David Koupal, Dante, SD

Nov 29, 2006 1:30 PM

Angus breeder David Koupal, Dante, SD, is considering making the switch to fall calving – primarily to better match his work schedule. Koupal works full-time as an ag education teacher and FFA adviser at the Winner (SD) public school. Presently, he calves in January and February and runs his cows with his parents LaVern and Alice Koupal’s Angus herd during that time. David often takes the night watch from 10 p.m to 4 a.m. and teaches during the day. “That gets to be a long day,” he says.

With fall calving, he would aim to calve mid-August. Although school would just be starting then, Koupal says the weather is better for calving, cows still have grass to graze, and there are more hours of daylight.

Koupal would plan to offer 18-month old bulls in the annual Koupal Angus sale in February with his parents and brother. He has done his homework and watched sale reports from the past and says 18-month old bulls tend to average better than yearlings and two-year-olds.

He’s also optimistic that for feeder calves he may have to sell June appears to be a consistently better market than the traditional fall months.

Koupal says making the decision to switch is a difficult one because he has worked hard to build up the genetics in his spring herd. But ultimately, he feels the move to fall will better fit his work schedule.

He had considered holding his spring herd back and breeding them for fall, but economically he’d lose out on one year’s calf crop. Thus he says, he’ll sell and rebuild. Koupal’s goal is to eventually have 100 fall pairs. But he says he is willing to start with 30 head and take time building good genetics from there.

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