I am working at the farm this week and decided when I am here to go to shorter rotations.  I went out this morning to advance the lead wire and give the cow/calf group some fresh grass and noticed the March calves doing a lot more grazing on their own. These are 75-89 days old except for two from purchased bred heifers that are 53 & 67 days old.

The calves surprised me in that it seems like they are suddenly starting to do a significant amount of grazing on their own in addition to momma's milk. It got me thinking about different options of weaning a bit earlier than my 205 day target and getting the steers on grazing corn earlier in my quest to get them to average 1100 lb or higher by next April 20th or so.

Here are a couple pictures from this morning. It has been getting dry here (though nothing like you folks down south are seeing) as most of the MN rains have going around. We did get a nice rain shower this morning, about 4 tenths so far.

We had a lot of heat but temperatures have moderated and pastures are starting to grow again (in addition to the thistles!). This paddock is the same one last grazed on 5/27 and clipped on 5/28. Because of it's convenient location and some logistics having to do with moving bulls with a neighbor and putting them in this coming weekend, I am just running the group through this paddock again only 18 days after it was last grazed.

I mowed their previous pasture last evening in a drive to control thistles.  Looks like a lot of mowing pastures this year but the operation also spread the manure from the last time through leaving almost no avoidance zones. It looks like the glypho is taking hold on the weeds in the grazing corn and the corn is starting to hit the spring strip tilled 28.

Here are some pictures from this morning.

Jim at Dawn

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