News

Bad winter wx forces calving season question

Damage from blizzards and flooding have raised the question of changing future calving seasons to late spring and early summer.

Glenn Selk, Oklahoma State Emeritus Extension animal health specialist, tells Brownfield in the upper Midwest region, a breeding season in the hotter months of summer might be feasible, ”Getting the calving out of that time of the year where, certainly, cold weather, wet weather can have quite a devastating impact on calf survival.”

Selk says one study shows only a three-percent loss in breeding performance. In a few states, he says, there was improvement, “In South Dakota, actually, Montana there was an advantage to late summer breeding and then late spring, early summer calving seasons.”

Selk says studies clearly don’t support a summer breeding season for states like Oklahoma and Texas because of heat stress.