The primary goal of a cow-calf producer is to have a live calf at weaning and as many as possible for your operation. Rumen health is a key factor in achieving and maintaining pregnancy, birthing a healthy live calf and passing along a good amount of colostrum to give that calf its best start.
“A live calf to wean is the single most important thing we have as a cow-calf producer; that’s our goal,” says James Davison, who owns and operates a preconditioning and backgrounding operation in south-central Texas. He grew up on a large cattle operation and has been starting high-risk calves since 1976.
Speaking at the Idaho Cattle Association Annual Convention in November, Davison shared the pathway to improving the numbers of calves weaned and the weight they achieve at weaning is to help the mother cow.
He encourages producers to be planners and record keepers when it comes to management practices. Analyzing past decisions can help producers understand climate impacts on animals and what to do to address those challenges.
With factors such as weather, environment and limited feed resources putting added stress on the cowherd, year-round supplementation with rumen health products is something for producers to consider.
While producers might initially question if they can afford the annual input cost, Davison says to do the math to see what it would actually mean to an individual operation, especially keeping in mind the end goal — more calves and more pounds to sell at weaning.
“Don’t speculate when you can calculate,” he says. “Every operation has a different climate, environment and feed resources, so what works for one doesn’t necessarily work for another.”
That’s why planning and evaluating the plan regularly is important for any cattle producer.
“For the last 10 years, I took a notebook and wrote stuff in it every quarter,” Davison says. “I could go back and see what worked and what didn’t. As a pathway to being a better producer, let’s look at things that improve efficiency.”
Healthy Cows Lead to Healthy Calves
The cow makes colostrum, which gives calves a healthy start.
“If the calf does not get lots of a good, healthy volume of colostrum, he doesn’t achieve what we need him to achieve because he’s lagging behind from the start,” Davison says. “We’re still going to sell at the end of the growing season because we have to cash flow. If he doesn’t start the race, he’s last in line when we get to the end.”
This is just one of those goals Davison says should influence management decisions.
“Once she’s had that calf and she’s making a bunch of colostrum and her energy requirements go up, we have to get her bred back,” he says. “Peak milk production is around 85 days.”
Davison says producers should be proactive and ready for changes in weather or other factors during that time, rather than reactive and realizing problems later.
“If she doesn’t get the nutritional support she needs, she won’t milk as hard or won’t breed back,” he says.
In the rumen, the volatile fatty acid (VFA) butyrate provides energy to the GI tract to utilize what that animal eats. The health of the rumen affects the immune system of the cow.
“We have to keep that in mind because the animal’s GI tract does not function or function well without the volatile fatty acid butyrate,” Davison says. “And when you drop consumption or intake 10%, then we can get the snowball effect. We get the cow that doesn’t respond, and our inputs have no effect. It’s important to keep that GI tract healthy so it can absorb and utilize all the nutrition we’re feeding that animal.”
Having a healthy rumen is important especially when weather and the environment also put stress on calves, which can lead to disease.
“We have a constant exposure to pathogens that cause scours,” Davison says. “If we’re able to handle those and have supported the cow, she doesn’t shed all those pathogens to her calf.
Davison says every operation is different and encourages producers to calculate the cost of year-round supplementation for their cowherds, and to make sure they are keeping records and consulting nutritionists and veterinarians to make sure all management decisions are aligning with the end goal of producing beef.
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