First calf of season, 10 days old

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torogmc81

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2nd calf for mom. More anxious/worried about the two heifers that are due next week. Want to get those calves on the ground and moving and i'll be able to rest a lot easier around here. Hopefully I'm doing a lot of this for those heifers :clap: :clap: :clap:

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Nice calf. Its always nice when that calf hits the ground alive and ready to go. Good Luck with the other heifers....I would think they would be ok since it looks like you bred them to a black bull but you never know.
 
AllForage":2t2x7q1b said:
Can I ask why you are calving right now???

Maybe he keeps a bull on them year round. That's what we do down here. There's never a bad time to have calves hitting the ground and growing in my opinion. I'm not downing all of y'all that calve at a certain time every year. I don't see anything wrong with that either. I just like having calves all the time.
 
I've already started calving here. I like to have my heifers calve out a month ahead of the main herd. I was taught that by an old hand here and it works fairly well. It allows you to focus on them before the main bunch of calves start coming and it allows the heifers to have an extra month before being bred back.
 
Big Cheese":388jzke1 said:
AllForage":388jzke1 said:
Can I ask why you are calving right now???

Maybe he keeps a bull on them year round. That's what we do down here. There's never a bad time to have calves hitting the ground and growing in my opinion. I'm not downing all of y'all that calve at a certain time every year. I don't see anything wrong with that either. I just like having calves all the time.


Do you live in the north?? Do you get below zero? A little out of school you might be.
 
AllForage":n1oa3abh said:
Big Cheese":n1oa3abh said:
AllForage":n1oa3abh said:
Can I ask why you are calving right now???

Maybe he keeps a bull on them year round. That's what we do down here. There's never a bad time to have calves hitting the ground and growing in my opinion. I'm not downing all of y'all that calve at a certain time every year. I don't see anything wrong with that either. I just like having calves all the time.


Do you live in the north?? Do you get below zero? A little out of school you might be.

I know the weather is different up north. I was just putting my opinion out there. There is absolutely nothing wrong with pulling bulls and having calves at a certain time every year. I like having bulls on my cows year round its my opinion and what I like. I believe i said that in my original post if you would like to go back and check over it. No need to bash people of their opinion or you can go on to a different topic and stop bothering this one.
 
Big cheese, my question was directed at the OP. Do you live in the north? Is this a thread about year round calving? Do you know your production cost? I realize you have land given to you so this is probably pointless talking to a young kid who does not know when to be quiet. Not everybody gets a trophy in life. Every year in February the posts start with dead calves, mud, frozen ears, thin milking cows, heifers not rebreeding and so on. Just stick around and look at the patterns. On a limited acreage operation with more explosive grass growth curves, it is just silly to not manage the cowherd cohesively and utilize the seasonal fluctuations with the production cycle of the cow. But I guess letting calves be born in grass in late spring just gives me too much time to be rude to people like you. I got the rest of winter so get used to it.
 
I thought it was directed at me and I'm sorry I was rude. But one thing, I did not have land given to me and I haven't been given any trophies except my first cow which my dad bought for me. My family owns the land and we ALL use it and have cows on it not just me. I pay for things along with everyone else and I work along with everyone else. Our operation is a family operation and we work everything as a family.

I understand why you have to have calves at certain times and I wasn't trying to put down your operation. We don't have weather like that here, even though it does get cold, but its not to cold to have calves year round down here.

Once again, I'm sorry I was rude and i think we both just misunderstood each other so I apologize.
 
I would say that there are a lot of people in the high plains starting to calve. They want an older calf going to rented grass, that can gain from the grass. Some things are not as simple as you think. In the Midwest you can calve any week of the year if you have the facilities.
 
AllForage":2p7eza0q said:
Can I ask why you are calving right now???

I was hoping for Feb. 1st start to the calving season. Let the bull in a little earlier, especially think this cow having her first calf last feb. 14 would take a few cycles longer than normal but she sure proved me wrong. She kept great condition and raised a good sized heifer and bread back quick.

I think our plan next year is to move back to mid to late Feb. We actually sold this herd bull (sire of this calf in pic) in December. We are going strictly to AI, which we started in December on a couple of fall cows.

Deciding on when we are going to calf is the weight of two issues with me. Bitter cold calving conditions OR breeding in the hot humid early summer. Either more work with cold temps or possible problems like I had a few years ago with getting cows bred back. I have a lot of time flexibility in the winter so I'm willing to spend some extra time in the winter making sure calves are protected and on the right tract. Our weather is so unpredictable here it's really more of a guessing game than anything. 30-40 degree swings in temps in the winter are very common. So I could easily have a feb. 10 calf and it's 52 degrees out. All IMO of course. If I was in Wisconsin I'd be calving a lot later I'm sure.
 
Very nice calf. Good luck with the other heifers. We calve all during the year,too. That is the way my parents did it. I try to please my mother now. Ours is a family operation too. About half of our calves come from Nov. through Jan. and the other half April through June. That gives us two groups a year to sell. I usually end up with a small group in between to sell. Last year I sold in February, July, and December. Have a few to go this year in March.
 
AllForage":v316ax02 said:
Do you live in the north? Is this a thread about year round calving? Do you know your production cost? I realize you have land given to you so this is probably pointless talking to a young kid who does not know when to be quiet. Not everybody gets a trophy in life. Every year in February the posts start with dead calves, mud, frozen ears, thin milking cows, heifers not rebreeding and so on. Just stick around and look at the patterns. On a limited acreage operation with more explosive grass growth curves, it is just silly to not manage the cowherd cohesively and utilize the seasonal fluctuations with the production cycle of the cow. But I guess letting calves be born in grass in late spring just gives me too much time to be rude to people like you. I got the rest of winter so get used to it.

Yikes, seems a little harsh. While we aren't as far north as Wisconsin, it most certainly gets below zero and the majority of seedstock producers in SD are calving right now. We will be starting commercial heifers in a week. I get it, you calve in May/June but that maybe doesn't fit everyone's system. If using 205-day weaning approximation, does that mean you are weaning calves in December? That wouldn't work well here, we see it better to feed hay/silage to cow/heifer through feb/march with a 100-150 lb calf trying to grow on her rather than feeding cows/heifers through nov/dec with 500-600 lb calves on them. Maybe you wean early? Wonderful. Point is-different strokes for different folks. I may not agree with some things people do (i.e. running bulls year-round) but unless someone is asking for thoughts or opinions, not sure I am going to blast them for what they are doing.
 
Nice calf.. Good luck with the rest my calving has started in january as well.. I run a bull with mine year round and also bought cows with different calving dates. IMO I prefer spring and fall calving but I surely will not hold a cow to prefent breeding just to have a sync herd.
 
The due Feb. 1st heifer had a heifer calf early Friday morning. She was due today. Vibrant calf, unassisted. I am more than pleased. :nod:
 

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