late calvers

vanderbadger

well
hows everyone getting on with calving, still have 4 to go on a small herd, bit of a disaster really, started in Oct/Nov, if they were all done by march I would be happy enough, how does everyone else get on, do some people move on late calvers..I know th ejournal last week was all about selling on the late calvers but would be interested to hear if lads actually do it, if you have a good cow and she calfs late i would find it hard to get rid of her but interested to hear what other people think

reilig

vanderbadger wrote: »

well
hows everyone getting on with calving, still have 4 to go on a small herd, bit of a disaster really, started in Oct/Nov, if they were all done by march I would be happy enough, how does everyone else get on, do some people move on late calvers..I know th ejournal last week was all about selling on the late calvers but would be interested to hear if lads actually do it, if you have a good cow and she calfs late i would find it hard to get rid of her but interested to hear what other people think

Still have 9 out of 62 to calve. 6 of them will calve before the end of this month. The other 3 will run into may and 1 into June. I wouldn't cull a late calver if she was a good cow - I'd prefer to let her miss a few cycles and have her calving early next year!

just do it

I know, it's hard to let quality go. Then you go the mart hoping to pick up quality. Sure she might look good in the ring, but she may turn out to be a dud! I'm coming to this from a different angle.

I suppose we should be deciding on a cull stragegy and decide on what are the key criteria. Although if you culled everything that didn't quite fit you could be left with very few cows!

I've got rid of a few cows in the last few years who were good cows but could potentially kill you (I bet you can guess the breed!).

This year I've picked out cows that weren't in-calf at the end of the breeding season. There's one I'm going to hold on to though, as she's young and breeds well, as did her mother.

I wonder though by holding onto cows that go late are you on the long run going to reduce your herd fertility. I'm willing to to hold onto the odd one as the exception, rather than the rule. She has to be a good one though;)

reilig

just do it wrote: »

This year I've picked out cows that weren't in-calf at the end of the breeding season. There's one I'm going to hold on to though, as she's young and breeds well, as did her mother.

I wonder though by holding onto cows that go late are you on the long run going to reduce your herd fertility. I'm willing to to hold onto the odd one as the exception, rather than the rule. She has to be a good one though;)

I should have added - I'd only ever give a cow 1 chance. If she misses a second year she's gone - no matter what!

vanderbadger

im my case i have had enough nutters and old age pensioners to get rid of in the last 2 years before thinking of the late calvers, will have 2 or 3 more to offload this year, hopefully will get the current bunch calfing a bit earlier though, i left the bull in with the cows early enough in feb, i didnt really want to as i dont like having a bull chasing cows on slats but he was getting pretty restless so i let him off, i couldnt get over the amount of cows that came bulling pretty much as soon as he joined them, especially a few of the early calvers I had ai'd and had thought were ok

Grecco

I seem to have some calving nearly every month of the year!! As long as the calf is healthy and the cow ok its not so bad.
In an ideal world we`d have em all calving within 6 weeks but Ive yet to meet a real farmer who can honestly say they are doing it (well not dairy farmers they have it down to a science! but your average suckler farmer)

I do find that if you want to get a cow back in calf again quickly you could separate her from the calf and only allow it to suck morning and evening. Also a bit of feeding never did a cow any harm either

Bizzum

Shur what is a late spring calver only an early autumn calver!

just do it

Bizzum wrote: »

Shur what is a late spring calver only an early autumn calver!