Do you’ve gotten a favourite cow or two or three? Possibly she greets you every morning and waits to be scratched behind the ears. Possibly she seems to be image good like she simply stepped off a shiny journal cowl, or constantly raises the most important calf every year.
Possibly it’s sentimental. My favourite is my daughter’s very first bucket calf she confirmed on the county honest.
I’ll wager if we’re sincere, all of us have just a few favourite cows. However which cows in your herd are essentially the most worthwhile? Are you able to establish them?
Years in the past, whereas visiting one among my native dairies, the producer commented how his “nameless cows” had been the important thing to the operation. For example, his father requested, “Who’s cow 215?” After interested by it, he responded, “I don’t actually know. I do know she’s not one among our prime producers, however wanting again on the information, I can’t see the place she has ever been handled for mastitis or foot issues. She’s calved ever yr like clockwork. She’s carried out nothing to attract consideration to herself or stand out.”
Therefore, 215 is an nameless cow. She’s a great, reliable worker, exhibiting up for work every day, doing her job and by no means complaining or inflicting hassle.
Cows with excessive returns
So, what does it take to create a worthwhile cow? There are many opinions.
Some producers argue one breed is healthier than others. They debate particular person traits reminiscent of progress and carcass high quality versus fertility and longevity. Throw within the subject of cow dimension and the dialogue actually heats up.
My good good friend, Dr. Jordan Thomas, College of Missouri State cow-calf Extension specialist, says no cow is profit-able, or “ready” to make a revenue. It’s the enterprise mannequin we create that’s worthwhile, or not.
Thomas says our beef cattle enterprise mannequin ought to solely retain females that conceive early within the breeding season. Late-bred females needs to be bought and faraway from the herd. Taking the emphasis off the cow and placing the strain on me because the supervisor to cull late breeders does many issues:
Weaning weights will enhance. Early born calves are older at weaning and easily weigh extra.
Longevity of the cows will increase. They’ve extra time to return to estrus and are much less more likely to come up open, so that they keep within the herd longer.
Labor and herd well being bills lower. Shorter calving home windows cut back labor required and shortens the cycle of pathogen buildup for issues reminiscent of scours.
Discover your cow efficiency mannequin
In my grazing faculties, my final slide concludes with one single query: “What’s your system?”
Grazing economics typically comes all the way down to the fragile balancing act of stocking charges and constructing flexibility into our system. Do we try to maximise efficiency of the grass, the cows, or optimum ranges of each? Will we graze solely momma cows, or create flexibility by deliberately working much less mature cows than we might, then benefit from the additional grass when now we have it to background our calves to heavier weights?
Designing a versatile system to make optimum use of what Mom Nature provides us typically separates above- and below-average producers.
The first duty of any supervisor who supervises workers is to create an setting the place all workers will be productive and attain their full potential. Our job, as beef farm managers, is to create a beef enterprise mannequin or system the place our cows can lead pleased, productive lives.
If we do our job appropriately and create the suitable setting for them, I imagine we could discover many extra “nameless cows” in our herd — those who present up, do their job, don’t trigger hassle and add worth to the farm.
Tucker is a College of Missouri Extension ag enterprise specialist and succession planner. He will be reached at [email protected] or 417-326-4916.
