Christmas in March!?

Calving season is here! 

This was the first baby on the ground and I can’t tell you how happy I am that we calve so much later then our neighbors. We are days away from moving out onto grass and that will make calving so much better! 

Ideally they would already be grazing but with our dry fall we simply didn’t have the grass reserves like we did last year. So, we have been patiently (or not so patiently) waiting for the spring growing season to begin and give the grass a little head start on the cattle. 

Calving out on grass makes for healthier mommas, and healthier babies. Its been our experience that calves born earlier in the year have more issues with scours and respiratory issues due to our consistent change in temperatures in SW MO.  

The weather in Jan-Mar can be so unpredictable and when there is no ground cover for the cows and calves with all the moisture we get, there is a lot of mud. The mud brings out bacteria that can cause the calves to get sick. Then we have to doctor them and we lose being able to use them for our meat program. 

Also, being able to keep fresh grass in front of the cows gives them rich milk that makes the calves grow far better then when we are trying to supplement them with hay.

I will say, the only downfall to calving later like this is when we start rotating cows everyday, sometimes the baby calves don’t cooperate quite as well. So, we have to leave the gate open and let the mommas go back to help to calves find their way. It’s really only a issue when we need to trailer to a new pasture. That really becomes a pain! 

Thankfully it is only for a couple months of the year and the benefits far outweigh the work!