Fall Calving is Viable Choice for Some Producers

by Teres Lambert for the Red Angus Magazine

Fall calving is a once overlooked management strategy that is gaining in popularity as long-held misperceptions are dispelled and the benefi ts of fall calving are discovered.

Dr. Derrell Peel, Extension livestock marketing specialist, Oklahoma State University, is among those within the cow-calf segment who changed his thoughts about fall calving after in-depth discussions with Dr. Glenn Selk, Oklahoma State University emeritus Extension animal scientist.

Having grown up in Montana cowcalf country, Peel said he once had a “simple view of fall calving.” And, before discussions with Selk, Peel’s view wasn’t a positive one: “Fall calving just didn’t make sense. A cow lactating during winter equated to higher feed bills.

“Glenn fi nally convinced me to think diff erently,” Peel said. “I now understand that you need to manage that fall-calving cow on a year-round basis and that managing a fall-calving cow is diff erent than managing a spring-calving cow.

“This knowledge, coupled with marketing advantages, better weather at calving, etc., makes fall-calving a great option for certain producers.”

Fall-calving season – calving August through October or September through November – has historically found more favor in the southern half of the country compared to the northern simply because of climate conditions. But today, producers understand that no one calving and breeding season fi ts every ranch across the country and tradition can be broken. As a result, fall calving is fi nding a place in northern climates and middle-tier states as well.

“Anywhere in the fescue belt, fall calving is a homerun,” said Harold Bertz, director of commercial marketing for the Red Angus Association of America, who is involved in his family’s commercial cow-calf operation in Missouri that is 100% fall calving.

“A fall-calving herd is a lot more hands off since you don’t have to fight the weather when heifers and cows calve.”

Cow-calf producer Andy Gant, Watt Brothers Farm, Leoti, Kansas, echoed Bertz’s favor for calving when the weather is more cooperative. Watt Brothers Farm, who has been fall-calving their 200 head of mama cows for about 10 years, prefers to calve “when it’s a little hot versus a snowbank situation.”

While Watt Brothers Farm may lose a calf or two due to heat stress, Gant said he appreciates calving in grass.

Dr. Darrell Peel Dr. Glenn Selk

Availability of Grass Gets Brownie Points

Bertz pointed out that a big advantage for his operation is that high-quality forage is available right after fall females calve. He added that high-quality forage is also available after calves are weaned.

Gant said he appreciates the fact that his cows have all summer on grass before they calve.

“Our cows are in great shape when they calve,” he said. “And we have had zero trouble maintaining them. We farm so we have the stalks. That said, we keep plenty of protein in front of them – and that helps.”

Marketing Opportunities

Proponents of fall calving are quick to point out that fall-born calves enter the market when supply is low and demand is high, and marketing calves at non-traditional times of the year can result in calves garnering a premium.

“An initial attraction for fall calving is weaning calves the next spring – May and June – at a time when calf prices are not at their lowest prices compared to marketing in the fall of the year,” Peel said.

Gant said some producers may think that the pounds won’t be there when fall-born calves are sold in the spring, but that hasn’t been his experience. Watt Brothers Farm typically sells their calves at the end of March or the fi rst part of April. Wintered on corn or milo stalks and given feed for a month or two, the calves come off the cow and are sold weighing an average of 550 pounds.

“We’ve also had good luck with gain,” Gant stated. “With not many people fall-calving, there aren’t as many calves going into the sale barn, so the price seems a bit better.”

Bertz’s family operation doesn’t always sell its weaned calves in May and June. Depending on the year, calves might be run until they are long yearlings and then hit the January-February market. Bertz added that their extra cost of maintaining a fall-calving female “can be made up at marketing.”

In addition to marketing advantages for calves, Peel says fall-calving herds have another marketing advantage: selling cull cows at a seasonally good price.

“When fall-calving herds preg check and determine what cows to cull, they have an opportunity to sell their cull cows at a seasonally good price,”

Advantages of fall calving include better weather conditions, good body condition and capitalizing on a different market time. Peel said. “They can also put cull cows on spring grass and capture that weight before they are sold.”

