Should I rotate mySouth Poll cows during calving seasons?
Usually, with the great South Poll mothering genetics, calving season and rotations aren’t terrible.
Our fullblood South Poll mothers don’t hide their calves to keep safe. They will place them in dryer areas which is a good reason to avoid hay ring feeding during calving season. But in general, our mothers don’t hide their calves.
This trait lends itself to a more uninterrupted rotational grazing plan. However, at Never Tread, what we’ve tried and like is during peak calving season when most are the calves are expected, we give the herd a much larger paddock than normal and allow them to stay for about a week or two. It’s important to make sure there is plenty of grass in this calving paddock, provide minerals for new mothers, and plenty of fresh water.
Because newborn calves only stand to nurse during the first day or so, rotating them is difficult and hard on them. The mother’s a re good about not leaving their side but sometimes, they think if they move on to the next paddock, they will be able to go back and retrieve their newborn calf too. It’s much more efficient for our time to give these South Poll mother’s more than adequate space to calve and raise their little ones for a week or two before moving the herd.
But once peak calving time is finished, we go back to our usual paddock moves and the calves and South Poll mother’s have no trouble at all adapting. It may seem like it at times, that the calf is left behind in the last paddock but at a week old, they choose to go to the other side of the wire and sleep. We make little effort to ever force the calf back into the paddock once they reach this capable stage. The only time we do is if the herd is moving farther than just the paddock over.
Anyway, after peak calving season, we only pause rotations for any South Poll cows that are calving outside of this window. We only pause for about two days because usually, on the third day, the calf has the strength to follow its mother. But when we do these modified rotations, we leave the last paddock available for the mother to go back and fetch her calf if it stayed behind to sleep.
Overall, rotational grazing during calving season can be easier on you and the South Poll mother’s if you modify your grazing plan during these times.