?? for you cattle guys in the really cold...

toad67

How cold does it have to be before your cattle really start suffering or dying in the upcoming weather with it being close to minus 60 with the wind chill? Is it more of a severe short term drop, or a longer bit warmer time period that affects them the most? Can, or do you do anything for them or do you just let mother nature take her course? Seems like a pretty crappy thing that they have to deal with, let alone the money lost for each animal that doesn't make it.

gjshaw

We always had some type of shelter for them to get under and with two sides closed off like a lean to they would huddle together and stay warm. The ones on the outside would work their way into the center to get warmed up and it would rotate like that till they went out to eat. We also fed extra hay on cold days.

redneckandy

I can't answer for -60 but my cows are fine at -10 degrees. Just have to keep plenty of hay/feed available. Cold isn't the biggest problem. I have had more problems with rain, sleet, mud, around freezing temps. Calves get soaked, can't keep their body temp up then die.

I would MUCH rather have calves born at 0 degrees than 30 degrees and rainy.

toad67

I can see giving some shelter to them from the wind if you can, and have room to do so, however, if you have too many then it's out of the question. And as for the wet versus plain old cold, agree 100% redneck, the wet will suck the life out of anything. I used to work for a rancher out of Spray Oregon every so often to get his cattle ready for the fall. De horn, brand, shots and all of the fun stuff that the little ones need to face the winter range land. One thing that ol' Dave was, was old school. Nope, ear tags were not something that we would waste money on. Before they got set free, they got ear marked with a sharp knife. All was good then, but come spring time when most of their ears were gone from the cold it never made sense to me. But hey, I was just a young 'en learning the ropes..[;)]

jimdeere

I kept a grove ov cedar trees uncut. The cows would huddle in there if it was cold, rainy, windy.
I would bust holes in the icy pond so they could drink and they would just stand there and look at me.

Mobuck

A healthy native cow can stand a lot of cold as long as she is dry and has shelter from the wind. Once they get wet, it starts going the other way and a wet cow in a cold wind is about like you or me-cold and miserable. They start burning fat to stay warm.
Lots of "cattlemen(?)" in the Midwest want to have virtually barren pastures-no shade trees or wind breaks and their livestock suffers accordingly.
I winter the Grandkids' registered show goat herd here and have a spot that is as good as I can find and still readily accessible. A few days ago when it was cold and windy, the measured temp in this little sheltered "hole" that catches all available solar energy and is protected from wind was nearly 10* higher than the temp at my homestead.

spasmcreek

a LOT of cattle here on open ground ... move them to places with trees...???? but that is a real chore with large numbers...most cold here blows thru in a few days and moving is a big chore ..some years ago we had a cold spell -5 to -10 below zero hang in for about 2 weeks....at that temp the deer bunch up and stay together till it warms up...one such event when i came home from work one evening i counted 119 munching on my wheat field...

jltrent

Just got done feeding 190 head. I put them plenty of hay in a low place as preparing for lower temps the next couple day. Some of the older cows seem to suffer some, but most handle calm zero weather good.

Mobuck

"but that is a real chore with large numbers...most cold here blows thru in a few days and moving is a big chore"

Just part of ethical livestock care.

Wild Turkey

When I was young my dad leased a half-section of wheat to a cattle guy to graze ( wheat was worth more as pasture than grain at 15 bushel/acre)

Guy called dad in March and said he was bringing up 300 head of Brahma calves. Dad told him it was too early and weather could be a problem. Cattle guy said it was March and was spring so he'd bring them up.

Put the calves on the half section, two weeks later blizzard comes through and he

Wild Turkey

rest of the story

Blizzard came through and all 300 calves died.

It may have been spring in South Texas but we were in North Texas where spring comes a mite later

spasmcreek

obviously some here have never seen a commercial feedlot

Cornflk1

Best answer here is Redneck,s

Mobuck

"obviously some here have never seen a commercial feedlot"

Not sure WHO you might be referring to but FYI, I been running cattle for well over 1/2 century.

TrinityScrimshaw

All our pastured stock is sheltered down in a cedar swamp where the water never freezes, because it's spring fed. We feed them large round bales with a spiked 4X4 tractor.

There are two separate groups of our young stock fenced into our barnyard. One group can get into the freestall area of the barn, but the other group is out in the elements.

They have access to large hay bales that they tend to bed down in, and there is an electric stinger in their water tank.

We have yet to lose any, but we seldom get windchill temps this low. That & the blowing snow we are expecting could cause a few problems.

We already have about 2' of snow, and we are expecting 3' more by Friday.

Crossing our fingers.

Trinity +++

Locust Fork

I've always wondered how it always seemed that cows have babies during the WORST time of year. I think of spring time....baby birds....baby bunnies....but here these cows are with these little babies in the FREEZING cold!

use enough gun

If they can get out of the wind they'll be fine.
Back in the 80's a friend and his wife worked for a rancher around Fosston, Mn. One evening it was supposed to get real cold and they asked the boss if he wanted them to put the cattle in the shed, he said no. That nite it set an all-time low for Mn. -62 if I remember correctly. Some of the calves left outside lost some tails and ears.

TrinityScrimshaw

Locust Fork,

It's all in the way you manage your heard.

We remove our bulls from the heard when all the breeding has taking place.

We separate the young stock in the fall from the cows. If we don't remove the bulls some of the older cow/calfs could end up being bred back by their fathers, and our heard is registered, so that could really screw things up...no pun intended!

The calving will start usually in late March, and be finished by June.

The bulls are returned to the heard in the Spring.

It's all a timing thing, and we use horses to push the cattle to remove & separate them.

Trinity +++

spasmcreek

several years of feeding pigs up to 220-240# came to an end in 1971 ...had pens all around in the trees with over 300 pigs and stood out on the sidewalk in a tee shirt friday eve, calm. clear and warm and woke up saturday morn to howling winds and drifting snow...NO weather warnings on radio ..had 10-12'drifts all over and spent the day gathering them all up into a big barn, two sheds and fed/watered them by hand for several weeks till it cleared & lost a few....missed a couple days of work at a job 8 miles away till wednesday when i drove an open station tractor 7 miles across country around drifts to get to town where a buddy picked me up and went to state experiment field day job... reverse that back home for 3 days till twp got the roads open..decided there was an easier way to make a living so focused on grain crops and irrigation

swearengine

Cattle and horses can both take extreme cold. But, they must be dry. If they can get into a shelter so they are out of the wind and dry, with extra rations in front of them they can thrive. And, don't forget extra water. Those animals are making so much heat they dehydrate themselves.

As far as the ones having babies at this time, that is not natures timing, rather it is the ranchers timing and the rancher takes extra precautions when calving in this weather.