Calving season is one of the most stressful yet rewarding times of the year. Depending on a ranch’s geographic location and marketing goals, this critical window can look vastly different from one farm or ranch to the next.
While many producers calve exclusively in the spring (January to April), others find success with fall-calving programs from September to November. For those who choose the fall route, the decision is almost always driven by two critical variables — weather and marketability.
Regional Weather Patterns: Fog, Mud and Extremes
Fall calving has become more common among many ranches primarily due to more favorable weather conditions. Bianchi Ranches is in Gilroy, Calif., and runs both registered and commercial cattle consisting mainly of Charolais, Red Angus and Herefords. With about 600 cows in total, Erica Pirnik of Bianchi Ranches says about 475 of them calve in the fall.
“Almost all of our commercial cows calve in the fall, and then our purebreds are split half in the spring and half in the fall,” she explains.
The weather in Gilroy is a major factor in that decision and varies significantly from other parts of the country.
“We really green up after the rains. It won’t start raining until typically October and November,” Pirnik says. “Like last year, it wasn’t really until January. Usually, our grass is getting dry around May.”
Calving in the fall allows those calves to benefit from green grass once they are old enough. Calves born in the spring see dryer grasses and require more supplementation throughout the dryer months before they are weaned.
“As far as performance, those fall calves that are on that green pasture their whole life are really going to see an advantage at weaning weight,” Pirnik explains.
When evaluating calf health, Pirnik adds unless a calf is born in a storm, they don’t see a lot of health issues related to the environment. On the other hand, their spring born calves endure more variable weather patterns during the summer.
“We get a lot of fog because we’re so close to the coast, so when we have really cold nights and hot days — 105 in the day and 50 to 70 at night — those temperature varieties and drastic changes can lead to some health issues in the summer,” she continues.
Shady Brook Angus Farm in Leoma, Tenn., calves about 130 registered Angus cows in the fall and about 100 in the spring. Owner Vince Santini says he prefers calving in the fall.
“You’re in a lot better weather, you still got a little bit of grass, and the calves can get big enough before they go in the winter, where you know they’re a little healthier and a little tougher,” Santini explains.
One downfall with weather Santini notes is it can still be hot in the fall when they start calving.
“It can still be very warm in September, and you know we try to go early September, sometimes if they are early then late August,” he says. “But in the spring, we calve January, February and we’re usually done by mid-March. Those Februarys struggle. If they can survive it, they’re really nice calves by weaning.”
Santini says while it only gets down to about 32 degrees at the coldest during spring calving, the ground doesn’t freeze like it would in northern states familiar with harsh winter weather.
“It’s mud and rain, and that’s hard. That’s hard on calves,” he says. “If the ground freezes, you don’t deal with mud. You just got to keep bedding out for them but mud, you can only put so much bedding over mud.”
They do have facilities to house cows closer to calving during wet weather, but cleaning the bedding and rebedding daily is an added labor cost that comes with spring calving.
Santini says weaning weather is also a consideration when deciding when to calve. With spring-born calves, weaning in August can mean 100 degrees.
“Their mothers are stressing, probably losing some pregnancies because they’re stressing and it’s so hot,” he explains. “I worry more about the mothers than I do the calves then. We wean the fall-borns around April when it still hasn’t got real hot yet.”
Targeting the Market
When marketing fall calves, Pirnik says most of the commercial producers on the West Coast are fall calving programs, which aids in their sales. They formerly sold those calves through Western Video Market and now sell all their commercial calves private treaty.
“For our bull market, we sell a ton of fall bulls,” she explains. “We do market a ton of those fall bulls at the bull sales throughout the spring. Red Bluff Bull Sale, Klamath Bull Sale, those are kind of where we hit with those because some of those guys in Nevada or Oregon will turn out a fall bull in the early spring, so they’ll be big enough then for them.”
They prefer the spring calves when selling show heifers or replacement heifers, noting that they don’t get snow or freezing temperatures, just the occasional flooding in a wet spring.
Shady Brook has a spring production sale, and Santini prefers selling bulls when they are 18 to 20 months old. He also likes having the option to sell fall-bred cows with a split calf at their side.
“An extra cost associated with fall calving is the extra feed they eat,” Santini summarizes. “A lactating cow needs more than a pregnant cow so there is about two months of extra winter feed in a fall-calving cow versus a spring-calving cow.”
