Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Rural Living How's your calving going?

We are little over halfway done here and the weather has been great. It literally warmed up a few days before they started hitting the ground...

Knock on wood we are around a 2% death loss and a couple of those were calves that we are pretty sure got stepped on.

Heifers have been going very well, haven't lost a calf with them yet. Couple wild pushers/head butters at birth but they settled down a couple later and mothered up fine.
Calved out around 35 so far and have pulled 3 (big)calves. One set of twins and the heifer took them both.


Very thankful here.



How's it going on your place?

Sorta just getting started on some early ones.


Heifers are about half calved out.


No trouble so far.

Glad to hear Jim.


Man, talk about perfect weather.

A half inch of rain wouldn't hurt my feeling though. Guys are talking about hitting the fields next week.....

Yes. I would not mind too much if it rained some.


We have about 500 acres pre worked and all our hay ground is rolled.


Are you still looking at a three point bale unroller?

Only the two pair of twines we had to pull. Thanks to Jake's hard work, they are doing well. We are hardly started though.

Jim, yeah, we should get a bale unroller. Don't need it now but when it's too muddy to use the pickup one would be nice.


I see one listed on a local auction.

Bale Master....

Never heard of it so looked up the specs and it should handle 3000lbs which is way more than any of our bales weigh.




Richard, next week you and Jake will be busier!

Starting to get into the thick of things here.

The calves we have are doing pretty well. Pulled a big bull out of a heifer, a couple of onery mothers, and one sluggish/ dumb calf. But everyone else has been good.The weather has turned pretty chitty. Pretty good thunderstorm coming through tonight. 9-10 days of the next 14 shows thunderstorms/rain showers. Can't seem to get close to caught up work wise.

Ben, any pics?

Still going...

Holding my breath things continue down the path they are headed.

Got some heifers coming up. Never look forward to that.

Our policy on heifers is, if she is trying, but not had it, we call the vet. If she has it before the vet arrives, we call and stop them.

Richard, do you pull many calves yourselves?

Haven't really been taking any pics lately.

Heifers 1st calf








Here's one from a few weeks ago. Probably couldn't even get up to that spot anymore.

Ben, that heifer is in good shape!

Good chow makes all the difference in the world.



You're too busy to be fiddlin' with a camera....grin



Great pics man, your boy is getting bigger!

Ben, good to see you post.

Sam, not long time now. I used to with mixed results.

We have 6 calls so far...11 more to go..
The first 4 we had were the gelbvieh heifers we bought them from from a local girl that AI them from their herd bull...(squeaking by ranch).. They all had no trouble and are all good mamas..they were babysitting for each other the next day...Calvs are doing fine..
Check out SQB ranch. They have some nice Bulls

Just got home from a dystocia call, mature cow with calf showing 1 leg and head out, 1 leg way back. Got him pushed back in and got the other leg up, pulled him by hand then. She'd been too long, calf died while owner was trying to help her before he called me. Had a heifer dystocia this afternoon, just a normal presentation big bull calf, pulled and got live bull calf.

In general it seems birth weights are heavier this year. Probably more uterine prolapses. Don't see as many dystocias as we did years ago, more attention to calving ease bulls and we do more heifer pelvimetry that will catch some potential wrecks. February and a lot of March was very cold, it was rough for quite a while.

We have so many fall calving cows around here it sure mixes up the work-today we were semen testing bulls, pregging fall cows, working fall calves and of course the dystocias. Oh, horses, dogs & cats too!

I'd better go to bed and get a nap in-in case somebody has problems tonight!

My nephew tells me that he is down to 4 cows left to calve. Only lost one and he's pretty sure it was a still born. Pretty amazing considering the weather they had while calving.

34 live ones so far with 9-10 more to calve... Have had to pull 2 so far, but the heifers were on the smaller size and weren't supposed to get bred, but the bull had other ideas obviously. Haven't noticed any large calves so far like I've heard others talk about.

Glad to hear everyone is having good luck.


Doc, I don't know how you do it but I'm glad you do!


Calving on dry ground here and right in the final big push for new calves. Perfect weather and that makes life all the easier.


Little extra hay on hand and we've been feeding more lately. Keep em' happy and maybe help keep them off the fences trying to get every last new blade of grass.

Got one calf that is just a dink.

I don't know what it is, but that calf just isn't "right".

About a week old now... Which surprises me. I didn't think it'd live this long. I don't think it will make it, but if it does, it will probably go into the feed pen.

Sometimes you just get dink like that. Hate to see it.