Taurine cattle thrive in cold weather. They were domesticated from animals that lived in the forests of northern Europe. The reason they don't live in the arctic is there isn't enough grass there. Many of the biggest challenges to cattle health (in a word: flies) are only present during warm weather.
> I have thirty new calves on the ground right now.
I'm curious, how did you get into that? Are you a software person who became (forgive the term) a gentleman rancher? Was it a family business? Or do you have no professional connection to software to begin with?
In my family we have always had livestock. I was in software for a while, and am open to certain aspects of that work still. I have other jobs too, because agriculture is not a dependable long-term venture. (That is more related to the fact that antitrust regulations are not enforced in USA, than it is to any inherent quality of agriculture.)
According to weather.gov, the lowest low at my location in Midwest USA was -12F in 1917-12-30. It does occasionally get down to 0F, but my herd has little problem with that. I break ice and make sure they have hay.
One time, I had a little bull born overnight in a February cold snap. Due to an unfortunate interaction between its mother and a brush pile, it wandered into a ditch and couldn't nurse until I found it in the morning. I brought them both in the (unheated) barn and reminded it how to nurse. After a day in the barn I turned them back out. That bull still had a red nose when I sold it as a 2yo to a neighbor, so we called it "Rudolph".
Of course I'm in Missouri, not North Dakota, so one probably couldn't bring my heat-acclimated Red Angus crossed with Akaushi and Charolais to North Dakota and expect them to thrive. There are plenty of Red Angus herds in North Dakota, however. North of there, I guess they have to raise Scottish Highlanders?
