BIRTH WEIGHT & CALVING EASE

There's been a considerable amount of talk about the effects of winter feeding programs and birth weights in and around the production sale circles lately. The concensus is that birth weights this year with our mild winter compared to last year's severe winter are as much as 8 to 10 pounds lighter on identical matings.

Melvin Leland of Leland Red Angus, Sidney, MT penned what I thought was a great article pointing out his experience, not only with feed condition differences in birth weights but also his view and experience coupled with research data on a number of factors affecting birth weight and calving ease. Melvin is a student of his business and points out some very interesting facts that make a lot of sense on the subject. Melvin states, "As a rule of thumb, it takes a calf weighing 85 lbs. at birth to finish at 1200-1250 lbs. A cow should easily give birth to a calf weighing 8% of her own body weight. Thus, a 1200 lb. cow should give birth to a 96 lb. calf with ease."

At any rate, I found it to be quite informative and suggest you go to either Leland's web site or mine, www.lelandredangus.com or www.billpelton.com, for his article on page 11 of their 2012 bull sale catalog. I know, calving ease is king at tournament time, but in my opinion, we need to challenge ourselves on birth weight if we hope to maintain and grow weaning weights in the future.