It is amazing how quick the cows can gain condition after weaning. I only weaned a week and a half ago and the cows are all over the trauma and look so much better it isn't even funny. They are fuller and not as shelly and they look like they are putting on weight. This is the real advantage of weaning at the end of September. The cows pick up so well afterwords.
One of the largest costs to cattle production in Montana is winter feeding costs. If you can get the cows to gain weight before winter starts your feeding costs will be lower so your cost of production. A lot of guys worry about weaning weights of calves and there whole goal is to wean the heaviest calves so they wean later. I hate to tell them, but the ultimate goal in this business is money made per cow. Early weaning, which cuts feed costs, means more money per cow, not weaning weights.
Does all this have anything of relevance for most of you? No. Just talking.
Talking isn't doing It is a kind of good deed to say well; and yet words are not deeds. William Shakespeare
These are all questions I don't have the answer for and wish I did. If a person could bank on making the same number of dollars for light calves every year it might be worth it to market light calves. But since it's not I will just keep struggling along like I do, dumb and happy.