Fall officially begins in September each year and that is the month, in North Texas, that we like to get our seed in the ground for our fall pastures. With growing days limited by shorter day length and colder temperatures, it is imperative to have our seedlings emerging as quickly as possible to take advantage of the really good temperatures and day length before they become our limiting factors in having our cool season annual pastures.
While our intentions are good, when you’re farming outdoors, we still have to deal with the weather, heat, rainfall, and insects such as armyworms. Now if you are in this business, you’ve got to an optimist because the pessimists aren’t going to do anything because something bad could happen and in fact, it does on occasion but not to the extent that we quit because it might happen. If you want to lessen your chances of something going wrong, farm indoors, get a greenhouse and find out that you are in charge and if something does go wrong, it is probably your fault.
In the world of cattle, it seems as though cattle prices throughout the summer have held together enough that we have been able to pay our bills and keep our notes current, thank goodness. Our program has been to stay current in our marketing and basically business as usual.
Next up for us is pregnancy testing our heifers and cows and not allowing open spring calving cows or heifers that didn’t breed to hang around here through the fall and winter after we wean their calves. We need to get them off the payroll if they are not pulling their weight.
We’ll be weaning calves soon and giving them their IBR and blackleg boosters and deworming them before we decide which ones will be kept as replacement heifers and/or bulls.
On another note, I had a buddy ask me what “is a good yearling weight for cattle.” This got me to thinking and just a rash of thoughts went through my head regarding his question. My first thought was, I don’t really know what our weaning and yearling weights were compared to other breeders. It was probably directly related to how much we feed our calves after weaning and when do we start. In other words, the more you feed your calves after weaning the heavier the yearling weights. First, we don’t feed our heifers after weaning, but we do grow our bulls on feed during the winter to average 3 pounds per day of gain.
When green grass arrives in the spring, no more feed. To put this in perspective, if you have weaning weights that average 650 pounds and immediately begin feeding them to gain 3 pounds per day after that, you would expect a yearling weight of 1,150 pounds.
In our case, we usually begin feeding our bull calves about the first of August after weaning them in May, or at 8-9 months of age, which would be 650 pounds plus 300 pounds of gain on feed plus pasture gain of about 100 pounds for a total of 1,050 pounds. The last thing we want to do is get our bulls fat which will result in them falling apart when turned out with cows in a pasture and fend for themselves on grass.
We also feed our bulls on pasture, 20-80-acre native grass traps, to prevent feet and leg problems common to bulls fed in feedlots. While we could get 4-5 pounds of gain on a free choice ration, we elect to keep gains lower so our bulls will be in better shape and able to hold their condition after they are turned on cows. But regardless, fat seems to sell and if that’s what buyers want, then that’s the way it will be.
In the case of our heifers, we breed them when they are 14-16 months old and we want them to weigh 800-850 or there abouts. If a heifer has a weaning weight of 600 or so pounds, that means her yearling weight needs to be approximately 750. We want our heifers to be large enough to have a calf on their own and with another 9 months to grow, that isn’t a problem.
So there you have it, if you’re after lots of weight feed them a lot, if you are after functional cattle, don’t over do it.
It’s a wonderful time to be in the cattle business.
Rayford Pullen
Pullen Angus
rcpullen@yahoo.com
