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HOW TIGHT IS YOUR CALVING SEASON

HOW TIGHT ?

  • 60 DAYS

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  • 90 DAYS

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  • 120 DAYS

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  • 365 DAYS

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  • ?????????

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  • Total voters
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HAY MAKER

Well-known member
IM thinking a tight calving season generates a uniform calf crop,that sell better and with less work,but still see bulls running with cows year round here in the south,not just hobby farmers either,have a neighbor that has a few hundred head,his favorite sayin......."A new calf is welcome on my place anytime"
good luck
 

BRG

Well-known member
We changed ours a few years ago from 60 days to 45. Since we are in the seedstock business I think we need to have good fertility, so our customers can as well.
 

HAY MAKER

Well-known member
BRG said:
We changed ours a few years ago from 60 days to 45. I think in the seedstock business you need to have good fertility, so your customers can be as well.

Probably,but IM thinking 45 days is to tight for the commercial cattle man,seems to me some good cows would be culled.............good luck
 

the_jersey_lilly_2000

Well-known member
We have in past years ran our bulls year round. But were kinda lucky in the respect that we had most of our calves durin January Feb, and March with a few coming in the fall. Finally I got Mr Lilly talked into puttin bulls out, and pullin em off.....this is the first year .....bulls are out for 90 days, then we'll pull em in. Thought I'd go with 90 days first......then narrow it down further next year, to 60 days.
It will make it so much easier on us...work twice a year...once to vaccinate mama's, and tag and cut calves, then again to sell calves and bangs vaccinate the replacements. Will save us not only time workin em, but money payin help. Plus we'll have more uniform calves (biggest bonus of all)
It's taken me all these years to finally talk him into doin this....cuz "Grandpa" ran his bulls year round. Nothin against the way he did it, but there's nothin wrong with tryin somethin that will improve things. It just takes some of us longer to talk the other into doin it. I had to literally sit down with pencil and paper, and list pros and cons, so he could see where we'd be savin more and makin more at the same time.
 

IL Rancher

Well-known member
45 days is what we aim for here but generally the bulls are out there for 50-55 days which means calving is probabl 60 days.. neighbor wh AI's is down right near 30 days with his cow herd, sells the ones that take longer than that...
 

kolanuraven

Well-known member
With my little bunch of cows, I'll AI a few....then bulls will go out for about 45 days....then calving will start in mid Jan and end at the latest 1st week of March.

Here most people run bulls with cows all year and calve all year. Not me, I like a starting and stopping time line.

I like for them to calve and be done with it!
 

sic 'em reds

Well-known member
We start calving the heifers around the 10th of January and they should be done by March 1st or somewhere close to there. The cows start around the end of January and go until April 1. Anything that has not calved by April 1st is sorted off and sold. So we do run our bulls out on the cows a little longer, mainly so if they are going to be late calvers they will bring more when we sell them. We shouldn't need to do this many more years, unless we buy a group of cows again.

We also AI my registered cattle 1 time along with about half of the, the oldest heifers, commercial 1st calf heifers. I think next year I will AI all the heifers we keep and run the bull a little shorter.
 

Jinglebob

Well-known member
Trich has changed some things around here.

Some guys would put the open spring calvers in with a bull and make them into fall calvers.

Now, most people sell any opens in the spring and any opens in the fall at pregging time.

I think around here most go about 45 days.

Dad always said a late calf was better than an open cow. I haven't made up my mind yet, whether he was right or wrong. :)
 

backhoeboogie

Well-known member
If the cow is not Bos Indicus influenced, they seem to do better as fall calvers in this climate. I will never let another angus cow calve in the spring here.
 

PPRM

Well-known member
I calve some cows in the Late summer and fall.....The rest in the spring. I do this because with my direct marketing, I really do not want everything to finish at the same time. I used to calve all in the Spring (Why do we call January calving spring calving?LOL), so I decided to move some of them up a month a year by turning the Bull in earler.....

For the most part, this has worked well. I have a lot of cows that are now Calving Sept and Oct. My goal is a 60 day on these. However, there was a couple of years where I tried some things that resulted in not enough protien and some of the cows did not breed back. I have not held those cows accountable and they are Nov/Dec calvers that are starting to move up. They ave the groceries now, so if they don't move up, they wil be gone...

