Breeding season preparations are crucial for any cow/calf producer’s bottom line. Their steps will determine if they will have a good calf crop. Good quality calves to sell are the defining factor between a successful and a not successful rancher.
Creating a successful breeding season starts with making the right management decisions before and during the calving season. The steps you take now will determine if you will be going into the season on the right footing or if you have to play catch up (which will be more expensive in the end).
For a cow to produce a calf every year, she must be rebred 80 days after she has calved. The 80 days may not seem like a short time, but you must remember that she will not be going into estrus for at least 30 days after that calf is born, so your window is a little shorter.
So what can you do to prepare for an outstanding breeding season? Well, here are three things that you can look at to improve your chances of having a large calf crop.
Dehydration among calves is a very serious problem that is often overlooked among producers. It can be caused for many reasons but typically from the summer heat and scours. The time from recognizing the symptoms to providing treatment is very important.
Creep feeding can be an excellent tool for improving the overall weaning weight of your calves. Thus it can be a good management and economic option for improving your bottom line.
Having the right replacement heifers is important for the long-term profitability of any ranch. It is necessary to be able to rotate the breeding stock out to improve the overall genetic gene pool. Also, cows will get to a point where they will be too old to breed anymore. When this happens you will need to have new stock ready to take their place.
Colostrum is one of, if not the, most important thing for newborn calves. It lays the very foundation for their health and well-being throughout the remainder of their life. Through the dam, the calf takes in all of the antibodies it will need to fight off disease. But what if they are not able to get it from their mother?
Producers tend to have a love/hate relationship when it comes to supplements. On the one hand, they love how it improves the performance of their cattle but on the other, they hate that it adds to their expenses. It is for this reason that producers tend to not feed supplements unless they absolutely have to.
Cattle producers, like any other business, are always looking for ways to reduce costs. As any producer will tell you there is no greater expense than that feed costs. A management tool used quite often to regulate feed intake is using salt. Though it can have some impact regulating feed intake with salt is not precise and will require some tinkering in order to get it right.
A breeder is a very important part of the future of the cattle industry. The products they make, i.e. calves, can determine the genetic potential of a beef herd. This is why it is vital to do business with a reputable one.
Hay is a very important part of any winter feeding program. It is used to supplement cattle’s nutritional needs when forages become dormant. However, when it comes to feeding harvested forages you need to know what you have in order to know what to feed.
Grazing management in the fall can have an impact on your future forage production. The intensity of your grazing animals determines what state they will be in. Also, grazing during the winter may be limited depending on what forages you have available.
