Big Swede
Well-known member
In the winter of 2008 I was considering moving my calving date later in the year to avoid most of the spring storms that March and early April are famous for. I asked for advice on this forum and after a couple months of debating I decided to pull the trigger, actually I decided to keep my bulls in the pen until the first of August.
There were suggestions that the cows wouldn't breed in the heat of the summer and that calving in the heat could be a problem too. I decided to quit using scour vaccine except on the heifers which saves about $2,000 a year. The first year I didn't have any trouble with scours but the second year the calves born after the middle of June got sick. I talked to my vet and he suggested ultrasounding the herd and segregating the oldest calves from the youngest calves. So last fall we ultrasounded the first 30 days calvers from the second 30 days calvers and kept them in two different groups all through calving. The early calving group made up 76% of the herd this calving season and the late group were the other 24%.
Today I weaned the early calving group. I weaned 403 calves out of 410 cows. I never really checked the cows on grass, but I was up there most every day to check the water and take out salt and mineral. That reminds me, I fed mineral with Integramoss added but I attribute most of the calf health and weaning percentage(98.3%) to the ultrasound and keeping the age of calves seprate. Next week I plan to wean the later calving group and I expect the same or better results.
Granted the calves I weaned today didn't push down the scales like they used to when I calved in the winter, but the number of live calves more than makes up for the lighter weights. I have always backgrounded my calves anyway so it doesn't make any difference to me.
My purpose of this post is not to start another calving season debate, but I know there are guys out there who are considering a move to later calving but might just need some hard data and results to make up their minds. As I get older I look for every opportunity to save labor and wear and tear on the body and calving on grass has been even better than I had hoped. Most of my concerns about later calving have not really been an issue.
Sorry for the length of this post, thanks for reading.
There were suggestions that the cows wouldn't breed in the heat of the summer and that calving in the heat could be a problem too. I decided to quit using scour vaccine except on the heifers which saves about $2,000 a year. The first year I didn't have any trouble with scours but the second year the calves born after the middle of June got sick. I talked to my vet and he suggested ultrasounding the herd and segregating the oldest calves from the youngest calves. So last fall we ultrasounded the first 30 days calvers from the second 30 days calvers and kept them in two different groups all through calving. The early calving group made up 76% of the herd this calving season and the late group were the other 24%.
Today I weaned the early calving group. I weaned 403 calves out of 410 cows. I never really checked the cows on grass, but I was up there most every day to check the water and take out salt and mineral. That reminds me, I fed mineral with Integramoss added but I attribute most of the calf health and weaning percentage(98.3%) to the ultrasound and keeping the age of calves seprate. Next week I plan to wean the later calving group and I expect the same or better results.
Granted the calves I weaned today didn't push down the scales like they used to when I calved in the winter, but the number of live calves more than makes up for the lighter weights. I have always backgrounded my calves anyway so it doesn't make any difference to me.
My purpose of this post is not to start another calving season debate, but I know there are guys out there who are considering a move to later calving but might just need some hard data and results to make up their minds. As I get older I look for every opportunity to save labor and wear and tear on the body and calving on grass has been even better than I had hoped. Most of my concerns about later calving have not really been an issue.
Sorry for the length of this post, thanks for reading.