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| Not much stress at calving time compared to winter or spring calving. Generally dry cows in the third trimester grazing even reasonably good pasture are in good shape body condition wise. As has been mentioned the trick is got get them throught late fall-early winter nursing calves. Small grain pastures if available work, stock piled cool season grasses especially if you have fall moisture works. I've seen it done on cornstalks if there they can be moved to fresh stalks often. I know guys that leave the bulls in that end up with some fall calves every year as the cows don't get bred until they get off of summer pastures and on to stalks. I moved to primarily fall calving because I had the feed base of irrigated hay meadows. Take one or two hay cutting and the regrowth feed available in late fall is tremendous. Used to drive me crazy to wean calves about the time I had the best feed of the year.
A creep pen with nothing more than some high quality hay and lick tubs will help calves a lot in the winter. Fall calving cows are a rarity in a lot of places. High cull cow prices will take care of what used to be bargin late calving cows that could be moved to fall calving easily. I turn bulls in with fall heifers for 45 days to start calving early August. What gets bred is what gets bred. | |
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Fall Bred Cow Market
