Fall vs Spring

[anewcomer]

From my perspective, I would have thought winter/spring calving is a no brainer, however it is very interesting to read the reasoning of those of you who do autumn calving. Not enough to change me but I can see your reasoning.

Ken

Take a hard look at that reasoning!

 

[anewcomer]

Spring. Now. Started out spring only, ended up with stragglers (one of my bulls broke his penis) and finally got back to spring only. The market is generally better for spring here and while the weather is unpredictable (there may be mud/cold/snow, there may not), my spring calves always grew better, looked better & were healthier.

Good points!

 

[anewcomer]

I'm digging old 210 oil tank houses out of the woods to use as calf houses for next winter. I'll probably bed them every so often just like we used to with hogs.

You need calf houses for your environment? Where do you live? When are you calving?

 

[anewcomer]

We had both Spring and Fall calving herds. As referenced earlier, if a good cow - usually a first-calf heifer - came up open in one group, and we wanted to keep her, she'd just 'bump' to the other calving group. Bull did double duty, so was not just standing around tearing stuff up for 9-10 months.
Loved calving in the fall - even though my wife kept pushing it forward so much that 'fall' calving was starting on August 1st. No mud, no frozen calves. But... it takes SO MUCH MORE feed to get a lactating cow through the winter! Fall-born calves never had the growth and weight at sale time that Spring-born calves did. Guess if we'd fed more, maybe they'd have been heavier... but the ROI would likely have been less.

We had decided to do away with Fall calving, and had dispersed the bottom half of the Fall calving cows and were moving to all Spring... when we decided to disperse, in 2019. Still think, from a feed cost/income standpoint, Spring calving was best for us, and if we were to get back into it... we'd be Spring calvers.

Thanks for the comments from one of the best on this site.

 

[anewcomer]

We have both... for most of the same reasons as everyone else. Try to not calve 1st calf heifers in the fall because it does pull them down alot. But the market here is a fair amount better for spring calves weaned and ready to go on grass, 4-550 lbs size... and yes, I much prefer they calve on clean early fall grass pastures. If the weather cooperates, then spring calving is great for the cows to go to grass late April/early May and breed back good when the bulls go in 1st of June... but we seem to get real hot fast with little spring weather... so sometimes some slower breeding back... they breed back real easy in Nov/Dec....
We also have had some "bad bull" problems... just this last group had 30-35 in there.... 6 all bred 6-7 months so calving in April.... the rest all open....20 or so, were younger cows... younger cows got put in with 2 bulls and hope to get them caught in 30 days, for Dec calves, 5 old(er) cows got culled and were in pretty decent shape so prices were okay. But we lost basically a year through no fault of the cows... Something happened to bull, but everything seemed to be working fine so did not break the penis..... He got shipped with the cows. If there had been a bunch 6-7 months then some shorter, could have figured he got hurt then recovered... but 6-7 months and NOTHING. These are all checked ultrasound now and the vet is good....bull was good when he went in.... so we took it on the chin and will try to buy a few more with calves by side or ready to calve in the next month or so....to build back up the spring numbers. Easier to calve the spring group as they are all at the barn lots, but again, like everyone else, mud and cold and then we sometimes get these surprise snow storms or cold rain/ice and do not have inside facilities to put them when it's bad.... I'd like to calve in May/early June and then put them out and put bulls in July/Aug... wean calves in Jan, get bunk broke and on silage/feed, and then sell in Mar... 5 wt calves are highest prices overall.... but we are in hay and that is too much to do on any given day.
Never a perfect time and when you think you have it all worked out, you get thrown a curve ball like with our bull going bad....

No time for breeding is good when bulls go bad.

 

[anewcomer]

No time for breeding is good when bulls go bad.

Your May June scenario sounds interesting!

 

[anewcomer]

Excellent

We like spring calving. Calves are hitting their stride right around when the grass is lush and cows are outputting the most milk. They also will graze grass as milk production levels off. Our winters are hard for a nursing cow. Fall calving puts an extra strain on resources for a cow: nursing a calf, trying to keep warm, and eventually growing a fetis. It is doable in our area, but you need to have good facility and feed quality, and you'll still wean lighter calves than spring born.

description of spring calving!

 

[Warren Allison]

Sept- October was always the optimal time to calve around here. You gonna be feeding the cows hay anyway all winter, but the calves will be nursing, so no costs to feed them. You wane the calves and sell them in April, when everyone has grass again, and give the most for them.
Now, our Corriente herd, that we breed to black polled bulls, we calve in February, and sell the calves end of August or so. But, that is mostly due to what other things we do with the 2 places where we keep them

 

[SBMF 2015]

Your description shows a much higher cost for fall calving. Extra feed, extra facilities, bedded barn, etc.

