Our 2025 Calving Season

Somehow, November is gone and we have started December off with a bang. This week  we finished our first round of artificial insemination (AI) for our cow herd. So, let's wrap up our 2025 calving season by looking at some of the statistics for the year. Our season started on August 21st, and our official due date was September 7th. Starting earlier than our due date is not abnormal because some babies are ready early. We take this into account when we select our AI date, knowing that calves will be born up to 3 weeks early. By our due date, we already had 31 babies born!

A few goals for our calving season is to shorten the total season and to have as many calves born in September as possible so that they have a good start going into the winter months. This year we had 67% of our calves by September 31st. We were pretty happy with this number and we are working our way to 75-80% born by then. 

We finished calving on November 4th this year. We had 3 calves in November. This is getting closer and closer to our goal of being finished calving by October 31st. We want to be finished by November because those calves usually fall behind when we move the herd into the barn for the winter. 

Although the logistics of the calving season are working in our favor, this year wasn’t without its challenges. The end of September into the first couple weeks of October we had a big move, hotter days, diet change and a huge rain event. This combination created an ideal environment for bacterial calf diarrhea. We haven’t had much of a digestive/gut problem in quite some time, so we didn’t have the proper method of treatment at first. But, with the help of our veterinarian, we were able to identify the problem and proper treatment course. This problem continued for a few more weeks because, naturally, it is contagious, so it pretty much had to run through all the new-10 day old babies until we got it under control. Just like taking kids to the baby sitter. 

To end our season we had a 88% success rate for our calves this year thus far. We would have liked to have a better rate, but this is how the year played out. We did not have any cows with dystocia problems, so we did not have to assist any cows have their calves. They all did a great job on their own! We are extremely proud of this. We had 3 sets of twins this year. Two of the cows had both calves alive on their own, and the other cow had her twins on her own, but they were both passed on their arrival. This year our AI percentage was a little bit lower at 45% of calves were AI bred and 55% were bull bred. This is okay because our goal last year was to push up more cows into September/ early October and this worked out well. Our average calf birthweight was 74 pounds. We had 48% bull calves and 52% heifer calves. We are also taking care of 4 bottle calves this year with the hope of getting them weaned by Christmas. 

Well, that is it! Calving season is officially done, and we have moved on to finish our first AI round for our 2026 calving season. We hope you enjoyed following along this year!

Love,

Olivia, Tabby, Gina, & Kendra