Weaning Calves

[RSL]

Some of our Herdsires
Dad

And Two sons

A Black Max Bull

1 day pre-weaning

Weaned - the Ch calves are from some bred cows we bought last December

Angus Calves we weaned a few days earlier

Clamp fence we just built...very inexpensive, very fast, very strong and no welding.

The oldest calves were 194 days when we weaned. The average age was right around 170. We have about 4 light weights, so are very pleased.

 

[gcreekrch]

Cattle had a good summer RSL, how long until you market some calves?

Can you still get pipe from the oilpatch at a reasonable price?

 

[RSL]

Cattle had a good summer RSL, how long until you market some calves?

Can you still get pipe from the oilpatch at a reasonable price?

We have always backgrounded, and did pretty well on our 2010 calves so I have to hold calves into the new year at least. We vaccinate 2 weeks pre-weaning and once the calves are settled down and the cows away from home they will go out to graze, so our cost of gain is really low (I expect it will fall under $0.20/pound this year once I get the calves out of the corral). I am going to try to balance growth/cost/price with the risk of Greece taking down the world.

Most oilfield pipe is around $1 a foot and sucker rod is just under $0.45. The clamps are from Pugh farms and vary based on size. The 2 7/8 pipe and 7/8 sucker rod clamps are $4 each. They are new to us, but we are already kicking ourselves for buying lumber this summer.

 

[gcreekrch]

Thanks, most of our new corrals at Morrison Meadow will be 8-10 inch x 10 ft treated posts and 8 inch logs on 12 ft. spacings. Am planning on building a roof over a bud-box and working area and may use pipe to take less space.

We planned on selling 1/2 the cow herd this fall and backgrounding all the calves, keep all heifers to breed and have a semi-retirement spring for calving next year. Breds in this area are just not in high enough demand yet to get what I think they are worth so we are selling all the s/c and keeping 1/2 the heifers back next week. Timing would have been better 3 weeks ago but that is how it goes. We are selling 2 loads of older breds in Dec also.

 

[Faster horses]

Cattle had a good summer RSL, how long until you market some calves?

Can you still get pipe from the oilpatch at a reasonable price?

We have always backgrounded, and did pretty well on our 2010 calves so I have to hold calves into the new year at least. We vaccinate 2 weeks pre-weaning and once the calves are settled down and the cows away from home they will go out to graze, so our cost of gain is really low (I expect it will fall under $0.20/pound this year once I get the calves out of the corral). I am going to try to balance growth/cost/price with the risk of Greece taking down the world.

Most oilfield pipe is around $1 a foot and sucker rod is just under $0.45. The clamps are from Pugh farms and vary based on size. The 2 7/8 pipe and 7/8 sucker rod clamps are $4 each. They are new to us, but we are already kicking ourselves for buying lumber this summer.

Just curious what you think those calves will gain just grazing?
Will you supplement them with anything?
We tested some grass here and it was only 4% protein and highly
undigestable for a customer who was thinking about grazing purchased
fall calves.
We felt the calves would go backwards on that forage, even adding
a bit of protein. I realize your grass is different than ours (ours
is dried out with not much green, if any) so I was curious as to
what the calves do there.

 

[Faster horses]

Cattle had a good summer RSL, how long until you market some calves?

Can you still get pipe from the oilpatch at a reasonable price?

We have always backgrounded, and did pretty well on our 2010 calves so I have to hold calves into the new year at least. We vaccinate 2 weeks pre-weaning and once the calves are settled down and the cows away from home they will go out to graze, so our cost of gain is really low (I expect it will fall under $0.20/pound this year once I get the calves out of the corral). I am going to try to balance growth/cost/price with the risk of Greece taking down the world.

Most oilfield pipe is around $1 a foot and sucker rod is just under $0.45. The clamps are from Pugh farms and vary based on size. The 2 7/8 pipe and 7/8 sucker rod clamps are $4 each. They are new to us, but we are already kicking ourselves for buying lumber this summer.

Just curious what you think those calves will gain just grazing?
Will you supplement them with anything? What will they be grazing?
Native grass?
We tested some native grass here
for a customer who was thinking about grazing purchased
fall calves and it ran only 4% protein and ADF showed it
to be highly undigestable.
We felt the calves would go backwards on that forage, even adding
a bit of protein. I realize your grass is different than ours (ours
is dried out with not much green, if any) so I was curious as to
what the calves do there. Thanks.

There is always something to be learned.

 

[RSL]

We will put them onto hay bunches first. That is testing out around 12% protein (basically free choice hay) and then onto our swath grazing. Still have to get the feed tests back on that but I suspect on past experience it will run around 60% TDN and there are lots of heads, so should be fairly high energy. We will feed a loose custom blended mineral free choice. We may bale graze calves as well if it snows a bunch.

Cows will go onto native once they leave here. Past forage testing shows it curing out around 7-8% protein. There is plenty there for second trimester dry cows, and barring a bout of -40 and lots of snow, the cows should put on 100-150 pounds in the next couple of months. From there they will go onto 2 year old fall rye, and then swath grazing and then bale grazing.

 

[Faster horses]

We will put them onto hay bunches first. That is testing out around 12% protein (basically free choice hay) and then onto our swath grazing. Still have to get the feed tests back on that but I suspect on past experience it will run around 60% TDN and there are lots of heads, so should be fairly high energy. We will feed a loose custom blended mineral free choice. We may bale graze calves as well if it snows a bunch.

Cows will go onto native once they leave here. Past forage testing shows it curing out around 7-8% protein. There is plenty there for second trimester dry cows, and barring a bout of -40 and lots of snow, the cows should put on 100-150 pounds in the next couple of months. From there they will go onto 2 year old fall rye, and then swath grazing and then bale grazing.

Thanks for the info. I thought you might be doing something different
than grazing calves on native pasture. Super that you are doing a
feed test, sure tells what your forage contains without guessing.
That's why we tested the grass here and it's
good we did. I think he would not have been happy with the performance
of his calves on 4% protein, highly undigestible forage.

The seedhead came out early on the grass here and then it dried
up, so our fall forage isn't very good. With the late, wet spring and
then getting so hot, the cattle didn't have much of a window to
gain. Yearlings and calves were lighter in many instances. It still
was a good year however, everything considered.

 

[strawking]

I like the look of that fence. Could you take some pics a little closer to show us?