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Breeding / Calving Issues
Spring calving cows to fall
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<blockquote data-quote="KNERSIE" data-source="post: 588850" data-attributes="member: 4353"><p>Bandit, I've done this last year exactly what you're planning to do. Firstly it gave me the opportunity to really cull deep and just keep the very best of the spring calvers and I am certainly ending up having a much more uniform herd. The downside it also forced me to keep a few fall calvers that was flirting with the cull list an extra year just to keep numbers up.</p><p></p><p>In my conditions two calving seasons just don't work in the real world, on paper its a fine idea, but our rainfall patterns are just too unpredictable. Your breeding season must be very short to make two calving seasons work. A drought or out of season cold weather can really play havoc with your fodder flow with two calving seasons. Invariably you have cows with 4-5 month old calves when you have to shortchange them to save pasture for the fall calving group, etc.</p><p></p><p>With the wisdom of hindsight I would have done things slightly differently is making the change. (My winters is much milder than yours I think so for me it would have worked) I bred my fall calvers as usual and held the spring calvers over for the next year. I didn't plan on the worst drought almost in history to hit 6 months later. This forced me to postpone my breeding season by a month to hope for an improvement in BCS after breeding.</p><p></p><p>If I had to do it again, I would rather have one extended breeding season and run the bull 6 more weeks with the cows and try and catch as many spring calvers as possible. Yes they will calve a month or so later than ideal, but quite a few of your best cows will still calf towards the end of your normal calving season. This will identify your most fertile and easy calving cows and give you income from them whilst making the change. Every year after that you just cut the last two weeks off the breeding season and within three years you'll be back where you want them to be.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="KNERSIE, post: 588850, member: 4353"] Bandit, I've done this last year exactly what you're planning to do. Firstly it gave me the opportunity to really cull deep and just keep the very best of the spring calvers and I am certainly ending up having a much more uniform herd. The downside it also forced me to keep a few fall calvers that was flirting with the cull list an extra year just to keep numbers up. In my conditions two calving seasons just don't work in the real world, on paper its a fine idea, but our rainfall patterns are just too unpredictable. Your breeding season must be very short to make two calving seasons work. A drought or out of season cold weather can really play havoc with your fodder flow with two calving seasons. Invariably you have cows with 4-5 month old calves when you have to shortchange them to save pasture for the fall calving group, etc. With the wisdom of hindsight I would have done things slightly differently is making the change. (My winters is much milder than yours I think so for me it would have worked) I bred my fall calvers as usual and held the spring calvers over for the next year. I didn't plan on the worst drought almost in history to hit 6 months later. This forced me to postpone my breeding season by a month to hope for an improvement in BCS after breeding. If I had to do it again, I would rather have one extended breeding season and run the bull 6 more weeks with the cows and try and catch as many spring calvers as possible. Yes they will calve a month or so later than ideal, but quite a few of your best cows will still calf towards the end of your normal calving season. This will identify your most fertile and easy calving cows and give you income from them whilst making the change. Every year after that you just cut the last two weeks off the breeding season and within three years you'll be back where you want them to be. [/QUOTE]
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