Daytime calving and grain

Help Support CattleToday:

SRBeef

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 22, 2007
Messages
2,931
Reaction score
3
Location
SW Wisconsin
I have been told and found last year that it seemed to work: feed grain in the late afternoon promotes daytime calving. On the other hand if you feed cows grain near calving time in the morning they tend to calve at night.

Anyone else feel this works this way? It seemed to for me last year. Gave them grain (just a couple buckets of sweet feed) about 5 pm and it seems like almost all of my calves were born during the daylight hours. Forget where I originally heard or read this but it seems to be true.

I'm going to try it again this year.
 
We feed our heifers late 9- 10 pm just hay no grain and it seems that they will calve more in the day time or right before dawn. I had read a study that this works you have to start to feed them several weeks before calving to get them on a schedule.


Jeff
 
Friends of ours are strip grazing. They move the cows late in the afternoon/early evening. Out of a dozen or so calves so far, they;ve akk cakved in the morning
 
That has been done for yrs there were some studies done on it back in the 60s and 70s to back it up
the old saying goes feed them in the dark and they will calve in the daylight

In the fall I start feeding them around 7-8 pm before the time changes and after it changes I feed them between 6-7 and I would say 75% of my calves are born between 5-8 am and I will also have some between noon and 4pm.
I have hardly any that are born btween 8pm and 2 am

I feed only hay also
 
Unless you get it perfected to 100% whats the difference? You still got to get up and check those heifers. :nod:
 
mnmtranching":22822jub said:
Unless you get it perfected to 100% whats the difference? You still got to get up and check those heifers. :nod:
checking 30-40 hfrs is alot easier than checking 140-150 cows plus checking the hfrs because the hfrs calve out at the house and the cows might be 2 miles from the house when calving and if I check the cows at 10 and no one is showing any signs then they don't get checked til 5 the next morning
 
It is called the Konefal method, if you want to look up more information about it. We have been doing this for the last couple years. Seems to work well for us. Like Angus Cowman, if we only have to check the heifers and not have to worry about the cows that are farther away, it is worth it. Good Luck.
 

Latest posts

Top