Feeding Calves Through Winter

So many variables need considering before deciding whether or not to feed calves through the winter – especially in super cold areas like ours in north Missouri. Profitability is very important, but it’s more than a dollars and cents decision; it also must include quality of life and harmony.

Consider reasons for feeding calves:

1. weaning calves off young heifers early (before winter) so the pregnant young cow has time to recover before calving again in the spring. 
2. buying calves at a traditionally (late fall) lower price in hopes of adding value and gain before selling
3. custom feeding calves and being paid by the owner
4. Selling the cows and keeping calves.

In our case, the first and last ones are why we have calves this winter (2023-2024) to feed. With only 50 or so, I’ve decided to hand feed purchased alfalfa pellets in bunks which at the rate of about 1 lb per day, that’s quite doable. This gives them necessary added protein since our stockpiled forages through the winter is typically 7% to 9% protein. Good enough for cows, but not for growing calves.

I did go ahead and sell off about 12 calves that simply won’t match the others weaned or those still on the cows through the winter. They were smaller or rough haired and a few were steer calves showing a lot of Corriente – those will make excellent ropers since i left on the horns, but won’t match anything we will sell later in the spring or fall. 

The cows were sold because i’ve planned to retire and lease out my farm since early last year. It takes time to organize that since i wanted to join cows with bulls much earlier than i typically do. Many producers want to calve in the winter, so to make the cows more desirable for that market, i did that. By weaning the calves earlier, selling the cows was easier since i didn’t have to mess with loading and hauling them. As it turned out, it seems the market in Dec and Jan would have been favorable to split the calves off anyway, so it was a good decision. Plus, i’m planning to keep as many replacement heifers as possible. (Wait! wasn’t i talking retirement? :-)) The steers will sell right with the calves weaned in April.

Since we sell only grass raised stockers and weaners, i chose to feed alfalfa pellets. 

The downside is now it’s -14F and bitterly cold wind causing -37F windchill. Keeping the water open for another group of animals is very problematic as well in this weather. Typically, we do not have weaned calves, so we are not set up as well as we could be, so we’ll slog through this year.

Going forward, as we work through my husband’s health issues, me not wanting to work quite as much physically (trying not to break down my body), and rebuilding the herd as quickly as possible (or selling completely out and quitting), we need to decide whether or not to breed the heifers as yearlings or 2-year-olds. (Compare 2-year-olds vs 3-year-olds) An update on the previous link is that now i’m selecting ONLY my home raised, adapted cattle, the yearling heifers getting bred on grass is 67%.

There are plusses and minuses to each scenario. One of which is addressed here in having the added trouble of weaning calves early. It could be that once weaned, we could just go right ahead and sell the calves before winter, thereby eliminating feeding. However, should we decide to keep them and there were more calves to feed, we could purchase large bales of alfalfa hay to unroll which would be much easier than hand feeding in bunks. Also, address the watering issue!

Many options, we simply need to choose which direction we want to go.

Create something beautiful today!

Shalom,

tauna

For who of you desiring to build a tower does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has the things to finish; that having laid a foundation, and not having strength to finish, all those seeing begin to mock him, saying, This man began to build and did not have strength to finish.” Luke 14:28-30 HRB

Polar Vortex

Wintry blast of arctic weather across the entire United States hit north Missouri early Friday (12 Jan 24) and temperatures have continued to plummet. This morning was -14F with a windchill of -34F. Well above any record cold, but mighty uncomfortable at best. Grazed pastures are now well frozen even under the 8-12 inches of snow. 

Although, we have plenty of standing forage for grazing, my husband has been keen to unroll big bales of hay to the cattle. If he wants to do it, that’s fine by me. It looked last summer that there would not be enough grass for winter, so he had baled up and purchased a lot of big bales of hay and since we store most of it outside and directly on the ground, right now is a perfect time to feed it up. No mud and the cows do appreciate it although with the extreme temps, they quickly adapted to it being substitutionary feed vs supplemental feed. Once the weather breaks, though, they’ll go back to grazing that green grass under the snow.

It is good for Allen to get out although he is mask wearing and son, Dallas, goes as well to get the gates and to take off the net wrap. Although he is in remission from his AL Amyloidosis cancer, he is not out of the woods yet and must still limit exposure to dust, dirt, livestock, large groups of people, young children, and pets. 

