Thank you for the kind words, Tom & Tim.

The grass on the south facing slope behind the yearlings is greening up a bit earlier than usual with the weather we've had. It is not very good soil nor very deep over the rock so I spread a lot of my compost pile from last year on it last fall. Seems to be perking up a bit sooner.

Tim, I believe that the condition you see on my cows helps them get going feeding the new calf and also helps them get ready to breed back sooner.

To be honest and in the interest of full disclosure, I had two BWF heifers have calving problems this week. In retrospect, it was not their fault nor my bull's but my problem. A rookie mistake. I bred them a month earlier than the rest and going back through my numbers they spent a month more and a month later in gestation grazing standing unharvested corn than the Herefords. The BWF heifers' calves were just too big.  The Herefords all spent a month less on unharvested corn and came off a month earlier in their gestation and seem to be just fine so far.

On the other hand the steers look outstanding on the unharvested corn. For next year I am going to separate the steers from the cows over the winter and let the steers in the standing unharvested corn a rotation ahead of the cows. The bred cows and my bull will be a cleanup crew with very little grain along with their regular hay available. All cows will go in and out together coming out for their full third trimester even from the stalks. Heifers to be retained will not go on corn at all their first year.

So I think the condition is important but can be overdone as some very helpful posters here pointed out earlier. I appreciate that.  From now on the standing corn is for steers only. Cows and bull will follow as cleanup, similar to the normal way of grazing combined stalks, and heifers will not see corn at all.

Here is an interesting link to cow condition and breed back. I may have posted this earlier, if so I apologize. Still an interesting article linking cow condition and breed back. As I am trying to keep my calving period as tight as possible for several reasons, breeding back quickly is important.

Again, thanks for the kind words. This is a bit different way of raising cattle from most, especially the western range methods. The cattle seem to like the unglaciated hills we have - the slopes are good places to get up and away from mud.

They also don't have bedded down shelter to calve in - nor can I check on them every 2 hours. I want a group that goes up the hill and calves on their own and bring a nice, live, colostrum-fed calf back down the hill with them. This way they will earn their keep.

Jim at Dawn