When to feed cake.

[Scotty]

I was speeking to an older man who told me if I want all my claves to be born in the daytime to feed in the evening. This was in January and since them I have fed in the evening hours. Since then all but one of have been born in the day time. I had always fed in the morning to check animals when its cooler. Anyone ever hear or subscribe to this?

 

[Roadapple]

Do it every year , and get similar results as you got.

 

[dun]

There were studys done around 5 years ago that stated the same thing. We've alwasy done it but we've slipped it back to even later in the evening then before. 990% plus of the calves are born during the day. It also doesn;t seem to take much to make the difference. We feed the heifers around 1/4 pound or so of grain late in the evening and we've had the same results as when we fed more at the same time of day.

dun

 

[Diehard40]

there has been some research done on this and it holds fairly true. The cow tends to put her energies and mind on eating and processing the food and kind of puts labor on the back burner untill the food thing is taking care of.
Now that isn't all the scientific terminology

 

[Victoria]

I try to feed at 10:00 in the morning. Sometimes I am late because someone is calving or whatever reason. Anyhow, last year all but one calf was born in the day time. This year we've now had two born between 4:00 AM and 6:00 AM. The rest have been during the day.
I find that most of them are born at either 9:00 or 1:00. I have heard about feeding at night but with most of ours already coming in the day I haven't changed the schedule. I also don't like having the feed truck out at night. All of our cows run together in a field with trees. I don't like having the big feed truck out when it's dark rolling out bales when you can't see the calves very well. I've run over one calf in my life and it isn't a mistake I ever want to make again.

 

[jkwilson]

I feed my cows only occasionally to keep them from rushing me when I go through the gate with the first round bale. Most of our calves are born in the daytime or evening before 11. Still get up to check them twice a night though.

 

[CattleAnnie]

We've been choring in the early afternoon for years (although we feed hay and not 'cake') and get the majority of calves born between 6 - 8 a.m.

Doesn't mean that there's no night checks on the girls; just fewer births in the wee hours, or at least that's what we've noticed.



Take care.

 

[dun]

I think all of the research has to do with feeding a supplemnt and not hay, unless hay isn;t available free choice. Ours are on pasture, there's a bale of hay there but they'ld rather eat that stockpiled nasty old high endophyte fescue.

dun

 

[gendronf]

I was speeking to an older man who told me if I want all my claves to be born in the daytime to feed in the evening. This was in January and since them I have fed in the evening hours. Since then all but one of have been born in the day time. I had always fed in the morning to check animals when its cooler. Anyone ever hear or subscribe to this?

I found this article.

Tips on Calving Management
Greg Lardy

Feeding Time (Konefal Calving Method)

The time of day that cows are fed during the calving season can influence the time when calves are born. Cows fed at night tend to calve during the daylight hours (when you have an opportunity to watch them more closely). This method of management was developed by a Manitoba Hereford breeder named Gus Konefal. The system involves feeding twice daily, once at 11 a.m. to noon and again at 9:30 to 10 p.m. This practice should be started about one month before the first calf is born and continue for the duration of the calving season. Mr. Konefal reported that when he used this regime, 80% of his cows calved between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. Iowa State University research indicated similar results. Scientists at USDA-ARS, Miles City, also conducted a three-year study on feeding time. Their results were not as dramatic. However, the percentage of cows calving from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. was consistently 10 to 20% lower for late-fed cows compared to the early-fed cows. Similar research at the Brandon, Manitoba, research station indicated a 13.5% reduction in the number of cows calving between midnight and 7 a.m. However, research conducted in Indiana with dairy cows showed no particular benefit to night feeding (Pennington and Albright, 1985). Research conducted in Florida also showed no advantage to feeding supplements either at 8 a.m. or 4 p.m. In the Florida study only the supplements were fed at prescribed times. Cows had access to hay at all times. Also, their "night" feeding treatment was actually in late afternoon. It appears that producers should follow Mr. Konefal's time patterns fairly closely if they expect to benefit from the method

 

[CowCop]

~~

When I ranched in Florida we did this with our grain and was very successful. When I came North I talked my boss into feeding our hay out at 4 pm instead of 10 am for February and March.

2005--- All but 2 cows calved during the daylight hours.
No calf loss.

One day we had 6 cows in labor at 9 am in the barnyard.

He liked that alot, so now we are doing it again.

It does work.

We start 4 weeks ahead of the due dates.

 

[rkm]

We feed at daybreak I guess a habit from dairying. All of calves were born in the middle night so far this year. It will be a hard habit to change.