Orchardgrass pastures for early-weaned beef calves

Orchardgrass (Dactylis glomerata) grown alone or with ladino white (Trifolium repens) and red (T pratense) clovers, provides a high quality March to June pasture. However, many beef producers have their cows calving in January-March, thus producing offspring that are too young to utilize spring forage well. As an alternative, some producers have their cows bred so that calves are born in autumn (September-November). By spring, these calves are old enough to consume pasture forage. The few earlier studies on early weaning of fall-born calves consist of drylot feeding of high quality hay or concentrates. This study evaluated the potential of orchardgrass and orchardgrass-clover pastures to meet the nutritional needs of early-weaned fall-born beef calves (Bos taurus). Fall-born steers, 4.5-mo old, weighing about 144 kg, were used in each of 3 yr. Twenty-four were weaned and allotted at random to one of four duplicate pasture treatments: (1) TN-Syn-2 orchardgrass, grown alone or (2) with ladino white and red clovers; (3)'Benchmark' orchardgrass, grown alone or (4) with the clovers; another 24 remained with their dams. Early-weaned calves on high quality pastures performed well, with daily gains between 640 and 925 g d(-1). Dams which were not suckled were in better body condition going into the summer than those with calves.