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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

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This does have relevence for us! We ususally wean the middle of October to get a jumpstart on winter whereas most of the neighbors wean in November. Something else we do is to make sure we start feeding before the condition of our cattle starts to drop, especially the heifers. That second trimester is the most important. It's better to lose a little ground in the third and your calving will be easier rather than harder although there's a point there that you don't want to cross.........

#1 Linda (Homepage) on 2006-10-11 11:01 (Reply)

I was reading the Riverton market report the other day and noticed where a neighbor had sold some 300+ # steers for $1.71. I have forgotten the actual numbers now but when I figured it out, he got the same amount of money as he would have had for a 500# steer at $1.28. Now I expect that these small calves (there were only a few of them) were the late calves for some reason or other but what I don't understand is why they are worth so much more per #. The 500# steer is going to do so much better in a lot or even on pasture. I just don't get it.

#2 bonnie on 2006-10-11 12:35 (Reply)

I've noticed the same thing the past couple of years and it doesn't make any sense. Why do I bust my butt raising larger calves when I can sell them for the same number of dollars at a lighter weight? Then, how does this pencil out for the buyer? They are going to have more feed costs in them so how can they pay the same number of dollars?

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.

#2.1 Sarpy Sam (Homepage) on 2006-10-11 19:07 (Reply)

Many of your readers come here so they can learn about your line of work. It is nice to see the details....and, I gotta go look up that word shelly, velly interesting....

#3 Bonita (Homepage) on 2006-10-11 16:46 (Reply)

shelly: skinny, empty, etc. Like a pod that the peas have been shelled out of. I wonder if a dictionary recognizes shelly as it pretains to cows?

#4 bonnie on 2006-10-11 18:02 (Reply)

I looked in some on-line dictionaries. They don't recognize shelly in respect to cattle. No surprise there.

#4.1 Sarpy Sam (Homepage) on 2006-10-11 19:11 (Reply)

This evening we are seranaded by a bunch of babies who have just been separated from their mothers. Makes me appreciate the ranchers who wean at home. We have to watch these very carefully for stress related diseases. I have to admit that I feel bad for these guys because they are so unhappy.

#5 bonnie on 2006-10-11 22:49 (Reply)

We don't have the weaning issues that you do here in the dairy business, but it sure has been nice to see the cows start to gain weight (and milk production) now that we have started chopping and feeding corn silage. They sure had a tough summer with all the rain producing poor quality hay.

#6 Marianne (Homepage) on 2006-10-12 06:21 (Reply)

Thoughts from the Middle of Nowhere

Wednesday, October 11. 2006

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