I can't wait to get everything back to 60 days on two calvings....The spring calvers are April now BTW....I decided i needed to calve on grass,


PPRM
 

Soapweed

Well-known member
Our bulls get turned out about the 20th of May, and we will pull them in mid August, so it is close to a ninety-day calving season. We might pull the bulls that are with our yearling heifers in mid July, if we hit a rainy day when we can't hay. We will probably preg check the yearling heifers in early September and sell the opens at that time. This worked good last year, as the open heifers weighed 938 pounds about then and brought $1.05 per cwt ($985 per head).

We preg check our cows in October and early November. Any opens and other culls are sold fairly soon thereafter. I did keep over a few three-year-olds that were empty last fall. Bulls were put out with them from November 15th until January 1st, for a 45-day fall calving program. Four of these were "mis-diagnosed" as empty, and they had nice calves in May. I sold the rest of these young pregnant cows on the 21st of June, and they brought $1300 apiece, so I guess keeping them over paid off. They went to a ranch west of Casper, Wyoming, that has been getting some good rain this summer.
 

scout

Well-known member
we have 70 day calving period . we also have 2 herds a fall herd and a spring herd . The spring herd starts calving march 1st till may 10th. the fall herd is september 1st till november 10th. this helps us get are moneys worth out ofare bulls.one secert is don't move your opens or late calvers to the other herd it never fails in 3 to 4 years she'll work her self right back out . open once hamburger next.
 

Aaron

Well-known member
HAY MAKER said:
BRG said:
We changed ours a few years ago from 60 days to 45. I think in the seedstock business you need to have good fertility, so your customers can be as well.

Probably,but IM thinking 45 days is to tight for the commercial cattle man,seems to me some good cows would be culled.............good luck

A good cow can do it in 60 days. A better cow can do it in 45 days. People have commented on what nice calf crops we have, so uniform and ideal. The look of a person's herd says a lot about that person.
 

Kato

Well-known member
Our bulls are out from mid April to October. BSE is responsible for the length. The bulls come home when we wean the calves. Up here, a late cow really is better to keep than cull. Almost all calf by the end of April. We preg check in fall, and opens are gone. That's one unforgivable error here. Another one is being dangerous. :twisted: Even being bred won't save those. :!:

Late cows get lucky, but anything that hasn't calved by pasture time gets checked again just in case she's aborted on the sly, or the vet was wrong. :shock: There's usually no more than a half a dozen or so of these to check. We also have a bunch each year that will move up their calving, some by as much as six weeks. This year we had one that moved up six weeks and had twins on top of that!

We buy 300 pound steers in fall to background so the late calves get tossed in with those. If we didn't have the backgrounders they'd be a real pain to deal with. They don't get on so well in a pen full of bigger calves.
 

George

Well-known member
I am working for a 45 day period - - - I will allow a cow to strech it to 60 days but she better get back in line the next time or she ships.

I am going to wean the 6th of Aug ( first sale of the month) and although all cows have calved I already have my cull list and I'm not keeping anything that is not top notch.

The feed supply is to low to let a slacker stay.

One of the best looking animals on the place ( a three year old registered Charolis) is on the cull list. Her problem is she allows every calf that walks by to nurse and while she calves early her calf last year and this year both are the smallest! I believe she gives her energy to all and her calf suffers.
 

Turkey Track Bar

Well-known member
At our house, 45-50 days...probably closer to 50 by the time we get all bulls pulled.

Unless you're an old (>12 years old) and a great cow, there are not any free passes here. We are actually going to leave one 12 or 13 year old cow intentionally open this year, and flush her. She has a proven performance, and producers equally nice bull and heifer calves, which have gone on to be great producers as well. Further, she has great feet and a really nice udder.

I think she is only the second or third cow we've ever flushed.

Cheers---

TTB :wink:
 

PureCountry

Well-known member
We calve starting June 1st, so the bulls go out August 15th, or there abouts. With bulls going out that late, we can't leave them on the cows too long, or they get too run down going into winter. The older bulls, no problems. Yearlings/twos will drop weight, and a 60 day breeding season means October 15th for us, so they can't get too run down.

I do agree on keeping things uniform, but for us with a grass-based program, and a meat business, a few dry cows showing up through the winter or on spring grass, just means more grass finished product to sell.
 

Faster horses

Well-known member
45 days for us on the cows and usually 30 days for the yearling heifers.
We have found that breeding the yearlings for only 30 days results in
a fertile cow herd. When you get rid of those late ones as yearlings, it's easy for the cows to calve in 45 days from then on.

So many of our customers get a high percentage of calves in the first
heat cycle, it is truly amazing. I'm talking high 80's to low 90's percentage wise. Good mineral helps get cattle bred up.
 
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