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

Greg Judy on Toxic Fescue – Part 1

This is part 1 of Greg’s experience, opinion, and discussion of toxic endophyte infected fescue published to “On Pasture.”

Winter Stockpiled Fescue Trumps Hay Every Time – Part 1

By Greg Judy  /  February 5, 2018  /  1 Comment

Some folks say we should do all we can to get rid of Kentucky 31 fescue in our pastures. But Greg Judy has other ideas. In this four part series he covers his experiences, good and bad, with this grass, and why he’s keeping his. He starts with the basic benefits of winter stockpile.

When folks start investigating methods of shortening the winter hay feeding periods on their farms and ranches, the term “winter stockpiling” is usually found somewhere in the discussion. The term “winter stockpiling” means that you are allowing your grass to grow on your farm in the fall growing season without being eaten off by your livestock. This fall grown grass (stockpile) is reserved for winter grazing by animals in the dormant non-growing season. The only equipment required to harvest this fall grown forage in the coming winter is the four-legged kind along with some electric fence. The animals harvest it right off the stem where it was grown. Grazing winter-stockpiled fescue ranks as one of the highest money savers there is on our livestock farms.

Once you have succeeded in growing all this fall growth of grass this is your standing hay for the coming winter. Our winter stocking rate is based on how much stockpiled fescue we have available across the various farms. Cows really enjoy grazing every day they possibly can. They would much rather be peacefully grazing across the pasture in the winter, rather than standing in deep mud around a bale ring fighting off other cows.

Here’s why grazing stockpiled fescue (or any stockpile) is better than bale feeding:

Cows Don’t Enjoy Bale Rings

Have you ever watched cows around a bale ring? It is a very competitive stressful scene. There are always dominant cows whipping up on the less dominant cows, driving them off their feed that they desperately need to maintain daily performance. The stress of getting whipped every time they try to get a mouthful of hay out of the bale ring really effects the less dominant cows. Your animal performance on the less dominant cows plummets with each day of cold weather they are exposed to. (If you knew that every time you opened the refrigerator door that you were going to get whipped, you might think twice about going to the refrigerator to grab a bite to eat as well.)

Fertility and Forage Suffers

All the fertilizer benefits from the bale-ring-fed hay are being deposited around the bale ring where the ground has been trampled into a mud slurry. Once the sod around the bale ring is pugged with deep holes through the sod, this area is guaranteed to grow a good healthy crop of weeds for years to come and it years to heal before it will ever grow grass again. Not only is it an eyesore on your pasture, it is no longer a productive area on the farm. If you have to feed hay to your animals, unroll it across the pasture to spread out the fertility.

Cows Can Feed Themselves

One conventional mindset that is tough to get changed is that when winter arrives, animals cannot feed themselves on our pastures anymore. People think, “You must feed hay or your animals will not survive.” My question to that line of thinking is, “What did animals eat for centuries before we started making and feeding them hay?” It’s pretty obvious that they survived without hay and they reproduced too.

I’ve learned that when winter arrives animals are more than happy to graze if they are moved to fresh grass every day or so. The more often I move them, the better they perform and the more content they are. Our mob of cows depends on us moving them daily, they are unhappy campers if they don’t get their daily fresh paddock of stockpiled grass.

By focusing on growing grass on our farm with full recovery periods between grazing, we can let the animals harvest the grass where it is grown. The manure pats and urine patches that are deposited while grazing are dropped where they belong – on our pastures where they will grow more future grass.

We have learned to trust our grass that is standing in our pastures to feed our animals. It does not need to be rolled up in a bale to be good feed. Many times rolling up hay into bales makes it worse feed. Unless you get perfect drying conditions to cure the forage, you end up with moldy hay that is great to fill a ditch with. Animals would much rather harvest fresh grass on the stem.

Here’s Part 2 in the series.

Greg Judy

contributor

Greg and Jan Judy of Clark, Missouri run a grazing operation on 1400 acres of leased land that includes 11 farms. Their successful custom grazing business is founded on holistic, high-density, planned grazing. They run cows, cow/calf pairs, bred heifers, stockers, a hair sheep flock, a goat herd, and Tamworth pigs. They also direct market grass-fed beef, lamb and pork. Greg’s popularity as a speaker and author comes from his willingness to describe how anyone can use his grazing techniques to create lush forage, a sustainable environment and a successful business.

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