These young long time weaned calves are experiencing their first harsh winter without their mums. Since i ‘retired’ the pregnant cows were sold mostly last year (2023) and carry over the calves and the remaining cows to sell in January 2024. We’ve had too much income due to drought sales and that Allen sold all his fall calving cows because of his cancer and he has no help to manage it all. I can handle the 350 or so spring calvers, bulls, and replacement heifers, (with some help from my sons) but the task of calving out that many fall calvers with Allen’s weekly trips to KU Med for treatments, then the 2-week hospital stay followed by 2 weeks at Hope Lodge near the hospital (i had to stay with him as well) was just going to be too much. 

Spring Grazing Observations

As blogged before, since changing to Real Wealth Ranching protocol which not only teaches a change in grazing management, but includes other changes which i believe will make my life easier as well as being more profitable all the while building soil, forage, and animal health.

One of the main precepts of any grazing management is observation of stock condition. If the livestock are suffering under your management, you must change something immediately. Daily or, at least often, observation of body condition, manure consistency, thriftiness, and overall general health including appropriate hair shedding, bright eyes, well hydrated, being alert, calm cud chewing, not bawling or wandering, and ears up demeanor are a few subtle clues to health.

For good reason, up until this year, i’ve set my calving season from 15 April to 31 May. For me, personally, that is not a good time because breeding season is 7 July to 20 Aug and 100% of the time, mid August to late September is high ragweed season which is debillitating to me making it nearly impossible to remove the bulls to keep defined dates for calving season.

However, this year (2022), i’m pushing that back to 15 May thru 30 June, With the change to total grazing and by default and plan i am offering a better balance protein/roughage diet to both cows and calves and hope to avoid the serious scours (calf losses about 30% for a couple years running!) encounter by earlier calving. However, calving that early in north central Missouri has its downsides in that it often can be extremely cold and muddy, plus cows will not be in best condition coming out of winter before calving.

Pushing it back a month means I avoid the beginning and ending of ragweed season. The animals need to be nearly set stocked during that time because i cannot be outside.

However, the final decision was to turn out the bulls on 22 July and will plan a 60 day breeding season. Most will likely breed in the first 35-40 days anyway, but the few which are later may allow me to grow my herd a bit. This is a calving season of 1 May to 1 July. However, the bigger benefit will be that removing the bulls will be after allergy season. By keeping my own replacements, there is a much greater chance of success by having adapted animals to my particular environment. Purchasing stock is a crapshoot at best.

As calving season has come along this spring (2022), I’ve really enjoyed noticing the HUGE difference in condition of cows which calved early/mid April and those few which have calved mid May. Any cow which calved early is very slow to recover from calving and has not shedded out well at all. Will that affect rebreeding? In the past, it has not, but the cows sure look better and are carrying much more weight.

One thing that has given me considerable concern is the number of open cows this spring that were pregnancy checked as being bred last fall. Young cows and really good 8 and 9 year olds have lost. In other words, it’s not been any particular age group or any specific bloodlines. Still pouring over records to see what might have caused this. It was about 5% abortion/fetal loss last year which the vets say is on the upper limits of normal. This year’s percentage is hovering around 7% abortion/fetal loss. This despite giving my cows a Lepto shot last fall, which is not what i usually do. However, a couple of those are purchased cows/heifers which are often not adapted to my environment.

The typical death loss of 1% to 2% sadly hit that upper percentage point this year to some sort of chronic wasting disease, most likely anaplasmosis. Seems like it hits my 3-6 year old good doing cows. Unfortunately, this seems to be just a part of raising livestock.

I’m continuing the Real Wealth Ranching protocol and total grazing plan because it has been an amazing program. Coming up on my second full year of implementation here in a few months. I tell people all i’m doing is providing landscaping tools and my cows do the work (grazing). Well, they don’t run the chainsaw.

Turn Out!

What is it about turning calves out to pasture makes me smile. No nanny cows now so will the calves respect familiar boundaries without adult supervision? #totalgrazing

This is where the calves were weaned into and it was getting short on grass! The hay is to help balance their diets so that the protein isn’t too high so as to get the ‘squirts.” If cattle are squirty, that’s diarrhea and they are likely losing weight.

Here’s the forage in pasture for them to graze. As soon as they came off the trailer, their heads dropped and they went straight to grazing! Nonselective (#totalgrazing) grazing in this would be ideal for cows, but growing calves will need to be monitored to be certain they are not being pushed to eat the dead grasses to the point they calves begin losing condition. On the other hand, if allowed to pick and choose only the fresh green forages, the calves’ diet will be skewed towards too much protein and will also lose condition. There is both art and science to grazing and animal husbandry in general. Observation is key, action is critical.

