February in the Southern Plains is a time for questions and checking the management-boxes for preparedness to leave the herd alone throughout the calving season. Some of those questions and boxes are:
- Am I feeding them too much in the last trimester?
- Is my mineral program up to speed?
- Do I have an orphan kit organized?
- Are my herd populations in balance with my grass through July/August?
- Does the herd ‘appear’ healthy?
Personally I don’t like handling or changing up the populations during the calving season. The less we impact their world while they are calving, the better it seems to go. ‘They’ have been ‘at this’ for thousands of years and posses all the instinctual tools to benefit mostly from our absence. We just need to set’em up right, and they’ll handle it from there. If you haven’t set your herd up to benefit from your absence by balancing the habitat to the population – get busy so you can sit back and let nature work. There’s still time, just not an excess of it. Green-up and red-dots are just around the corner…