Time of Feeding Influences Time of Calving

[legendrockranch]

The time you feed your cattle influences the time of calving.

For those who might not have heard about this you might find this article interesting.

www.agweb.com/mobile/article/time-of-feeding-influences-time-of-calving-naa-university-news-release/

Barb

[zephyrhillsusan]

This is interesting! I wonder how long they have to be fed in the afternoon for them to calve in the daytime? I assume the ranchers in the study feed routinely at that time. We don't routinely feed ours, although when a cow is nearing her due date I start giving her a bit of grain with some supplements. I'm sure I'd still probably get up in the middle of the night to check on them when they're close, but it would be nice if they'd drop those calves during the day.

[hoperefuge]

I had read something similar years ago, but it in reference to horses.  So I remember thinking, well, maybe it will work with cows too, and I started feeding my cows in the evening for a couple weeks before they were due.  Most of my calves were born during the day, but I had so few cows at that point, I didn't know if it really meant anything or not.

I had sort of forgotten about that.  I guess I need to start evening feeding again!

Kim

[occ]

The last sentence said to change feeding time at least two weeks before calving.

[Pinevalleydexters]

We feed twice a day in the winter, we find they waste less when we don't overfill their mangers. We also feed out small squares they waste less and we can feed a better quality hay. Most of our calves have been born during the day, this spring we had calves born at 11:00 am, 5:30 pm, and 11:00 pm. One more cow to go it will be interesting what time she calves.