K10

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Hereford76

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its been a while since i typed on this site - but i remember some on here talking about the carpenter/williams cattle. it was a shame what happened to those cattle - but i found a couple of pictures of a k10 cow that walked our pastures for 13 years until she froze her udder. top two pictures are of the k10 cow nursing two different son's of our old "rambo" bull. bottom picture is a daughter of her's by a grandson of the centennial bull nursing a calf by an andy son we had. both nursing january born calves and pictures taken in mid september - both cows weighed in the mid to upper 1300 lbs. thought maybe some would enjoy seeing these pictures

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HerefordSire":12dqk50v said:
Is it common in Montana to wean longer than 205 days for the K10s?

didn't really matter what the breeding was - thats just how we used to do it... thats how most of them still do it. when i took over this operation it only took 2 years for me to go backwards trying to raise bulls like that. i've never personally had something else backing up the cows (money wise) and it was a sweat to come out on them. move the calving back, make the cows work, and let mother nature do your culling cause she won't turn a blind eye. today the calves are 180 days on average at weaning.
 
I don't know nothing about Montana where the growing seasons are short; but here in Alabama if we had rain and had grass and if the market looked (to our best guess) like it would hold up and the cows weren't thin we would leave the calves on the cows to 270 days pretty regularly for the cows that opened up the calving season. There would be some tailenders whose calves sold on the same day that only had 220 day calves. "IF you have grass" good crossbred cows should be gaining weight after the first 60 days of lactation.
 
northtexas":2bxr8s7v said:
I agree with later weaning.

I believe a cow is basically a piece of ranch equipment. She should work most of the year. If she can't hack it find one that will.

i guess it depends on what you mean by later weaning. here the calves are 180 days on average the 15th of October... i wean any later than that and run the risk of weaning calves in nasty weather. i look at a cow the same way, as part of the machine - i get my money's worth over the winter by making them rough out on their own. same way with the calf crop - weaned for 3 to 4 weeks and they go right back out for the winter - also makes it easy to see who has it and who doesn't. my point was that if you are weaning late fall with 250 + day old calves i would be calving in january and it costs too much to calve in january here - you pump hay to a cow nursing a calf for 3.5 months and when its dry around here hay gets auwful expensive. i like calving on green grass with calves weaned 550lbs and up on really good years, and then selling hay to the neighbors for 100+/ton while my cows lick snow or i break ice and check salt/min all winter. inputs break a lot of ranches and it doesn't take long to figure out how to run cows in your own environment. i had this same conversation with a colony a few years back at my dinner table. they were so proud of selling 750lbs steer calves while mine only weighed 535 that fall (this was the sole reason they gave me for not wanting to use a hereford bull). after we compared inputs from start to end i was clearing almost 150/hd more. this is all at the heart of every selection and decision i make running this place
 
Hereford76":13d9jpam said:
northtexas":13d9jpam said:
I agree with later weaning.

I believe a cow is basically a piece of ranch equipment. She should work most of the year. If she can't hack it find one that will.

i guess it depends on what you mean by later weaning. here the calves are 180 days on average the 15th of October... i wean any later than that and run the risk of weaning calves in nasty weather. i look at a cow the same way, as part of the machine - i get my money's worth over the winter by making them rough out on their own. same way with the calf crop - weaned for 3 to 4 weeks and they go right back out for the winter - also makes it easy to see who has it and who doesn't. my point was that if you are weaning late fall with 250 + day old calves i would be calving in january and it costs too much to calve in january here - you pump hay to a cow nursing a calf for 3.5 months and when its dry around here hay gets auwful expensive. i like calving on green grass with calves weaned 550lbs and up on really good years, and then selling hay to the neighbors for 100+/ton while my cows lick snow or i break ice and check salt/min all winter. inputs break a lot of ranches and it doesn't take long to figure out how to run cows in your own environment. i had this same conversation with a colony a few years back at my dinner table. they were so proud of selling 750lbs steer calves while mine only weighed 535 that fall (this was the sole reason they gave me for not wanting to use a hereford bull). after we compared inputs from start to end i was clearing almost 150/hd more. this is all at the heart of every selection and decision i make running this place

Sounds like you've got it pretty much figured out for your environment.
 

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