As anyone in the cattle production sector can tell you raising cattle can be a very complex system. There are many different factors that come into play and if there is one thing that goes wrong it can cause problems.
Say for example a disease breaks out in your herd. It will throw your whole system out of whack because you have to treat the animals and possibly quarantine them. Then there is the problem with lost production that will cause a problem with your profitability.
It is usual that when something goes wrong we simply fix the problem without fully understanding the “why?” it happened. With our lives busy enough finding the cause of the problem when something goes wrong is often not on the top of our priority list. But by understanding he why we can save time and money as well as reducing the severity if a problem does occur.
Understanding the system
Raising beef cattle can require a very complex biological system from birth to the consumer. There are many little things that can go wrong and unfortunately they may not be visible at the start.
When it comes to raising animals we operate in a area involving a seperation with time and space. What is often the case is certain causes will not become visible for many years. This can make it difficult to find out the real root of the cause.
An example of this can be if a cow’s nutritional needs are being met or not during pregnancy. Either way it can have an impact of the calf’s performance for many years. If you would like to know more NC State has a wonderful article on this very thing.
Because little things like this do not pop up immediately it can make it hard to identify what specifically caused the problem in the first place. In order to find some of this out you will have to play detective, let’s call it CSI: Cow.
In order to better understand the source of our problem we will need to consider the “why?” When we start asking ourselves why a particular thing happened we can get a better grasp on solving it.
Asking the question “why?”
Asking ourselves why a particular thing happened can go a long way to preventing a problem. Once we know the cause we can possibly stop it from happening and not just treat the symptoms.
Many times when a situation occurs, like a disease outbreak, we often try to “fix it” like with vaccinations. Though this can take care of it at the moment if the root cause is not handled it can cause bigger problems down the road.
If we just vaccinate whenever a disease pops up, while is a good idea to do so, if the cause is not treated then we will just have to repeat It over and over again. Sometimes we will have to treat with more and more common frequency that we did before. If the frequency continues to increase then we run the risk of the virus building an immunity to the vaccinations and that is not a good situation to be in.
This is why it is a good idea to identify the cause of the problem, like a disease, to prevent it from happening in the first place. This will in turn save you not only time but also money in both vaccinations and possible lost production .
Principles of asking “why?”
Asking why something happened can help us better understand issues that are facing our industry. This will help us not only handle problems in the production cycle but also help us understand why certain customers are the way that they are.
When we ask this question we are taking important steps on the road to effective problem solving. Along with that we are improving our ability to be better decision makers.
If we are able to get ahead of any potential problems it will allow us to be more proactive rather than just being reactive to things that pop up. It is far better to be able to get ahead of something rather than just trying to “put out the fires” after it has happened. The BSE case in Washington back in 2003 is a good example of this.
Since I seem to be sticking with animal health in this article let’s keep using that as an example. Let’s say that you have a cow that you have discovered to have pink eye. You treat the animal with an antibiotic to take care of the situation. The cow improves after and all seems well so you do not give it anymore thought.
Some questions that you could possibly ask yourself in this situation are:
- Why is pinkeye in cattle a problem?
- Why did this particular cow get pinkeye while the rest in the herd didn’t?
- Why did pinkeye show up now when it wasn’t a problem before?
- What is it that causes pinkeye in cattle anyways?
- What types of conditions will cause pinkeye?
If you are interested in learning answers to some of these questions I talk more about pinkeye here.
Improving your cattle system
Once you have asked yourself “why?” and have come up with the answers you are needing you can move forward. You can take this information and use it to improve your cattle system.
When you understand what causes the problem you have you can tweak your system for raising cattle. This will allow you to prevent the situation from happening in the first place.
Like with the example of the cow with pinkeye once you identify the causation you can then improve the biosecurity on your ranch.
As they say “ an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure“.
A little disclaimer before I finish: this will not completely remove any problem that you will face but by changing your problem solving process it can make them occur less frequently.
If you are looking to improve your operations bottom line or just improve your cow’s overall production check out my e-book Nuts and Bolts of Successful Ranching.
