Calving Season for Beef Cattle

It is that time of year when producers spend all day and all night waiting for the next calf to be born.Baby calves are dropping everywhere and producers hope and pray the weather stays nice.(NO COLD WEATHER) Producers must make crucial decisions long before these baby calves are born and it is more or less a guessing game on whether you picked a good time to start calving or not.

Most producers like to start calving their heifers before their cows so they can focus all their attention on the heifers. I believe this can sometimes be a poor strategy because the calves can suckle the cows down too hard by the time you wean them and leave them with a bad body condition score. Also producers must decide how long the calving season should last. Producers with strict management usually have calving periods of 60-90 days but others may leave their bulls in all year around. I think it depends on the type of facilities you have and whether or not you even have room to take the bull out and put him somewhere. 

According to Mark Mauldin,University of Florida Extension Agent, the implementation of a defined  breeding/calving season has the potential to improve the profitability of a cow/calf operation more than any other single management strategy. Even though this is a fairly bold statement I would have to agree because you know exactly when your cows start calving and exactly when they are done. You don't have to check them all summer and run the risk of having them die from the hot summer heat and you can spend time on other projects and not have to worry about them calving which is where the profitability comes into play. (The image above is a Cow/calf pair)