On April 26th we officially finished our 2025 calving season. It was a tough year to be calving in February, but we do it to ourselves, right?

This year we had less cows to calve than in recent years past. Last September we preg checked 114 head and ended up with 99 bred females (87% total herd conception). However, given the abnormally dry conditions of that time and the rising cull cow market, we choose to sell some of the older bred cows that had cullable traits. This ultimately got us down to 82 bred females to calve in 2025.

The heifers started calving first on Feb 21st. We had two of the first five calves born dead, both of which appeared to be very small.  We also lost one calf that was born alive, but the heifer laid down and spit him out under a gate onto a sheet of ice. We found him but could not get him warmed up enough and unfortunately, he perished as well.

Of the 17 first calf heifers, 13 of them had an AI calf (we AI bred 18 heifers, so that’s 72% AI conception). The cows AI conception is not able to be calculated because we sold 16 bred cows and we do not know how many of them were bred AI. However, we did get 39 AI calves on the ground from the cows.

Our calving window continues to be relatively short. If you remember we keep the cleanup bulls in for just two heat cycles after AI. This gives the cows three chances to get bred. Our total calving season this spring was 64 days. We had 61 calves (75%) in 30 days, and 74 calves (90%) in 40 days, and all but two were born in 54 days. In all we ended up with 39 steers and 36 heifers, and one set of twins.
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Calving season is always a challenge, but it goes much smoother with good help. I want to thank our Farm Manager, Greg Cole for his numerous hours of checking, walking, tagging, feeding, and doctoring it takes to get a calf crop on the ground successfully. Without his efforts we wouldn’t be able to do this work at Eden Shale Farm. 

At the corner of Hwy 22 and Eden Shale Road (generally considered the main entrance to the farm) used to sit a small white farm house. This house had not been lived in for many years and had suffered from the years of neglect. So we had the house demolished in 2014.

Removing the house gave us a perfect building site on a summit position, and where a pasture and alley way to the other side of the farm converged. However, over the past ten years other projects have taken priority and received our attention and the site sat vacant. But recently Hwy 22 underwent an expansion and we were able to acquire pavement millings for the base layer of the structure that we built on the old house site.

Dr. Steve Higgins designed the winter feeding structure that now sits on the site. It incorporates a Bo Renfro hay feeding structure, a calf creep area, and 80 feet of bunk space. The structure is designed to feed up to 40 head of cows and their calves.

The 24 ft hay feeding structure has a 6 inch raised feed table to keep the hay out of any manure that is created. There is also a 9 ft concrete apron all the way around the feeder so a cow eating hay has all four feet on concrete. The structure is covered with a mono-slope roof with the low side facing west to keep the elements off the hay and reduce waste. The north side of the structure has concrete retaining blocks that are used as a manure push wall when cleaning out at the end of the season.

Beside the hay feeder is a 24x30 creep area for the calves to go into when they are in the structure. This area can be bedded, have hay for the calves to eat, and it will get a wind break built on the western side to provide shelter.

On the opposite side of the feeder there are 80 linear feet of feed bunks running down the outside of the site. This allows the cows to be fed without having to go into the field with them.

Water is provided in a tire water tank located 400 ft away out in the pasture. This motivates the cows to leave the structure after they eat to go get water. This reduces loafing in the structure which greatly lessens manure buildup.

This developed corner can also serve as a trap pen for cattle that need to be moved to the western side of the farm. This structure opens up into an alleyway that cattle can be walked through to the “paddocks” part of the farm.
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A decade after the old house was torn down, we have repurposed the site into an efficient winter feeding area for both the livestock and producer.