Early Calves

Anyone else getting lots of early calves?  Our cows aren't supposed to start calving until Sept 1, but we're probably already 1/3 done!  Watched SUNUP (OK State show)  and they did a piece informing those of us in the heat to be ready early, because studies they've done show the heat seems to shorten gestation.  Guess with this heat they were really shortened!  Wish we'd have watched this 2 wks ago, the we wouldn't have gotten caught off guard.

Yep. Ditto in N. Texas. 

This phenomenon is another reason to not put much weight in BW EPDs IMO.

We had one born last week that was 30 days early.  Lived about an hour and died.  Just way to small. 

Ours are coming real early in Wichita Falls area.  We've already calved 9/37 heifers and their earliest due date isn't till 9/5.

Cows are calving 3-4 weeks early.

As an extra caution, coyotes are real hungry right now in the drought stricken area and are very aggressive. My wife just found six coyotes feasting on a Monopoly calf we had born yesterday.  They didn't run off till she drove within about 50 yards of them honking.

Chambero,  glad you brought that up.  Due to available grass, and lack thereof, we are moving the pairs to a pasture that is more remote and heavily infested with coyotes.  I'm thinking a donkey in the pasture would be a good idea.

Texas Dude..  The calves we're having would certainly make a low birth weight bull proud.  lol 

Birth weights certainly aren't an issue for us either .  We have some jackrabbits that might be bigger than some of the calves.

They seem to be handling the heat better than we feared.

Add us to the list of early calvers.  A bunch of September 4-7ths that are dropping now.  Sort of wish they'd have stayed in as they'd all look a lot better at 75-80 instead of 65-70. 

As an extra caution, coyotes are real hungry right now in the drought stricken area and are very aggressive. My wife just found six coyotes feasting on a Monopoly calf we had born yesterday.  They didn't run off till she drove within about 50 yards of them honking.

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We've got a crazy cow in the calving pasture soley for that reason.  She makes tagging new calves an adventure when we can even do it but she's on top of any calf that bellers within a few seconds.

You guys need to find some mangey coytes, we use to have coyote problems an mange got into them an it about put coyote hunters out of business in some areas ....

It's interesting that you brought this up..almost half of our fall calvers have had calves by now..we weren't expecting them until later on, and we were wondering why. We thought it was the heat, but we didnt know that it would be this extreme..interesting...

I was expecting ours to come early because of the heat but so far ours cows are calving right on their due dates.  It was 110 here yesterday but high today was only 97.  We have had coyotes coming into our yard in the daylight and getting my wifes chickens.  She lost 12 in one week.  I was down from a knee surgery so she took matters in her own hands and got one coyote with her double barrel shotgun, then after that she got the state trapper in our area to come out.  Hopefully she got the coyotes taken cared of.  <cowboy>

Freddy said:

You guys need to find some mangey coytes, we use to have coyote problems an mange got into them an it about put coyote hunters out of business in some areas ....

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 You have chupacabra???   :

This came in a timely manner  An article on early calving in OK!

http://www.agwatchnetwork.com/newsView.cfm/uuid/38A76D08-04EF-48F8-BADCEA111E8D557D

lol.. a week to 10 days huh.  Let's see, we'd have arrived to find 8 calves on the ground already.  They get pretty speedy when you're trying to tag a 10 day old calf.  (lol)  I shouldn't make fun, they have the right idea, just finding our cows are going a little earlier than they predicted. 

Yes, our calves here in Central Texas have been coming a week to two weeks early with smaller birth weights than normal.  Also, the good hairy black calves suffer a lot from the heat stress.  I have lost 3 to the heat already.  Finally started pulling them up and under a fan and mister.  That seems to be working.  Is this summer a taste of Hell or what?

Same thing here too. Located in central Texas. Have had one 30 days early that amazingly is still alive and might make it. Have lost four so far that were three to four weeks early out of 11 and all have been first calf heifers except three.

JFSC said:

Same thing here too. Located in central Texas. Have had one 30 days early that amazingly is still alive and might make it. Have lost four so far that were three to four weeks early out of 11 and all have been first calf heifers except three.

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Sorry for your losses!  Guess we've been lucky, the calves have been small, but spunky.

chambero said:

As an extra caution, coyotes are real hungry right now in the drought stricken area and are very aggressive. My wife just found six coyotes feasting on a Monopoly calf we had born yesterday.  They didn't run off till she drove within about 50 yards of them honking.

Click to expand...

Chambero, I feel horrible about your loss of the monopoly calf. I can't imagine much worse than that. We bought a couple donkeys from fear of something just like that happening. Again, im sorry for your loss. I hope you have a better one come along and make you some money!

I'm about two weeks out kinda worried!

rmbcows,
Thanks. Since I last posted have had three live and healthy calves. Maybe things are turning around.