Twins?

[Putangitangi]

Please excuse my general ignorance on this topic. For how long, or has it always been so because of the timing of the seasons, have people been calving their cattle in what sounds like winter?

Here I believe most used to follow the seasons fairly well and so calving happened at the start and through spring. Nowadays it seems that lots of people want to get their calves older and bigger before the autumn weaner sales and many people calve cows in cold conditions before the grass begins to grow.

I'm constrained by terrain, resources (don't have an endless budget for developing drivable races all over the farm, don't own lots of machinery) and inherent laziness. I calve the cows so that their demand matches the usual pasture growth. But we have a long growing season and relatively mild, although often extremely wet, winters.

 

[dun]

Please excuse my general ignorance on this topic. For how long, or has it always been so because of the timing of the seasons, have people been calving their cattle in what sounds like winter?

Environmental issues may dictate a non-traditioanl calving season. We have wet springs but not to the extent that places that have significant snow and frozen ground have. Those plaes turn to mud bogs when the spring that hits, if they wait till the grass comes on and it;s dry they may end up calving in early summer. Wet muddy conditions is much arder on calf health then extreme cold dry (snow) conditions.

 

[randiliana]

Please excuse my general ignorance on this topic. For how long, or has it always been so because of the timing of the seasons, have people been calving their cattle in what sounds like winter?

Environmental issues may dictate a non-traditioanl calving season. We have wet springs but not to the extent that places that have significant snow and frozen ground have. Those plaes turn to mud bogs when the spring that hits, if they wait till the grass comes on and it;s dry they may end up calving in early summer. Wet muddy conditions is much arder on calf health then extreme cold dry (snow) conditions.

That, and also because of when most of us sell calves. Calf sale season in much of Canada, and the northern USA is October through December. In order to have calves in a desirable weight range by then most people calve from Feb to May. Feb here, is still winter, by April, you are getting close to grazing time. For many of us, nothing grows from October through April, so you have about 5 months of growth, and only 3-4 of them are actually high growth months and it works best for a lot of us to have the calves on the ground just before the growing season starts.

 

[TB-Herefords]

My early calvin has to do with age of bulls when sold and I lease pasture so to calve when the grass came on would put the calve two hours from me in some purdy predatory'll enviroment. I like those calve to be hoppen by time they get there. Not really late season grazing there as its usually snowed in by early November. Another angle would be when the grass is at it's best my calves are really starting to come on to the grass. Momma's peak milk quality and quantity start to decline I have the highest quality and quantity grass for those calves. I like to take advantage of A.I. so to be able to do that before they get turnned out to pasture I have to have an early season. A.I. would be out the window if I calved in April and May. I would have pull cows off the pasture to A.I. that would get way to costly and timely. Each outfit is different and what works for you doesn't always work for me.