Best Time in the Year for Beef
When is the best calving flavor for y'all? Consider these factors.
Most of the calf crop is calved during the spring, but some producers adopt fall calving. Read what factors influence your calving season determination.
Spring or fall calving? Which do you adopt? The reply to that question is rooted in your management philosophy. If you lot're after being the lowest-price producer, you lot're likely a leap calver. Only, if yous're out to capture the highest market prices, you may be more inclined to calve in the fall.
That's just a pocket-sized part of the equation when examining whether to calve in the leap or fall. In improver to feed and calf market prices, weaning weights, provender availability and overall nutritional needs of both cows and young calves are all factors to consider when determining which timeframe is right for calving in your operation.
"A leap calving system allows producers to wean and market calves prior to winter, which means the producers practice not incur winter feeding costs for the calves. This would imply that producers are attempting to residuum production costs along with revenues to maximize returns to the cattle operation," according to University of Tennessee Agricultural and Resource Economist professor and livestock marketing specialist Andrew Griffith. "Alternatively, the autumn calving season is utilized because the calving flavor generally occurs during the warm, dry months of the year, and dogie prices are usually at their seasonal loftier at time of weaning."
The majority of the U.S. calf crop is born in the first half of the year, the time period USDA uses to indicate jump-calved calves. In both 2016 and 2017, for example, 73 percentage of the calf crop was born in the spring versus 27 percent in the fall, according to the July 2017 USDA-NASS U.South. Cattle Inventory report*.
Permit's take a look at how the different factors counterbalance in on whether fall or spring calving is right for your performance.
1. Nutrition/forage availability. It'southward important to have a secure supply of forage that will run across the nutritional needs of lactating cows so they can support growing calves. The type of forage available to you is a major gene in determining whether spring or fall calving is best for your operation.
"Information technology is important to consider seasonal nutritional demands for lactation, maintaining body condition and rebreeding," Griffith says in a university report**. "The nutritional needs for spring-calving cows closely match warm-season grass product. Similarly, autumn-calving cow diet is closely aligned with cool-flavor grasses."
ii. Weaning and calving rates. The latest research on weaning and calving rates is somewhat split betwixt spring and autumn calving, for one main reason. Griffith says fescue toxicity – a common cause for lower calving rates amidst cows grazing alpine fescue – is a likely contributor of lower spring calving rates in Arkansas and Texas enquiry. Research from Tennessee and Oklahoma, notwithstanding, shows both college calving and weaning rates among spring calvers, making forage supply a key cistron when determining which is all-time for your operation.
"Weaning weights may differ by calving flavour due to climatic conditions and/or nutrient availability. Fall-calving cows accept a college food demand than spring-calving cows during the winter months when forage supply is low," Griffith says. "The increased need for nutrients during the winter months generally results in higher feed costs for the fall-calving herd."
3. Cattle and feed prices. Whether you want to be the lowest-cost producer, or want to fetch the highest market price for your calves, both markets are important variables to consider when weighing calving seasonality. Forage and feed availability is tied directly to cattle prices when calves are typically sent to the market, making information technology important to strike the right residual between cattle and feed market prices when identifying the correct calving fourth dimension frame for you.
"The seasonality of cattle and feed prices greatly influences profits. Fall-built-in calves marketed in the spring often receive higher prices than identical weight, jump-born calves marketed in the fall. The toll deviation is largely due to supply and need for calves. Supply is driven by almost calves being weaned and marketed in the autumn and fewer calves being weaned and marketed in the spring," Griffith says. "Similarly, demand is largely driven by grass availability. Demand for calves tends to exist stronger in the spring when grass begins to abound and lower in the fall when many forage species are entering dormancy. Additionally, yearly feed costs are often higher for fall-calving cows than for jump-calving cows, due to a need for greater nutritional intake while rebreeding and nursing a calf in winter."
4.Labor. Calving season is one of the most labor-intensive times for every operator, so much so that labor is a large factor when determining whether to calve in the jump or fall. If you're also a row ingather producer, for case, you lot may have less fourth dimension to devote to calving in the autumn, making spring calving a amend pick. It's just one example of the importance of considering fourth dimension as the primary labor gene.
"Producers harvesting crops in the autumn likely have more labor hours available for a spring calving season, which generally occurs prior to crop planting," Griffith says. "It is too important for producers with off-farm jobs to consider labor availability during calving seasons as it relates to labor needs of the off-farm job."
These are simply a few of the considerations producers should account for in identifying when is the best time for calving. Just as with whatever major direction decision, every producer should kickoff examine his or her ain operation, then apply major factors like these, both in terms of operations and profit potential.
"Cow-calf producers have many reasons other than profitability, such as convenience or labor availability, for choosing one calving flavor over another," Griffith says. "Convenience factors and labor availability are not easily discussed over a wide audience nor measured, but profitability of calving seasons can be discussed and measured."
* USDA-NASS July 1 Cattle Inventory Report, http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/nass/Catt//2010s/2017/Catt-07-21-2017.pdf
** Fall Versus Leap Calving: Considerations and Profitability Comparison, https://extension.tennessee.edu/publications/Documents/W419.pdf
This commodity contains 3rd-political party content, observations or advice that is not necessarily endorsed by Vermeer Corporation, its dealers or its affiliates.
Source: https://www.beefmagazine.com/reproduction/when-best-calving-season-you-consider-these-factors
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