New experience

[S&S Farms]

This summer I rented a pasture where I put in ten bred heifers. Everything was fine until day to remove the ten. One was missing looked all over could not find it anywhere. I contacted the county sheriff dept and neighbors on the area I could locate no heifer to be found. Travel forward four months my friend calls me that has the pasture, with we might have found your heifer. First thought was a hunter found the carcass. No a neighbor had her for four months and finally figured how to track down his adjacant land owner. I could not believe that he did not think to contact the sherriffs dept to report it found. Now the rest of the story what was she going to look like thin and starving. Was she still bred?

Well when I went to pick her up found out he ran her on corn stocks with his cows she was fatter than a tick. She calved today the calf had abviously also enjoyed the corn he was the biggest birth weight I have had out of this AI sire. We had to assist her but I think it was a combination of her BCS of 6.5 plus and his extra growth. All are doing well and there is another black baldy growing to make steaks in the future.

I will not be looking for any corn stocks for my heifers in the near future to winter on either.


Jeff

 

[novatech]

Glad everything worked out for you. I had the reverse happen.
I found a brangus heifer in my pasture. (Crazy as you know what and got all my cattle stirred up) I asked all the adjoining neighbors if they had lost a calf and none had. I called the sheriff department and reported it. After a month there was no response. I ran into a guy several pastures over and asked if he new of anyone missing a calf and he replied that he did not. The next day he had some heifers in a trailer moving them. The heifers were the same breed and size as the one in my pasture. They all had ear tags. I wrote down all their numbers and the one I had was missing from the group. He finally agreed that it must be his. Another month went by and he still did not pick up the heifer. I loaded it and returned it to his lot. Called him up and told him. His response was OK and he hung up. Not even a thank you. If it ever happens again he will have to pay me up front for pasturing before he gets it back.

 

[SRBeef]

Well when I went to pick her up found out he ran her on corn stocks with his cows she was fatter than a tick. She calved today the calf had abviously also enjoyed the corn he was the biggest birth weight I have had out of this AI sire. We had to assist her but I think it was a combination of her BCS of 6.5 plus and his extra growth. All are doing well and there is another black baldy growing to make steaks in the future.

I will not be looking for any corn stocks for my heifers in the near future to winter on either.


Jeff

Thanks for sharing the story. I take a couple points from it: 1) your heifer did pretty well on corn stalks 2) don't leave heifers (or cows) on the stalks right up until calving.

I harvested grazed stalks last year and saw the same condition gain you did. There was deep snow however so it didn't lok like they were getting much so I pulled them off in Jan ahead of Mar-Apr calving. No calving problems, did have some larger calves but even heifers were unassisted.

This year on unharvested standing stalks I am going to pull cows and heifers off of grazing corn about Feb 1 ahead of mid April calving and put them on a weight watchers diet of hay and mineral only, as suggested by several regular posters here.

I am turning into a fan of grazing corn stalks (as you can tell) but it takes much more management. Standing takes more management even than harvested.

Grazing corn, harvested stalks or standing is a low cost way of putting condition on them which appears to be what we need with cattle prices as they are.

Is grazing stalks any different than feeding heifers corn sileage right up to calving? I don't think we'd do either. But I wouldn't let the fact you had to pull a calf discourage you from grazing stalks completely.

It may be interesting to track the growth of this large baldy corn calf and compare him to the rest of the group as far as weaning and yearling weight goes. Do they all catch up or does he stay a bit ahead of the rest? Would be interesting to share. Rarely is there such a clean side by side opportunity for a comparison.

 

[msscamp]

I will not be looking for any corn stocks for my heifers in the near future to winter on either.


Jeff

I tend to disagree with this statement. We've grazed cattle on corn stalks for 6 years or so, including calving out on them, and had very few assists during birth. I wouldn't rule out a good source of grazing solely on the basis of one heifer. ;-)

 

[S&S Farms]

I will not be looking for any corn stocks for my heifers in the near future to winter on either.


Jeff

I tend to disagree with this statement. We've grazed cattle on corn stalks for 6 years or so, including calving out on them, and had very few assists during birth. I wouldn't rule out a good source of grazing solely on the basis of one heifer. ;-)

I have no problem with cows on corn stocks. I personally like cows on stocks. I just dont think I need to run them on stocks until three days before they calve. Heifers mighth be fine, but I would manage them differently than the gentleman that had my heifer for the last four months. They do not need to be over a BCS of 6 to rebreed I would probasbly prefer a BCS of 5.5 - 6.0.

Jeff

 

[msscamp]

I will not be looking for any corn stocks for my heifers in the near future to winter on either.


Jeff

I tend to disagree with this statement. We've grazed cattle on corn stalks for 6 years or so, including calving out on them, and had very few assists during birth. I wouldn't rule out a good source of grazing solely on the basis of one heifer. ;-)

I have no problem with cows on corn stocks. I personally like cows on stocks. I just dont think I need to run them on stocks until three days before they calve. Heifers mighth be fine, but I would manage them differently than the gentleman that had my heifer for the last four months. They do not need to be over a BCS of 6 to rebreed I would probasbly prefer a BCS of 5.5 - 6.0.

Jeff

Sorry for the misunderstanding.