South Central South Dakota | Just kinda curious when alot of you guys on here are doing your calving? Fall, Spring, Summer, or in the winter?
A little background on my operation we used to be a start to finish operation From Calving to selling 1300-1400lb fat steers and heifers Along with raising all our own feed. We Run 500 head of cows and calved in Mid april till may Turned cows out on pasture in May along with yearlings, then bring yearlings in around September and feed them up from Jan to March and sold them at there proper weight. My Father had a big passion for this so he was the one doing the feeding. Myself not so much. He passed away about 5 years ago and i tried to maintain that rotation. But myself just not having that drive he did i went to hiring a full time employee to manly feed and take care of the cattle under my supervision. Well either i'm i hard @$$ to work for or something but keeping help that was compitant enough to do a good job and not cost me more in repairs a month then i was paying them or finding someone that was really wanting to work with cattle that much i have found very difficult. So i cut the operation back to just a Backgrounding and selling the calves as feeders program wean in late oct to First Dec work and then Feed for 60-90 days then sell. Much to the dismay of my 79 year old uncle at the time who still helps out as much or more then he really should. But i'm greatful that he is.
Well this has worked out pretty well and the profit is just about as good or a bit better then when we did start to finish with selling the crop that we produced instead of feeding it all and selling it through the cows. Also alot less work load for me.
Now back to about this post Since my uncle is now 81 and still doing all he can I am still doing all i can. and with the calving in april to may deal makes things a bit hard to be feeding cattle and checking everthing to make sure we have no calving issues which most of the time we don't. But you never know. Cuts down on my planting and spring tillage time.
So i'm wondering about moving my calving time from the mid april-may range to calving in the Late June-july area so the cows are calving out on pasture instead of in smaller yards. I have heard alittle that some guys say the cows calve easier when they have been out eating good grass for a month or so then they do in yards when they have been eating ground hay and silage. Also alittle less death loss possibilities. this also means my weaning time would move to the Feb-march time frame at which time i would probly just sell the calves off the cows without feeding them since i think i could get the extra boost of them wintering with the cows and getting feed hay and silage right next to them.
Thoughts? opinions? ideas? willing to listen to them all even the ones that probly tell me i'm wrong and it wont work. |
Calving time? Thinking of Changeing Mine. Thoughts?
