With only four or five heifers left, our focus has switched over to the cows and their calves. We’re attempting a new strategy this year, it’s commonly called the Sandhills Method. Used frequently in the Sandhills of Nebraska, it doesn’t have anything to do directly with the birthing of calves, but indirectly, it could save some calves’ lives.
We’ve wanted to try it for years, but I guess this year, we got the kick in the butt we’ve been needing to jump in.
The technique is simple in theory. You have all your cows together in one pasture as they begin calving. After either a few days, or weeks, or number of calves have been born, depending on how it works for you… you take the ones that haven’t calved into a new pasture, leaving the babies and moms behind. Using this, the new calves will be born on “clean ground”, areas that don’t have poo or amniotic fluid or any random germs laying around. Then again, after a bit, the cows that haven’t calved are moved again, and then, again, and again. For as many pastures as you have.
Dirty ground can hold the dreaded scours or diarrhea that can take a healthy calf to an early grave. Some years are worse than others often depending on weather – how cold, how wet, how mucky, how snowy.
We started at home in our School Section. While nothing had calved there, it is a smaller area and all of our cows in it fertilized that field quite well. Then we moved them across the bridge and you’ve seen pics of that last week. That is on our main fields that lay along the creek. Calving near a creek is never good, for some reason cows like to calve by creeks… and then newborn calves can stagger around, lose their footing, and the creek will take them. That is not fun. With the chance of high water and before the main part started calving, we moved them up here in the hills across from my house. It’s a nice place to calve with dry sidehills and no creek!
We have a couple of more pastures to use, I think. I know the guys didn’t want cows on our new alfalfa seeding… and cows’ hooves on muddy fields will make for a bouncy ride come summer haying season. Twenty one calves were born today and it was wonderful to ride along and see them all!
That ‘moving’ method certainly makes sense for keeping your calves healthy
It all never eases to amaze me. And it all makes sense.
Very interesting. Another story of the TLC you give your cows.
Very interesting! It makes sense for sure.