Winter Calving

[mossy_oak23]

This is probably going to be a ridiculously stupid question to anyone that has worked with cattle but anyways...

By knowing the gestation period therefore having the ability to estimate accurately when the calving will begin why would you breed your cows April or May? Wouldn't that cause your calves to be born in January and February causing complications due to the cold weather?

hope someone can help me out with this one..

 

[Onthebit]

That would depend on what part of the world you live in. That said, we have some due in Feb and we are in Canada. I expect those calves to have a running start when grass starts up!

 

[farmwriter]

This recent cold snap aside, winter is usually an easy time on our cows who have to spend a lot more effort keeping cool than getting warm. And when the calves are nursing hard and we're trying to get them re-bred, the really lush spring grass comes on to keep the mama's in good shape and give the calves a great boost, too.
Works for us, but there are herds around here that calve later and earlier than us, too - and some who don't have a calving season at all.

 

[dun]

In some areas the spring is the MUD season. Calves are better off healthwise being born on the snow and in the cold then in the mud. Spring green up is also an issue in some areas. Then there are the registered breeders that want all the age they can get on their calves for selling purposes.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

Dun pretty well highlights our situation. We are in NY - average snowfall is 120" in our area (lots more North of us). We have to feed cattle hay from Nov - late April/early May. MUD is a MAJOR issue in the spring. Mud is harder on cattle/calves than just about anything. And 30-40 F rain is worse than our blustery cold winds.
We calve from about 1-25 to 3-25.
We have a damp cold here, so I would never calve outside on purpose (occasionally we have one slip a surprise outside). "Close" cows are put in barn at night & turned out in AM if they didn't calve. When they calve, the pair stays in the barn about 24 hours - til calf is dry & up & running. Newborns aren't very smart. They want to follow mom. So, if mom has to wallow thru mud to get to a feeder, calf follows & ends up laying down next to the feeder where they can get stepped on - but mainly, they get covered with mud from the legs of the cows near them. If the calves are 30-60 days old when the mud gets here, they are smart enough to avoid the mud.
Couple years ago, our last born calf (end of March) came up missing at about 7 days old. I looked & looked - finally spotted an EAR - yup, she was mushed down under the mud - very dead.
Also, in order to get our cows in good BCS for winter, we need to wean our calves by early Sept.
There are a number of other reasons also - but this covers the most important for cold winter weather areas.

 

[fargus]

We are north of Jeanne, in the Ontario snowbelt. We calve in May, with the tail end in June. Mud isn't an issue even on our clay-loam right after snow melt. Well managed grass holds up well, and we will turn our cattle into a 10 acre "sacrifice" pasture from about the 20th of April until the grass is going and we can start strip-grazing. Newborns aren't that dumb, they follow mom to the next strip, and calving outside on grass is cleaner, easier, and cheaper. I don't have the time available to watch cows closely if we chose to calve in the winter. Ours are lucky if they get checked more than once a day during calving season.

We don't wean until the last week of October, but the cows are in good shape. Our stocking rate is actually a bit low, so we have lots of good grass all season. The calves don't get creep feed, they just figure out how to eat grass with momma. I'm an advocate of calving on grass. I don't care what month(s), but up here I wouldn't calve any other time of year, unless I was chasing the show circuit around.