What to consider when changing the breeding season

Trudging through slushy snow in April is a scene many producers know well. One day there’s a hint of summer in the air, with birds chirping in trees overhead as a farmer checks on newborn calves frolicking near puddles. The next day, the farmer is rushing through pastures as hard sleet slashes his face, trying to get to the cow that’s calving, and hoping all the newborns will make it through the frigid storm.

April passes, and soon summer comes — not just a hint but in full force, the sun high and hot in the sky and cows grazing the green grass. It’s July, and the same producer is getting ready to release bulls into the pasture for the breeding season. He’s starting to hesitate, though — the memory of April’s unpredictable weather haunts him. He’s wondering if there’s a better way for him and his operation.

But tightening or moving a breeding season isn’t an easy feat.

For 25 years, Dr. John Campbell has been part of the Western College of Veterinary Medicine’s ruminant field service. With a focus on beef cattle health and management, Campbell is a source of expertise regarding successfully tightening or moving the breeding season.

Campbell says there are many factors that go into the decision to tighten or move the breeding season.

“Tightening it, I think that makes a lot of sense for a lot of producers. We know that you can have a more even calf crop to sell, which probably helps a little bit with your price by having that tightened-up calving season.”

He says moving a breeding season, on the other hand, is more complex and can be a consideration or necessity for a variety of reasons, depending on the operation. He says it’s usually because of management strategies.

“I think we see more people move later rather than earlier. But certainly, there are reasons to calve early for purebred operations and for other reasons.”

Tightening

When it comes to producers potentially tightening their breeding and calving season, the Beef Cattle Research Council (BCRC) website says a controlled calving season is around 60 to 90 days. A controlled calving season will allow improved nutrient, health and marketing management, the council states.

Campbell says when producers are looking at tightening their breeding season, they should be aware of their cattle’s body condition scores.

“If you have cows that are thin, or not in good body condition score, you’ll have a very tough time doing it,” Campbell says. “It’s basically reproductive math. In a good year, if I want a cow to calve at the same time every year … she has a 283-day gestation, give or take. She only has 82 days to get pregnant after she calves.”

Campbell says usually it takes cows 50 to 80 days to start cycling again after calving. This means she must be in very good body condition to get pregnant again when the producer wants to tighten the season.

He says another important thing to keep in mind is when their first-calf heifers will be calving, as they have a longer postpartum interval. Heifers should calve in the first 21 days of the calving season so they are ready to cycle come breeding season.

“If a heifer doesn’t calve at the start of the calving season or even before the cows, she’s going to be behind the rest of the herd, probably for the rest of her life.”

According to the BCRC website, a shorter breeding season may mean adjusting the bull-to-cow ratio, which will vary depending on things such as pasture size.

However, Campbell says the bull-to-cow ratio isn’t as big of a concern when tightening the breeding season.

“I mean, obviously if you have too few bulls, that could have an impact. But if you have a normal bull-to-cow ratio I don’t think you have to change that necessarily to tighten your calving interval.”

Moving

Moving the breeding season is riskier than tightening and should be carefully considered. Campbell says a variety of issues can arise if it isn’t done appropriately. The main one of concern is, again, the body condition of cows during breeding — especially when breeding is moved to a different time of year.

“We have noticed that in some of the work we’ve done where herds that calved quite a bit later through more the June-type calving seasons, we tend to have a little drop in fertility,” Campbell says. “It seems like when you calve that much later in the year, now your cows are in the breeding season when maybe the grass is not at its best. And especially in some of our drought-limited areas, it’s not huge, but we see a little downturn in reproduction.”

He says producers might want to consider estrus synchronization-type programs to kickstart the cattle into cycling, as well as artificial insemination.

On BCRC’s website, the council highlights the pros and cons of the different seasons to calve.

Some producers opt for winter calving to avoid breeding at the hottest time of the year, and having calves be a little older at sale time. Cons are calving at the coldest time of the year and cows take longer to re-cycle.

Cows cycle back quickly and calves are marketed before winter begins with a spring calving season. But cows may be calving in the mud and are bred at the hottest time of year.

For summer calving, some pros are avoiding calving in the cold of winter or the mud of spring. Cons are trying to catch calves on pasture and the higher risk of flies if using castration bands.

Some benefits to fall calving include cows cycle back quickly and the weather is ideal for calving. Cons are calf health during the upcoming winter and needing to keep calves longer to add weight before sale.

BCRC also mentions year-round calving, where producers would leave the bulls with the cows year-round. Though the cash flow would be year-round, BCRC also says there is reduced uniformity in the cow crop and reduced returns to producers.

Campbell says the size of a producer’s operation and whether it’s a mixed operation may also influence timing of the calving season.

“That’s kind of a management decision about how you want to market your cattle and what time of year you want to calve cows and what kind of facilities you have, what kind of environment you ranch in and all that sort of stuff.”

Economics

Brenna Grant is the executive director of Canfax. She spoke about the economic influence of moving or tightening the breeding season based on information from the Cost of Production Network, which was launched in 2020 to benchmark different production systems across Canada.

Grant says the profitability of moving a calving season to different times of the year depends on a few factors. Specifically, she spoke about spring versus winter calving.

“Timing needs to be suited to a local context of the individual operations and really needs to take into account a producer’s time availability. So different calving seasons do impact winter feeding costs. And so there needs to be an awareness of knowing what they are, and how one’s operation is suited to address those needs. But it’s one where you can definitely be profitable with any calving season.”

Grant says the top drivers for the most profitable operations in the cost of production network are winter feeding costs, where the top third of operations keep their winter feeding costs under $700 per cow.

“Being an efficient producer of winter feed is about matching your feed productions to your local context,” Grant says. “This is driven by economies of scale, use of extended grazing days to reduce feed costs, efficiently producing or purchasing winter feed. These must be matched to local context as different regions are suitable for different feedstuffs.”

Grant says there’s also the possibility of short-term losses. She echoes Campbell’s emphasis on the need for a good body condition score. Whatever the adjustment, producers should ensure their winter feeding program is appropriate for the shift in season and the nutritional demands of the cows.

Timeline

With all this advice, Campbell emphasizes the importance of taking time to tighten or move the breeding season. He says doing it too quickly can have adverse effects, and so it should be a multi-year process.

“I think it’s important when you’re thinking about it to pay attention to what your current calving distribution is,” Campbell says.

“If your current calving distribution isn’t ideal, if you have a lot of cows straggling out in the third or fourth of 21 days of the calving season or whatever, it’s going to be a lot harder to shrink that down and move that up to a more ideal one in a short time period. So you’re going to probably have to be patient and do it over three or four years.”

After much consideration, the farmer at the start of our story decides to push back his calving season. Eventually, after a few years of shifting his program, he finds himself with a fall breeding season, and a pasture full of calves running in the June sun. Calving wrecks in April fade into distant memories.