Spring Calving Herds
- Secure winter feed supply!
- Body condition score cows, separate thin cows and provide nutritional management to improve BCS prior to calving
- Market calves to your best advantage
- Background calves for sale in December, if possible
- Feed replacement heifers to gain 1.5 - 1.75 lbs per day
- Cull open, old and very thin cows; check feet and legs, udders and eyes
- Consider alternative marketing strategies for cull cows to take advantage of seasonality in cull cow price
- Test hay for nutrient quality
- Get list of bull sales coming up early winter and spring
Fall Calving Herds
- Secure winter feed supply!
- Finish calving
- Check cows 2 to 4 times per day, heifers more often - assist early if needed
- Keep calving area clean and move healthy pairs out to large pastures 3 days after calving
- Ear tag and dehorn all calves at birth; castrate male calves in commercial herds
- Keep good calving records so that calves may be marketed as age/source verified
- Give selenium and vitamin A & D injections to newborn calves
- Feed cows extra energy after calving; stockpiled fescue will take care of needs. Cows calving at BCS < 5 should receive special nutritional attention.
- Test hay for nutrient quality
- Look for opportunities to secure low-cost feed supplies of bulk feeds or commodity feeds
- Keep high quality, high magnesium, high selenium minerals available
- Begin breeding replacement heifers late this month; try AI on heifers
- Get breeding soundness exams done on all bulls
- Purchase new herdsires at upcoming bull sales
Source: Dr. Scott P. Greiner, Extension Animal Scientist, VA Tech
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