COW CALF EFFICIENCY

ll calves are born with summer coats. Will Rogers once said, “Men learn through two things. One is reading and the other is association COW with smarter people.” Reading and listening to people, most of whom are much smarter than me, talk about raising cattle is something is something I really enjoy because I am passionate about the cattle business and I want to be continually improving. But, I think Will Rogers missed another way that we learn and that’s through observation. The Apostle Paul said in Romans 1:20, “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and God- EFFICIENCY CALF head; so that they are without excuse.” When it come to understanding the Bible, I really enjoy reading Dr. J. Vernon McGee’s commentaries. Dr. McGee’s comments on Romans 1:20 basically says that if you can’t see God through observing His creation, then you are a fool and just plain stupid. I can’t help but smile each time I hear Dr. McGee say just what he thinks, much like our current President! There are many aspects of raising cattle that are “clearly seen” if we would just take the time to observe God’s plan for nature. I admit that I have been a fool many times by ignoring what is obvious and going along with “the way we’ve always done it”. As we talk about efficiency of our cow/calf operations, one of the things that I have become convinced of is, that the closer we can mimic the system that God put into place, the more efficient we will become. In other words, trying to work against the plan God has put in place for nature is as McGee said, just stupid. Kit Pharo, a Colorado rancher who sells over 1000 bulls annually through a very unique program, says that “God made a perfect world”. He has been outspoken in his belief that when we go against God’s plan, it’s a mistake. One if his favorite quotes is “It’s not nice to fool mother nature, but it’s also not profitable”. In the previous article, I expressed my ideas on one of the things I believe has made the average cow/calf

Summer Coats For Calves

By Bill Clark A operation less efficient, that growth and carcass genetics have made our cows too big and hard to keep. This time I want to talk about the timing of calving, and how that can affect the efficiency of our cow/calf operations. It is easy for us to observe that God’s plan, has ruminants having their offspring during the period of peak forage production, late spring. Here in Oklahoma, we don’t see Whitetails having their fawns in January or February. The vast herds of Buffalo that once roamed Oklahoma didn’t calve in the winter either. But, in order to wean a bigger calf in the fall, many of us have gotten into the habit of calving in the winter, which can be severe, even here in Oklahoma. I remember one particular ice storm in February when we had newborn calves actually freeze to the ground on our ranch in Pontotoc County. I bet that if our friends from PETA had driven by our pasture on that nasty day, they would have accused me of being cruel to my cattle by forcing them to calve out of season. Cruel or not, common sense and experience tells us that calves born during wet, cold conditions are much more likely to become sick as opposed to those born during milder weather. There are other reasons to calve latter. The late Dr. Dick Divens, who for years preached efficiency in his Low-Cost Cow/Calf Production School, talked a great deal about the timing of calving. He stated, “there are two forms of growth: cell multiplication and cell enlargement. Formation of cells begins with conception and concludes shortly after birth. Cell

formation keeps going after birth, but some have suggested that it stops in as few as 13 days. Keep in mind that the little 13-dayold calf on the ground pretty well has all the cells it will ever have. This is a critical period of growth. You do NOT want the calf to experience any kind of starvation or stress at this time. If it does, cell formation will be limited and specialized cells such as nerve and muscle cells will not fully develop.” Naturally, calving in the winter could place a great deal of stress on newborns and could affect the calf’s performance for the rest of it’s life. Ever had a relatively small calf at weaning out of one of your better cows and wonder why? This might just be the reason. So, there’s a couple of good reasons to calve later for the calf, but what about the cow? Getting a cow bred back on time might be the number one factor that determines the profitability of our operations. We know that having our cows in a good body condition score of 6 and on an increasing plane of nutrition at calving, has a lot to do with how quickly the cow will begin cycling again. I’ve read that a cow can improve one body condition score in three weeks of lush grass and I’ve observed that thin but healthy cows can gain a lot of weight very quickly when the conditions are right. If we calve late enough that the cow has had 45-60 days of fresh grass, then we could easily move a body condition score of 4 coming out of the winter to a 6 by late May or June. Lastly, length of day, or photoperiod has much to do with when a cow can return to estrus. Without getting too detailed, it has been proven that it takes a cow over twice as long to return to estrus if she calves in January than it does in July. Nature uses length of day and nutrition to control when the native animals have their offspring. So, when should we be calving here in Oklahoma? Based upon God’s plan, May. This would be 60 to 90 days later than most cattle are born in Oklahoma. This is probably where many of you are probably saying that this would never work on your ranch or maybe even, that’s a stupid idea. Calving in late winter here in Okla. has literally been handed down from generation to generation, and just the discussion of calving in May around the Sunday dinner table could start a family argument. In fact, much of what we do on our cattle operations is tradition and even though I don’t rope and drag my calves to the branding fire or eat out of a chuckwagon, I admire those who do. I’m not here to convince you to change anything in your operation, but I would like for you to consider that there might be a more efficient way to run your operation. I am convinced, through reading, observing and listening to others, that God’s plan is always the best and trying to improve on the timing He has put in place is probably costing us all money and may be just plain stupid. I haven’t had the courage to move our calving to May, but we do start calving the cows in April now. Kit Pharo also said “We calved in April for several years. I didn’t realize how far out of sync with nature we were until we moved to May calving.” We’ve come a long way on our ranch moving our calving from February to April, but maybe not far enough. I recently read of a university study that concluded that calves will have the same hair coat whether they are born in the summer or winter. Genetics was the only factor that influenced the hair coat of a new born calf. So, thinking back to some of those cold winter nights when I’ve watched heifers calving, my observation is that all calves are born with summer coats. When you think about it, if God had intended for calves to be born in the winter, he would have given them winter coats.

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