Hi I’m Mike.
Calving season is nipping at our heals and is ready to start any day.
Being prepared for the busiest time and one of the most important is essential as we head
into calving on Our Wyoming Life.
Welcome to our Wyoming life, if you haven’t done so yet, please subscribe.
All you have to do it click the little button and you are telling YouTube along with other
viewers who like the type of content that you do that they may want to check us out.
Its easy and it really does help.
Calving season is here, almost 9 months ago we turned the bulls out with the cows, to
do what bulls and cows do and now its time to start reaping the rewards of all that time.
Cattle gestation 283 days, humans are right at 280 but just like people, cows can have
early calves and they can have late calves.
With 150 cows all competing for the attention of the 7 bulls that were out last breeding
season, obviously they aren’t all going to have their calves at the same time.
Cows only come into heat once every 18 to 24 days.
And a bull can only work so hard in one day but the average around here is that 3 or 4
cows are going to get pregnant every day during breeding season.
Bulls are left with the cows for 60-90 days or 3 full cycles for each cow.
Hopefully giving everyone a chance to have a date with the bull.
This is what is known as natural service, cows and bulls do what they naturally do.
We only control the time frame in which they do it, so that we know when calves are going
to be born.
The other option is artificial insemination, in which cows can be given a series of shots
to bring them all into heat at the same time.
Then a straw full of bull semen is deposited into the reproductive tract of the cow.
There are benefits to this method, including a very controlled time period in which you
will be calving and a more uniform size of calves when its time to sell.
Studies have shown that natural service is less expensive, averaging about 30$ per pregnancy,
where synchronization and AI can average about 45$, not including the fairly substantial
investment in equipment and facilities needed to do it.
In addition, you will more than likely still need what they call a clean up bull, one bull
that this still around to mate with cows that the AI process may have missed.
My hope here on the ranch is to someday be able to move into an AI program once we can
meet the many challenges associated with its proper implementation.
In the meantime, here’s where we are.
Bulls and cows, doing what bulls and cows do, au natural.
Roughly 283 days since the first meeting of the two, we have to be ready for what is to
come, and that means a fresh baby calf, or sometimes two.
Momma cows out here don’t have much say over when their calf is going to come, but
I do believe that there is a built in biological component in the cows that will try to wait
for the best time to have their calf.
It doesn’t always work, but we can hope.
There have been studies that have shown cows that are fed later in the day are more likely
to calve during the daylight hours, and that is great time to have your calf, but we are
still going to be checking cows at night, because I don’t want to bet the life of
a calf on a study.
A calf born during wet, snowy weather, or even the mud has a much less chance of survival
than a calf born on a dry, sunshine soaked hillside.
Some moms are good at knowing where to have their calves, and some aren’t, and that
is really where our job comes in during calving.
This year we are planning on bringing you more into calving than we ever have before.
During the busiest time, we will almost constantly be hanging out with the cows.
Day or night, we will be here to make sure that every new calf that is born has the same
chance at survival as the last.
We are going to pick them up out of the mud, we are going to bring them into the shop and
sometimes into the house to keep warm.
We are going to medicate them, and feed them when their moms can’t, or won’t.
Once the ball starts rolling, its going to be 2 to 3 months of long days and longer nights.
I’m gonna wake you up at 3am for a livestream as we find a cow and her calf in trouble and
have to help.
You are going to join me as we bring calves in from the field, cold and dehydrated for
treatment, fix them up then hopefully have a joyous reunion with their mom.
You are also going to be there as we try everything we can to save a small sick calf.
Days or sometimes even weeks of feeding, medicating and caring for her, just to have her slip
from our fingers and pass away in the middle of the night.
We are going to have to bring moms into the barn, to help them have their calves, when
calves are stuck or moms are just out of energy from pushing for hours.
All of this fun, excitement and sometimes heartache starts right now.
There are cows out here that are going to have early calves, and that means we have
to start checking them regularly.
In the beginning we start out pretty slow, we check only a few times per day, maybe once
at night but by the time we are up and rolling, having up to 10 calves per day, we are going
to be hopping.
Since you are going to be helping this year, lets head out and I’ll show you what we
are looking for when checking cows.
One of the best times to check is when we go out to feed, most of the cows will come
in to eat.
Occasionally though, you are going to have on that isn’t interested in a meal.
When that happens there are very few explanations why.
This time of year, a cow that doesn’t come in to eat is preoccupied by something else
and that is usually labor.
She may be in just the beginning stages and leaving her along is probably the right course
of action at this point, but now we know who she is and we need to keep an eye on here.
Cows will usually separate themselves off when it comes time to have their calves, this
is the first stage of calving, from here on out things can happen fast or slow, all depending
on the cow but we do have time frames that we usually work in, for our safety and the
cows and the unborn calves.
When the cow separates herself off, she will usually show some thick mucus type of discharges
as well.
Prior to this her udder or bag will usually swell and harden and she may start to show
springing in the back end, another way of saying a puffy relaxed vulva.
Oh yea, I may have forgot to mention, but we are going to get up close and personal
with cows over the next couple of months.
We are going to see things you cant unsee but we are also going to be a part of one
of the most amazing times on the ranch.
Over the next 2 to 10 hours, her behavior will be restless and kinda odd.
She may appeared hypnotized at times, staring off into space, she may pace or paw the ground
or spend a lot of time laying down and getting back up again.
During this time its important to give her space, the more you bug her, the farther away
she is going to go.
And that means farther from the barn if there is a problem and farther from help.
Eventually you will see a bag hanging out of the back of her, as long as that bag is
intact, you are usually safe but at some point its going to rupture.
That is the beginning of stage two in the calving process.
This is when contractions will start, our rule is that within 2 to 4 hours from the
start of this stage, she should have a calf.
If she doesn’t you may have to help.
But that will only be about 10% of the time.
Only 1 out of 10 births should you have to help with.
The rest will happen without any intervention from you at all.
But you have to be ready.
We are ready to dive into calving, and we look forward to whatever we have in store.
The goal is to help make sure we have healthy calves born, and that they stay that way.
Not only will we be checking for moms that will be calving, we will also be checking
calves that are already born.
In a short amount of time, our herd will double, and so will the workload.
I hope I can count on you to be here with me, it may sound silly but it does really
help.
Those nights when I’m lucky to get my first sleep of day by 4 or 5 am, knowing that I
have your support keeps me going.
Please do subscribe and if you want to know the minute a calf is born, check us out on
facebook, Instagram and twitter.
Cause that is where you are going to get your first pictures and videos, long before you
see them here on Youtube.
I hope you can come along for the ride.
Until next time, have a great week and thanks for joining us, in our Wyoming life.