Calves per acre

[skyhightree1]

I searched before posting and didn't find what I was looking for strictly on calves so posted this if its a duplication I apologize and ignore it.
How many calves do you think would be good per acre on good thick fescue? I looked up calves per acre and it listed calves that are 400-700lbs as stockers but If I am raising calves that are 200-300lbs up to 500lbs what do you think is a reasonable amount per acre? I am splitting my pastures up and will keep cows and bulls on 1 portion and the calves will be kept somewhere else is my plan. I have 2 places for calves both are 4 acres or lil bit more than 4 acres. I was think about 4 calves per acre should be good. What do you think ?

 

[M5farm]

should be able to get close by converting to pounds

 

[Bigfoot]

1,000 pounds per acre may not be out of line, if its thick.

 

[skyhightree1]

Good point yea its thick I am thinking 4 per acre should work

 

[pricefarm]

I have a small pasture down from my house that a man lets me graze for free to keep it up. This last summer I ran 10 calves aver weight around 450 on 5 acres and they had more grass than they could eat. I mowed it once around July and rolled it for hay just to clean up the feild to keep it looking good. I think your pretty close at 4 calves a acre.

 

[Tim/South]

I figure Units Per Acre.
Normally we can run one unit per acre on good grass.
One unit would be one adult cow/calf or bull. We do not figure the calf until it becomes 450 lb. Then it becomes half a unit.
With the smaller calves it would seem they would be 1/4 of a unit. Four per acre would work here.
Since they are that small they will probably have a little supplement to help them along.

 

[skyhightree1]

I have a small pasture down from my house that a man lets me graze for free to keep it up. This last summer I ran 10 calves aver weight around 450 on 5 acres and they had more grass than they could eat. I mowed it once around July and rolled it for hay just to clean up the feild to keep it looking good. I think your pretty close at 4 calves a acre.

Thats good to know cause I think our pastures are more than likely along the same lines. Thanks

I figure Units Per Acre.
Normally we can run one unit per acre on good grass.
One unit would be one adult cow/calf or bull. We do not figure the calf until it becomes 450 lb. Then it becomes half a unit.
With the smaller calves it would seem they would be 1/4 of a unit. Four per acre would work here.
Since they are that small they will probably have a little supplement to help them along.

Thanks yea I creep all my calves so I feel that would probably be a good amount per acre.

 

[pricefarm]

The calves that I was grazing I feed them once a day with ground ear corn and DDGS mixed at about 14% protein that I mixed and they grow good.

 

[skyhightree1]

The calves that I was grazing I feed them once a day with ground ear corn and DDGS mixed at about 14% protein that I mixed and they grow good.

My mix is a 50/50 mix of SS commodity blend pellets and Jumpstart. I give mine corn as well in a seperate trough daily. That is once they have calf developer after a few weeks.

 

[Dave]

The calves will eat about 3% of their body weight a day in dry matter. A good ball park figure to use is that there is 350 pounds of dry matter per acre inch of good healthy forage. So figure the number of calves and their average weight times 3% to figure the amount of dry matter per day. Then how many inches of useable forage there is per acre. It will give you a decent ball park figure. From there it is a matter of watching the calves and the grass so you can adjust.

 

[skyhightree1]

This is where they will be going

 

[pricefarm]

Looks like good grass. I take that isn't a resent pic?

 

[skyhightree1]

Looks like good grass. I take that isn't a resent pic?

No sir that was from November of last year.

 

[bigbull338]

rule of thumb is 1200lbs pre acre.so that would be 3 or 4 calves pre acre.