That's a downfall or benefit of living in an "I" state. Plenty of cheap feed options, plenty of corn stalks to make cheap bedding, the buildings are already here. It works for me because of the available resources, but it's not for everyone.

 

[GoWyo]

You and your neighbors have identified the appropriate calving/breeding season. Your desire to raise breeding stock is the limiting factor. Dare I ask if the increased profit from a commercial herd calving with your neighbors would exceed the profit from your registered bull program? Maybe you can do both. There is a lot of sense in only having cattle in the growing season in long winter environments.

I do calve on the same time frame as my neighbors. Manage the cows the same as my neighbors too -- run them just like any commercial herd in the area. The main thing I hate is the March-April blizzards because we don't have enough protected area yet. I plan to remedy that problem this year by building about 7-8 portable windbreaks and a 72x96 windbreak with 60' of open face shed with a cow excluder bar that the calves can get into. I can build the windbreak/shed combo for about $6000 (less than sales of 2 bulls) and solve about 3/4 of my problems with blizzards.

 

[LocustDaleCattleCompany]

We Spring and Fall calve on our farm. My major complaint with Springs herds is lower conception rate than the Fall herds. We are always 97-100% on Fall herds and 85-92% on our Springs. Our black bulls don't love that hot weather in the summers along with fescue pastures. We are going to start an A.I program this year with our Spring herds to try and get down to a 45 date season. Trying something different. Don't love the weather we can have in February when we start Spring calving but this past February was awesome to calve in. Our Spring calves always look better to me than our Fall calves but that's just my opinions. They both market well for us. Keeping dry Spring calvers on stock pile and little hay most of the winter is nice compared to wet Fall calvers.

 

[ksmit454]

So far, I have only done fall calving. I know some ranchers near me that calve year round. I live in Northern Ca so our weather is very mild. Fall is nice time to calve as the temperatures drop to a mid 65 degrees. We very rarely get snow, if any. Rain has been awful this year. Pasture are already picked clean.

 

[BFE]

You need calf houses for your environment? Where do you live? When are you calving?

Location is SE Illinois, listed to underneath the name/profile pic to the left of the comments. Where are you from?

We had two hard rains followed by high wind gusts and 10-15 degree temps this winter, so icy cattle having to deal with mud before it had time to freeze. I've got a couple small barns but not all the calves got in out of the weather, lost a smaller heifer calf one of those days. Dad bought the tank houses for hogs 30-40 years ago, I guess I just as well utilize them.

Bull issue has pushed me from all spring to spring/fall. I'll hold the bull this year to get them grouped again so I'll be all fall (Aug-Sept) in'23. After that, I'll try to work them back up by putting the bull in a month earlier every year until I get back to April/May.

 

[Muletrack]

I am curious to which calving season y'all like most and the pros and cons y'all have found? I am personally calving out in spring.

North Dakota State University took a pretty good look at this back in the 1990's and showed that fall is a pretty good way to go. I've been calving in September/October for about a decade. We have 50 mph wind gusts this chilly morning, and temps are supposed to be only up to about 5 degrees above zero this weekend. Most here like to calve in late winter. We used to start calving in February. Once in a while in those days a cow would sneak her calve in something in December -- and a light went on for me that that calve always worked out!
Google NDSU Fall Calving if this link doesn't work; https://www.ndsu.edu/agriculture/ag-hub/ag-topics/livestock/beef/fall-calving-north-dakota

 

[Muletrack]

Also, I never worry about scours, and the long summer exercise program usually straights calves out (hardly ever an abnormal presentation). Recently I've been marketing steers in the spring, but at times have had grass to hold them over most of the summer. Usually works out for me pretty well. This year I weaned early because of the drought, but the calves have done so well on grain that I'm going to give the steers a ride to town later this month. Would I ever go back to spring calving? Not a chance. It works in the far north. Yes, you feed more hay when cows are lactating, but the year-long use of stored forage works out about the same, according to NDSU data. And you can graze more dry cows on the same summer ground than you can pairs. Cold? We're about as cold as it gets this side of Canada. Cows and calves don't seem to mind. People regularly calve in January to March up here. My theory is that a 3-4 month old calf can handle weather a lot better than a 3-4 day old calf. My breeding season is November and December.

 

[Muletrack]

No, I do not usually creep feed grain. I do provide a creep hay area so calves don't have to compete with their moms at the bail feeder.