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SE SD | My heifers start end of Jan. I have excellent facilities for them. My cows start end of Feb. and by first of April I'm down to 10 or less. On April 1 I go back to work in construction and I'm gone for 12-13 hours at once plus doing chores at two farms it gets wild until May 15 they go to grass and bulls go out also. I bring cows home Oct. 1 and work calves and sell calves off the cow at Halloween. These 750+ lb unweaned calves sell good that time of the year and most years you don't get paid to feed them after weaning.
OK now, I start calving April 25 or so, out on grass. If I do need to get a problem cow in by myself off of grass, I lose. It just doesn't work to well(Dad and brother did it for years that way and lost several). I have hardly ever lost a calf at calving time when in the yards, but I watch them real close. This is my paycheck for the year I'm talking about here! But if I move back to April 25, they still come home maybe mid Oct., work the calves, then what? Do I still sell at Halloween and sell 200lbs less calf and cut my check down or do I wean? If I wean then I have to feed for 60 days to sell. Now I have feed expense, manure, fuel, time (I get home after dark that time of the year). So this puts my sale date back to Christmas or first part of Jan. I don't usually have grain to sell, cattle and sheep are the mainstay here, so now I have to borrow money to pay rent and make other bills.
See where I'm coming from here? Don't get me wrong I would love to calve out on grass and never worry about cold weather but this would change everything. As I get older your idea sounds more pleasing though.
Like was said some where else, it's good we don't all calve at the same time so there is a steady supply of good American beef available to all!
Excellent post by the way............
Edited by Red Cows 2/26/2016 11:50
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An easier way
