Tablerock Ranch eastern Wa | Fall calve here, was a hard decision to give up six months when we changed but it was the right decision for us. Remember the final year we calved late winter / spring, came out one morning to a pack of yotes 600 yards behind my house, they had the face ate off the halfway out calf, and the poor cows entire back-end female parts eaten. The scene showed she had been up and down and circled for hours, the general area showed other cows tried to help for a while to no avail, the cow was still alive.... same calving season we had a winter similar to what many of you experienced this year, but out here it's every twenty years... peeled one to many froze to the ground calves off that year so we made the change. We always had sat on the heifers until they were done but as now, the cows did their own thing. Fall calving works best for our schedule here, we get the heifers calved out starting late August pre-corn and the cows do their own thing. Calves are 350 to 400 lbs before the real cold gets here, we can fight pneumonia and occasional scours, but we did spring too. Cows spend the winter on stalks and turnips until feed is gone, then we go from supplementing them with the tmr to full feed while out on stalks. Not for everyone but works for us. |
Spring vs fall calving
