Good morning! Hope everyone had a great Labor Day weekend. We enjoyed a warmer day yesterday by spending some time in the pool and riding horses… living our best life!! You’ll find my posts to be a bit shorter in the coming weeks. I’m focusing on getting my podcast off of the ground, so a lot of my time will be devoted to that.
Not only will I be focusing on my podcast in the coming weeks, but also it’s September and that means fall calving has commenced. These past couple of months have moved by so fast that this really has kind of snuck up on me. Like I said yesterday, we haven’t even hauled all of our round bales in to put in the barn yet… how can we be having fall calves?!?
On our place, we calve twice a year… spring and fall. We do this for a number of reasons. 1) We get more use out of the bulls we buy by allowing them to breed cows twice a year. 2) We have calves to sell twice a year instead of just once. So we have some flexibility when it comes to marketing the calves we sell. Prices are often much better when we market these fall calves than when we market our spring calves. 3) Weather for calving in the fall is often less erratic than in the spring. Typically, spring calving starts on March 1 for us. Well last year, the first week of March the temps in Missouri were below zero… less than ideal for calving. Fall calving temps are generally anywhere from 50-80 degrees. Much less shock to those newbown calves exiting their mother’s womb.
Having a “calving season” is a concept that I’m actually a bit new to. Growing up, our cows calved year round. We didn’t have a specified calving season. Our bulls ran with the cows year round. For a number of years, this is the way I operated my own cow herd as well. However, I found it was much easier to manage a cowherd when you have specified calving seasons. We can get everything weaned and processed all at the same time without missing any throughout the year. This kind of organization is crucial when you have as many irons in the fire as we do.
Calving time represents the time on the farm that makes me happiest. I love the excitement of new birth and new beginnings. So having this happen twice a year is awesome. All of the hard work and frustrating times are well worth it once calving season comes around!!
For those who have cowherds, when do you calve? Do you mostly calve in the spring or do you have a fall calving herd as well? Thanks for reading today! Be on the lookout for my upcoming podcast “Ag State of Mind.” I’m very excited for this project going forward. I have a great lineup of guests coming down the line. Please be sure to subscribe and share. Also, dont forget to like on social!!
Until Next Time
Jason