Countdown to Calving: Your Essential Prep Guide to Calving Season
Preparing for calving season starts long before the first water bag appears. It’s best to have a plan in place that involves people, facilities, and supplies for both the calves and the cows. Utilizing research-based principles on the timing and management of calving helps reduce death loss, improve animal health, and decrease labor.
Pick the right calving window
Choosing when to calve is one of the most powerful decisions you make. Producers must consider geography, forage growth, weather extremes, labor availability, herd type, and marketing plans into their decision of when to calve.
In our small herd we like to match calving to forage green-up so cows reach peak milk when pasture quality peaks. This allows us to avoid the harshest weather (both cold and hot), reduces our nutrient reliance on hay and supplement for lactating cows, and allows us to calve out on pasture which is a cleaner environment for the newborn calf.
Spring calving is not always the right answer, especially for herds that need to calve earlier in the year so they can get cattle moved out to rangeland, or seedstock producers that are producing bulls that need to be ready for the next breeding season. In this case geography and marketing plans would take precedence, calves may need to be born during colder weather, and nutrient needs must be met with hay and supplement.
Plan labor and facilities before the first calf
Labor and facility bottlenecks can turn a manageable calving season into a crisis. Look at your annual workload and ask whether key calving checks would overlap with responsibilities for other enterprises, adjust the calving window slightly if needed to avoid the worst conflicts.
Ensure calving facilities are adequate (please have at least a head catch, if a not a chute you can contain adult cattle in if needed), clean, dry, and ready—whether that means sheds for severe cold and snow, well-drained lots to avoid mud that increases navel, joint infections, and respiratory disease in calves, or a fresh green pasture.
Build a ranch-specific calving plan
As your calving season approaches it is important to have a plan.
1. Monitor body condition scores of cows to ensure they are in ideal condition for calving.
2. Review pre-calving vaccination and parasite control with your veterinarian.
3. Assemble a complete calving kit with OB sleeves, chains or straps, lubricant, disinfectant, navel dip, antibody paste, powdered colostrum, esophageal tube, tagging tools and key phone numbers (veterinarian, extra help) so everything is in one place before the first calf.
4. Make sure every calf gets timely colostrum and that navels are dipped promptly to reduce infection risk, especially in confined or muddy conditions. Calves that scour early in life are on average 24 pounds lighter at weaning than their herd mates. Prevention starts at calving with adequate colostrum. I utilize an antibody product called, Sync, in the first 24 hours to fill in the gaps where colostrum might fail. Sync helps to establish health gut flora, enhances immune function, and binds pathogens setting the calf on the right path to health and success.
5. Review how to know when to step in for calving assistance and when to call your veterinarian.
6. Record and move healthy cow‑calf pairs out of high‑traffic pens into cleaner, less crowded areas to cut down on disease exposure as is allowed
7. After the season, review difficult births, sickness and losses, then adjust genetics, bull selection, facilities or timing to improve calving outcomes next year.
Recognize that there are trade-offs with every shift you make in your calving protocol. Monitor the effects those shifts have on your herd and apply what you have learned as you plan your next year of calving.
Written by: Mariah Gull, M.S.