Other Side of the Coin

As with most management strategies, fall calving does have some disadvantages. If you run cattle and raise crops, a fall-calving herd could coincide with the harvesting of crops, and this

could lead to labor confl icts. This is the case with Watt Brothers Farm.

“We’re calving at the worst time possible – fall harvest and a lot going on,” Gant said. “But we make it work. We check cows before we go pick corn and we have a guy who checks later in the day. It’s a juggling act, but it’s worth the eff ort.”

Available feed resources – both quality and quantity – also need to be considered with a fall-calving herd. While a spring-calving herd can take advantage of lush grass, the same situation doesn’t apply to all fall-calving herds. Fall-calving females are in peak lactation when summer forages go dormant in certain parts of the country. Energy and protein supplementation may be necessary to support the fall-calving herd’s maintenance and lactation nutritional demands.

“It does cost more to have a fall-calving herd because of resource allocation,” Bertz stated. “While there are exceptions, in most parts of the country your per-cow-costs are going to be higher with a fall-calving herd simply due to nutritional demands. But that can be off set with market gains.”

Bertz said his family operation runs cattle on stalks early and stockpiles high-quality forages to meet the higher requirements of fall-calving females.

Another con for fall calving is animal performance, as performance of fall calves is uncertain. An article published in the Professional Animal Scientist journal by B.T. Campbell and associates compared 19 years of records from spring-calving and fall-calving beef herds at a research and education center at the University of Tennessee. While the article noted that the spring-born calves gained faster and had higher weaning weights than the fall-born calves, there is more to this comparison that could off set these two negatives. The study of the two herds also showed that the fall-calving herd increased income to the farm thanks to a greater number of calves weaned and a reduced need for replacement heifers. In this study, more cows in the spring herd produced only one or two calves while the fall herd had more cows that have seven, eight, nine or even 10 calves – suggesting greater longevity in fall-calving cows.

“There’s something to be said for longevity,” Bertz said. “Getting a heifer to calve that fi rst time is the biggest expense for a rancher. Once she’s in the herd and producing calves, her lifetime expense goes down.”

Two Calving Seasons

“There is some attractiveness to having a spring- and fall-calving herd – partly because it spreads out labor requirements for managing the herd and it gives you marketing potential more times during the year,” Peel explained. “That said, it takes a lot of discipline to manage both spring and fall herds properly.”

One key advantage of having a fall- and a spring-calving season is the ability to move a fi rst-calf heifer or cow that turns up open from one herd to another. This is particularly helpful when drought or too-wet conditions impact a herd’s conception rate.

“We often encourage producers to seriously decide what to do with an open cow: cull her or keep her. If you have a spring and a fall herd, you don’t have to give up a whole year if a female turns up open,” Peel said. “You can move her from spring calving to fall calving and only lose half of a cycle and give her another chance. That might not be all bad.

“But you can’t do that all the time. You can’t let the cows jump from spring to fall and from fall to spring. At some point, it really does start to aff ect the overall productivity of both herds. It comes back to discipline in managing the two herds.” Another advantage of having two breeding seasons is the ability to move replacement heifers from one herd to the other so they calve at 2-1/2 rather than 2 years of age.

Selk noted that older heifers should have the ability to breed early in the breeding season and have slightly less calving diffi culty.

For this management strategy to be a paying proposition, however, the cost of another six months of feed must be minimal.

Selk emphasized that two calving seasons fi t best for herds with more than 80 cows. To take full advantage of the economies of scale, he contends that a ranch must produce at least 20 steer calves in the same season to realize the price advantage associated with increased lot size.

Peel added that, if one or both herds is small, it could be diffi cult to manage each herd in an optimal way.

“The choice of calving seasons always has its trade-off s,” Peel concluded. “But, thanks to Glenn, I have learned that fall calving does make sense for certain producers.”

No one calving and breeding season fi ts every ranch across the country and tradition can be broken to fi t the individual operation’s management and marketing preferences..