Lost memo

Winter is usually are dry months and may june our wet.  The problem usually comes even if we get moisture to get everything growing july can get nasty and august too but by mid august it cools down at night and doesn't stay above 100 for as many hrs out of the day.  2 weeks of 100 plus and constant winds will wreck summer grass and fall crops other than milo, however if it rains grass and milo will come back sometimes more than others.  Worst I remember I think was 2011, and I think we went from late may ~110 days with zero moisture and ~65 days in that time over 100.  That was pretty ugly, but we got rain in first of Sept and if the milo was planted after june 1 it still made a decent crop, the grass was toast by mid july and feeding began, however other than that if it didn't have a irrigation well it was toast and the irrigated crops weren't good.  I had corn on irrigated that 4 out of 5 ears you would pull off only had kernels on the north side of the ear.  I know that sounds crazy but somehow that constant hot wind stop filling or pollination on the south side of the ears, I've seen random problems scattered about the ear but not just one side, so I think that south wind furnace blast just stopped the filling on that side even if it was pollinated.  At the west end of the farm I have 3 quarters that in 2 years in that stretch got ~6in of rain total.  Probably normal for you but that's bad news out here, had one wheat crop out there that was planted into powder and a couple weeks later got 3/4 in and sprouted it, and that was it.  Believe it or not the damn stuff got 3 inches tall and shot a head, the crop adjuster, who's a good friend of mine, adjusted it at 2/10 a bushel an acre.  Needless to say no combine showed up, but after it rained and I saw that the volunteer came up and was about 15 ft between plants, I called him and told him he screwed me it was only 1/10 bu at best.  He told me to shut up! either way it was zeroed out.

As far as fall calve herds out here I would say probably around 10-15% are fall, the rest are spring.  It's a good deal to sell the 500 weight calves for grass as people just get stupid and hold their hand up until they own them, who care if they make money I got green grass mentality, but it takes a lot of feed to get a decent calf out here in the cold weather.  Just takes a lot of GOOD feed to keep enough energy in the cow to raise a good calf that's 400-500# at weaning.  Now it does let you run more cows but then more feed too in the winter.  I would guess that the fall guys will stock pastures with just cows at 6-7 acres per head while the spring guys will allow 9-10 for a pair.  Most all of us springs guys will ruff the cows through winter on milo stalks, corn, beans, however I won't waste my time fencing off straight corn stalks anymore because since they BT'd them they are broom sticks and the cows just can't get good out of them like years ago.  After they start calving is the only time I will feed for about 60-80 days(unless it doesn't rain for grass)  and I only feed sudan and a little brome, always just unroll round bales with pickup, and supplement protein mineral etc, no grain.  Sure that's not what they need for a complete diet but once a cow gets green grass they will gain in 2 weeks what it took them 2 months to loose.  Easy fleshing cows actually young cows and even older easy fleshers will stay good on a ruff through like I and most all cowmen do around here.  Hard fleshing older cows need to go to town.  While a spring herd doesn't produce the numbers of calves it will produce more weight out here.  If you don't have early grass the calves are small and it buys time because they aren't consuming much grass and your under stocked but when they get to 300-400 and start really going after it hopefully you have green grass.  I usually want to wean 600-750# calves sometime in Nov after fall harvest when I have time to catch them and bring them in, then the cows go right back to milo stalks and the calves come to my feedlot till feb-mar and then I send them to the finish yard.  That's kinda the program out here, or at least for me, a lot of people sell them straight of the cow in the fall as well, just like the spring guys.  All the guys that have never finished a hoof in their life have always told me I'm going to loose my azz feeding them cattle, I just tell them they might be right but luckily I'm dumb enough that I wouldn't know anyways unless my accountant tells me.