Wintering clubby cows

[BCCC]

What do you do with your cows through out the winter? My spring calvers go on corn stalks. However this is my first set of fall calving clubby heifers. Was thinking about putting them on a small peice of wheat pasture so I could creep feed the babies and the 1st time heifers would have more energy to put towards the calf and themselves. Any thoughts? The heifers have already calved

 

[CAB]

In fall calving programs, one of the biggest challenges will be getting cows bred back in a timely fashion & it will be a little harder getting first calf heifers bred back. The wheat pasture sounds like a great option possibly with a small amount of grain at least through breeding. The calves will find feed readily in a fall breeding program and my thoughts would be to wean the calves when the ave age is 120 days old. They'll do great @ that juncture and the cows will shape up nicely. By fall they will look great and be ready for their next round of calves. I think that a fall calving program can be more economically successfull than many spring calving programs. Those green calves in the spring @ grass time usually bring a nice premium.

 

[BCCC]

I will also be moving these fall calving heifers back to spring calving as we dont have a huge market for fall borns. So shouldn't have a problem getting them to bred back. Just didnt know if the wheat would be to much for the babies once they start eating some. Thanks alot Brent

 

[chambero]

In Texas, the cows wouldn't really need much to go with the wheat.

 

[Bulldaddy]

We winter ous on stockpiled forage and hay when that runs out.  Also supplement protien and minerals.  We get good bred back and all cows are AI bred.  No clean up bull.  we used to run them on oat pasture but it is cheaper to just use stockpiled native and coastal pasture.

 

[BCCC]

I also do have that option. We run a 1500hd grower yard and have siliage and alfalfa hay. They'd have their own pen as all we are only feeding some open cows.

 

[jackpotcattle]

I also do have that option. We run a 1500hd grower yard and have siliage and alfalfa hay. They'd have their own pen as all we are only feeding some open cows.

Since you have the feed I would wean the calves and run the cows with the opens. We have been early weaning our fall calvers at 90 days and it has cut our feed costs dramatically and the cows have been breeding better and staying in better condition all yr round. We ran 2 yr worth of trials before early weaning more than just the 1st calvers and the EW calves gained as good or better than the calves on the cows with a creep feeder.....and like I said it allowed us to cut the feed back on the cows.

One thing you have to take into consideration is we live in SD and the winters can get pretty bad so that is why we EW at 90 days so we aren't weaning when it is really cold and run the risk of cows freezing their bags.

 

[Freddy]

WE have fall cows an last winter was one of the hardest on them an bulls .....Most of  the suggestions for the North country are very good ,we wean in January an definitely helps ....One thing that  really helps is the best  Windbreak you have , an a shed for the calves if possible .....PROTEction is really valuable for fall calves ....