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| I recently made a post about running cows in row crop country. From that it seems like the general consensus was to utilize crop residue, cover crops, and small pastures here and there.
The smaller pasture plan in particular, causes issue for me. It does seem like this is my best option to get more grass, but I am currently calving May/June. So not only would I have cows calving all over in different pastures, but then when it comes time to breed, cows are spread out all over in small pastures and that is not an economical use of bulls.
My herd is currently pretty small so, I was thinking a solution to that is switching to early fall calving. Cows still calve on pasture, still spread all over, but then I can breed when the cows are all together on cornstalks. The issue then becomes dealing with higher maintenance lactating cows on stalks as well as having to keep the calves in with temporary fence.
So I’m looking for thoughts from the more experienced out there…
In your opinion/experience what is the best calving/breeding season for a herd that let’s say, has one big pasture at home where working facilities are, and then a bunch of small pastures spread out across town for summer grazing, and access to cornstalks and cover crops for winter grazing?
Thanks! | |
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Re - Cattle Operation in Row Crop Country
