“These are the times that try men's souls.” | I don't have a problem with A.I. heifers, but for me I can't really see putting all that extra work for me. I found that if all these years we have been trying to improve our genetics, better bulls, feeding, etc. that we are raising a good set of cows that will run at high elevations, plus winter out on very marginal desert country. Lots of heat & cold, and dust. The one reason I brought up the weather thing was about 15 years ago guys that I run with started to dump bulls in two weeks earlier than normal ( June 20 ). Well we were in a drought cycle. It worked ok, the biggest reason I felt they wanted to dump bulls in early was just to get those fighting big horses off the hay pile.
Well our weather most generally starts to break right about March 1, but by putting those bulls in two weeks early it was costing us sometimes up to 20-30% loss on calves. We finally learned our lesson, If I was to change anything it would be to hold heifers off a extra two weeks later than normal cows. By then weather is a lot better, chances of saving calves just become better. All of people will then ask, well just back off calving even more, but these cattle have to have calves on the ground, biggest bunch branded, marked and ready to trail back into Idaho by May 1. So we have to start calving by this date (March 1) to accomplish this.
It's a sick feeling having these cattle on desert country, snowed in, starting to calve. All you can do is move them to taller sagebrush, grease woods in hope calves can make it. Then when it does start to thaw, it is so wet you have a hard time riding a saddle horse across it. Snowmobile or four wheeler is about the only thing you can go on.
We all leave heifers at ranches to calve at home, where we can go to a shed if needed. But bulk of cows are run out in open, 20 miles from home. So you just can't everywhere at once. So you accept some losses to run these number of cows. Most years you can keep losses under 5% or less that's from calving to weaning time. But I tell everybody you better figure up to a 30% losses if you are doing budgets to pay bills.
I was having a talk with a bank president one time, we talked about losses, etc. He told me they usually figured on a 70% calf crop, even if a guy was a total dumb-sh_t. To pay back loans, I think they were pretty close in their figures.
So that's why I brought up the weather thing, and breeding with A.I. If I was ever to use A.I. on heifers I would have them start to calve March 15. That way at least for my country we would stand the best odds for survival with not having to go to total calving barn setups and more labor. Trying to survive in this day and age is going to require you to cut costs, labor, etc. to remain profitable. This is how we are doing it. |
feeding MGA
