Autumn Calving

Albert Johnson wrote: »

Would 4kg a week not be very little meal to a cow feeding a calf over the winter? I suppose it depends on your silage quality but I'd struggle to see how a cow could rear a calf, go back incalf and maintain body condition over winter on roughly 1/2 a kilo of meal and average quality silage. You'd also have to supplement the calves directly as they got older and the cow's milk supply diminished especially on a diet of mainly silage.

Autumn calving isn't that popular locally which could tell it's own story but that's not sole basis to dismiss it. You'd want good facilities for over wintering the calves alongside the cow's especially as the calves got older and required more space. In theory with spring calving you could turnout cow's as they calved and if you timed it roughly to grass growth you'd only be dealing with smaller younger calves indoors as opposed to near weanlings in the early spring.

The few men I know that calve in the autumn maintain you were better calving in July/August as opposed to September/October as you'll have stronger calves that are less susceptible to pneumonia or scour when housed. Calving earlier in the autumn brings it's own problems including risk of summer mastitis, trying to restrict grass to cow's near calving, bigger calves at birth ect.

Would you be keeping the weanlings onto stores or selling off the cow? If you were to sell out of the shed as weanlings in let's say April would they cover the increased costs compared to a spring born calf sold at similar weights in the backend. By that stage you have all the hard work done and were you better to put to grass and sell at 12 month's old in the autumn. Of course you'd need the acreage to run them alongside the incalf cow's for the summer. Autumn calving seemed more popular locally back 10 year's ago when there was a solid market for heavy weanlings for bull beef. There was a few lad's used to sell autumn born weanlings the following backend at 450-550 kg at 10-12 months old. Those sort of stock aren't in demand anymore and most of them changed back to spring calving as a result.

Albert Johnson wrote: »

If you had good quality silage and were able to have them running in and out of a shed over winter then it would change the dynamics of it. I was coming to it from the viewpoint locally of poor to average quality silage and realistically looking at housing them from November through to May. Granted you'd have a strong weanling going to grass the following spring but the cow would have spent the most intensive months of the year rearing a calf in the shed.

I was referring to the demand for heavy bull weanlings being nearly none existent in recent year's. Most of the lads I used to see at autumn calving locally used to sell bull weanlings 450kg and over at the first of the weanling sales in July/August or kill out of the shed as bulls before there second Xmas. Obviously now you'd want to squeeze them if keeping over the summer and there's always demand for quality type forward store cattle provided ages and movements are correct. It seems to work for you and that's the main thing, you'll always have complications with any system.

Farm365 wrote: »

I’m thinking of moving to Autumn calving too. It would suit from a cash flow point of view and it would mean less competition for early grass between the ewes and cattle. If you calved in July/August could you winter the calves on forage crops or would they be too young? They would still have access to the yard through a creep gate. Is there much demand for weanlings in March/April?

The licks are a bit of a help but tar is the best. We used both last year and it was quite effective