to have five or six family members available so someone can always be here to feed. We would begin selling larger steers anytime after the new year, and probably hold the smaller ones to run on grass...........if it looks like a good grass year!
We think it benefits us to provide the best 'product' we can to the feeders who are our first customer, and the consumer, our ultimate customer.
It is a far stretch from gathering two to four year old steers and putting them on the train to go to Sioux City from Midland or Belvidere, SD as we did in 1957 (the year we were married) as this ranch had done since the railroad came to Midland in 1906. Not sure how they did it before that time, as the ranch was started in 1892. I know there were pontoon boats that took cattle across the Missouri river to send to market before the rr bridges were built.
mrj
Calves are penned, roped, and hooked up to Nord-forks, rather like Sandhuskers contraption, but on the ground with a horse holding the hind feet. The bulls are knife converted to steers. All are branded and turned loose to join the waiting cows. I believe it took less than two minutes for each calf last spring. We had a big crew of excellent cowboys/girls doing the work.
Soon, we will give the recommended pre-weaning shots, wait a couple weeks or more, and fenceline wean. We have two locations where we reinforced the barbed wire fence and have fenceline water so the calves and cows can see one another and 'talk' through the fence, with pasture on each side. This year, we probably will start feeding hay and probably feed barrels immediately, given the drouth results of little hay to graze.
After a short time, variable due to grazing availability, they will go into our backgrounding lot. They will be sorted for size and sex, replacement hiefers and smaller ones, smaller steers and larger ones. They will be fed ground hay with some form of grain added, rations calculated to what we want each pen to gain. It is a little complex, but we have minimum amount of equipment (feeder wagon, tractor, and grain barn) and a young friend has a hay grinding business we hire). We are fortunate to have five or six family members available so someone can always be here to feed. We would begin selling larger steers anytime after the new year, and probably hold the smaller ones to run on grass...........if it looks like a good grass year!
We think it benefits us to provide the best 'product' we can to the feeders who are our first customer, and the consumer, our ultimate customer.
It is a far stretch from gathering two to four year old steers and putting them on the train to go to Sioux City from Midland or Belvidere, SD as we did in 1957 (the year we were married) as this ranch had done since the railroad came to Midland in 1906. Not sure how they did it before that time, as the ranch was started in 1892. I know there were pontoon boats that took cattle across the Missouri river to send to market before the rr bridges were built.
mrj
burnt
Well-known member
mrj - thank you for the interesting account of how you do it and of how it used to be done!
Wow, what a contrast in marketing methods!
Wow, what a contrast in marketing methods!
We vaccinate, knife castrate, tag at spring processing using a cradle (formost). We bring calves and cows in 2 weeks pre-weaning and booster all the calves. When we wean we have done the fenceline version, locked calves up from cows for a couple of weeks and locked up cows from calves. All work pretty well. We throw our big steer in with the calves. He is totally useless but does know how to eat and go to water, so he redeems himself for those 2 weeks. We then take cows out to grass about 6 miles away and let calves go to grazing (swath/bale and/or grass).
We start marketing calves when we buy bulls and don't sell any calves until they are weaned at least 60 days. We have auction marketed, taken on farm bids, forward contracted, sold online, through facebook, etc. The lighter weight and straight AN calves we generally keep back and grass depending on $ and moisture.
We start marketing calves when we buy bulls and don't sell any calves until they are weaned at least 60 days. We have auction marketed, taken on farm bids, forward contracted, sold online, through facebook, etc. The lighter weight and straight AN calves we generally keep back and grass depending on $ and moisture.