Summertime Calving

Welcome to the Cattleman’s Corner. I’m Brian Hale, sitting in for the late Howard Hale, as we continue his legacy of speaking with cattlemen and women from around the globe. Gelbvieh and Balancer cattle are well known throughout the beef industry for their maternal strengths and superior growth.

With attributes such as more pounds of calf weaned, added fertility, greater cow herd longevity and heavier carcass weights, just to name a few, Gelbvieh and Balancer offer genetics that work for the commercial cattle business. Visit Gelbvieh.org. Now here’s Steve Oswald of Oswald Cattle Company in Colorado in an interview with the late Howard Hale. Steve Oswald is with us.

Talk about your ranch and how you do things maybe a little bit differently than some ranches, Steve. We’re kind of an oddball. We calve in the summertime and run our calves on our cows through the winter and wean in March, March 15.

And the reason we did that, make that shift, was back in 1995 I took a course with Ranching for Profit. They have a great way of separating out expenses. So anyway, I took the course, crunched the numbers, came home and shifted my operation totally.

We were a very traditional ranch, calved in February, March, fed hay through the winter, put up hay all summer. In 1994, after crunching these numbers, you know, we were going to go broke, so we had to make some changes. So we’ve done that.

We shifted our calving till June. That eliminates hay for us. I’ve got a real good winter permit where we’re able to run our cows down there without any feed, calves too.

Steve Oswald, Oswald Cattle Company in Colorado. You can find these interviews on cattlemanscorner.com as well as longer interviews on our extended version of the Cattleman’s Corner radio. If you’re interested in a free interview on Cattleman’s Corner, visit our website and sign up today.

That’s cattlemanscorner.com. That’s it for today’s Cattleman’s Corner. Thanks again for listening and may God bless. I’m Brian Hale.