Week 8

Beef: Cow-Calf

Management Strategies

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• Traditional
  • Late winter calving (spring)
• Nontraditional
  • Fall Calving
  • Late spring/early summer calving
  • Year-round calving (not optimal)

Fall Calving

• Benefits
  • Flexibility in marketing calves
    • Sell in spring, markets are high
    • Graze and sell in fall
• Expense of winter ration
  • Cows are lactating; highest plain of nutrition in the year
  • Facility Expense
    • Twice as many animals to feed

Late Spring/Early Summer Calving

• Benefits
  • Calving in warmer weather
  • Cows get best feed when they are lactating
  • Cows are on an increasing plane of nutrition for breeding
• Negatives
  • Smaller calves in fall
  • Need facilities/range to calve on

When to wean?

• Weaning considerations
  • Market fluctuations
    • May be more profitable to sell after 4 months
  • Cow BCS
    • During drought, calves may be weaned early to allow cows to gain weight for winter
    • Calves can then be marketed or fed

Why do we supplement (creep feed)?

• Increase ADG of calves
• Reduce BCS loss of cows
• Decrease calf stress at weaning
  • Calves are acclimated to bunks and therefore have increased DM intake
  • Decrease in calf morbitity/mortality

Early Weaning Instead of Creep Feeding

• OSU Union Station
• 1/2 of calves weaned at 150 versus 205 days
• Weaned calves received 3 lbs rolled barley & grazed hay meadow regrowth
• Cow/Calf pairs and dry cows returned to graze native range (7.2% CP)

Turner & DelCurto (1991)