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Ranchers.net
On another forum, it was suggested feeding later in the day will influence calving times. Which got me thinking, and, since I record like basically EVERYTHING, including TIME OF CALVING and the fact that I am messing around with a spreadsheet to help me see how the herd has/is changing over the years, I plugged the time of calving numbers into the spreadsheet, and looked at the averages for the last 11 years....
I am not a believer in feeding at night to make them calve during the day.... and IMO my spreadsheet proved that it really doesn't change much....
A British study involving 162 cattle from 4 different farms compared the percentages of calves born from 5:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. with cows being fed in the morning versus feeding in the evening. 57% of the calves born during the day were from cattle fed at 9:00 am versus 79% born during the day when cows were fed at 10:00 p.m. A study done in Iowa with 1331 cows from 15 farms showed that 85% of the calves were born between 6:00 am and 6:00 p.m. when fed once daily at dusk.
I set it up to coincide with the British study of the cows calving from 5 AM to 10 PM.... We feed in the morning, usually around 9 am, and almost NEVER later than 11 AM. My numbers from the past 11 years (and 1577 head) show that 78.3% of the cows calve from 5 AM to 10 PM. The lowest year was 68.8% and the highest was 86%...