callmefence":15wz75ww said:
I bought 8 broken mouth cows last summer.
They were very poor but short bred. They have been with the weaned calves on oat pasture through the fall and winter. And in fair condition.
I've got less than 500.00 a head in em. I think I'm gonna let em calve. Nurse the calves a couple weeks. And sell the cows while they are still in good shape. let the wife take over the calves...
Much appreciated. Thank you very much
If you let the calves nurse the cows a couple of weeks, will you be able to get them to take bottles? I haven't had very good luck doing that myself. If you have decent grazing, I would let them feed the calves and then wean them off smaller, like 300 lbs if they are eating well, and then ship the cows. Use some sort of a creep gate to get the calves to learn to come in for feed, and they will get over the cows being gone and will go right on eating. I have a creep gate where I calve out the first calf heifers, with a lot and a barn/shed, and by the time the calves are 2-3 months old, they are coming in on their own and will eat grain and I try to put a couple sections nice hay for them. I don't keep feed in front of them, they learn that I "am the giver of extras" and will come in. They aren't real friendly, but not real skittish either. And it makes it easier to catch them up and work them. If you could do some type of pen with a creep gate, they will like coming in to get extra and it will make them grow faster and be less likely to miss their mommas. We buy alot of short mouth thin and old cows and will let them raise their calves up to 300 lbs or so...and feeding the cows real good most don't drop off too much weight.