Another Pasture Map Story

*the photo above is an old photo – i no longer use netting along this lane since i found it unnecessary to contain the cows/calves and setting it up was more work than needed. It only takes one person to muster the in cows, but i am always thankful for help when they show up.

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Soon (March 2022) it will be time to wean calves born in May 2021 and with all the stock on the Buckman 80, that means a half mile move to the corral. They can be directed through a gate on the northeast corner of the Buckman 80, but then to control their direction, I will set up temporary electrified polybraid with step in posts.

In the map below, the Buckman 80 comprises the 4 paddocks on the bottom and moving toward the upper right hand of that is the northeast corner through which the cows with their calves will move towards the corral. The light green line illustrates the location i will install the temporary polybraid to guide them to the corral at the upper right hand corner of my property. The green line is about 1/2 mile.

Once the calves are sorted off, then the cows will be taken south of the weaning pen, but have nose to nose contact with their babies. (Next year, 2023, calving and weaning will push back a month – April.) In very short time (starting as soon as 24 hours) the mommas will see that their nearly a year old babies are well cared for and will no longer worry for them.

Google Earth Pro makes fence ‘building’ so much easier. Laying out plans and measuring area are ‘free’ and easy.

When to Calve

To all there is an appointed time, even a time for every purpose under the heavens: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pull up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to tear down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to let wander away; a time to keep, and a time to throw away; a time to tear, and a time to sew together; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace. Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 (Hebraic Roots Bible)

For the past several years, my cows have been bred to calve 15 April to 30 May. Though that is earlier than i prefer, it was a decision i made some 8 years ago because i was having up to 30% death loss in baby calves getting scours. Scours so bad that sometimes the calves would die before they even passed that first scouring poop! That was calving 15 May to 30 June. So after a great deal of research into the possibilities, i made the decision to push it back. And that made all the difference – not one single case of scours since that time.

Now, i did sell those cows which lost their calves, so that is likely a good part in the reason there are no longer any cases of scours, yet it’s not the full explanation. Corriente cows tend to have rich milk, which, combined with the heat caused by grazing toxic fescue and the outside air temperature may cause additional stress on baby calves.

However, today’s weather is a reminder of why April is too early in north central Missouri to start the calving. Although my calving season officially starts 15 April, there have already been 6 calves born – fortunately, the weather has been decent until today and it is pouring down cold rain, muddy conditions, temperature at 46F (wind chill 40F) and a stiff 14 mph NNW winter type wind. Very hard are on young and newborn calves.

So, yesterday, after hearing once again from Jaime Elizondo (others have advised as well and i know better), i plan to wait to turn in the bulls 23 July for 45 days. It is with trepidation that i make this change when, despite crappy April weather these past several years, i’ve not lost any baby calves.

Here is to change once again. On the other end of it, it’s always a problem to wean calves the first week of March when grass is yet so far away and there is bitter weather ahead of them. Calving later will allow me to wait another 2-3 weeks before weaning the following year and the cows will have better weather in which to regain good condition. However, leaving the bulls in a couple more weeks is the only way to avoid me being in ragweed season to remove them. (many of my decisions revolve around ragweed season due to me being incapacitated during that time)

So, what have i decided going forward? To completely avoid ragweed season, I plan to turn out the bulls about August 4 and pull them back out about 45 days later which is September 19. Hope it works!!!

Shabbat Shalom!

tauna

Calves born earlier – before the onset of toxic endophyte fescue – thrived! This Longhorn cow had a dandy heifer calf.

Never plan to have cows calving in the winter! This was a purchased cow which the seller assured me they were spring calvers – he lied.

Snow Still on

The snow is still on along with some ice and this prickly thistle must have some vital nutrients since i observed a few of the cows purposefully selecting bits off this frozen plant. Typically, they’ll only eat the flowers off in the late spring, but this cow is showing her calf how to strip off the branches and leaves and eat them here in winter – leaving the stalk. Otherwise, there is a lot of fescue and other grasses they will thrive on with a bit of effort in this paddock. Not doing the more intense total grazing right now since there is more snow forecasted and i sure don’t want more polybraid strung out again. Uggggh. Additionally, these paddocks they are grazing now are really just gleaning in preparation for better total grazing next winter.