Calving

[cebwtx]

Just wondering out loud. Why can't cows/heifers calve anytime other than late or early as it may be. Had one calf about 2am Sunday a week ago and as I type watching daughters show heifer in labor. Good thing I love cows and my daughter.

 

[rkmn]

It does test you sometimes. You would think they could schedule a little better. 

 

[vc]

I remember reading somewhere that if you feed them at certain times you can get them to calve in the morning, I will see if I can find the article.

 

[willow]

I believe it is; if you feed at 3pm they will calve in the morning.  We feed around 5pm and seem to have most of our babies in the evening.  My husband swears that this also worked on their ewes.

 

[leanbeef]

I've always heard if you feed in the evening, then a higher percentage will calve during daylight hours.

 

[Will]

We have had fed our heifers in that we are watching close of an evening now for about ten years.  Almost all of our calves are born in the day.  It has gotten so reliable that I rarely check at night any more.

 

[leanbeef]

We usually feed around 4 pm during calving, and not every single female will calve during day time, but a lot more than average. If there's one in the group that's gonna calve that night, chances are she'll tip u off at feed time by not coming up to eat. So it does make it easier to check cows.

 

[RidinHeifer]

The theory behind it is to feed in the evening for daytime calves.  There is something that animals typically go off feed 12 hours before they go into labor...don't know how much I believe that though-may just be that my critters are food lovers.  It worked for me, and works for a lot of the big commercial breeders around me.  That doesn't work on sheep though-haven't had one lamb in the daylight yet(or anything other than a thunderstorm or snow storm for that matter).  I am going to try them on morning feedings this year.  Have fun!

 

[BlackCattleCompany]

Something we do with 1st calf heifers (really anything we anticipate having big clubbies that prolly need pulling) is pen them from 7pm-7am, then turn them out during the day starting about 2 weeks prior to expected calving date.  It's seems like cattle's natural tendency is to get away by themselves to calve so they get in a routine knowing they won't be able to do that at night b/c they will be penned. I'd say every year we have about 95% calf between those hours  It also seems that most of our cows get wiser after their first or second calf and figure out to calve during the daylight , but that's more than likely to avoid any active coyotes.