Management Practices for Cows at Weaning (Part 1)
Mark Z. Johnson, Oklahoma State University Extension Beef Cattle Breeding Specialist
In spring calving herds weaning season is upon us. At this time it’s not only important to focus time and management on ways to eliminate stress, maintain health and maximize the value of weaned calves, but also a critical time to manage the cow herd. Cows are basically the “production factory” in cow-calf production. They take raw material (grass and supplemental feed) and turn it into a weaned calf to be sold as a return on the cost of production. There is a cost of maintaining a cow each day we own her. Cows should sustain themselves primarily on the resource of forage, get bred and wean off a healthy calf each calendar year. A defined breeding season (optimally 45 – 90 days) is an important part of managing a herd for profitability and makes the “best management practices” discussed this week possible. For example, if bulls are turned out on April 1st and pulled June 15th, the calving season that follows should start about January 8th and end by March 22nd. When we wean those calves at 6 – 8 months of age, it is a good time to run cows through the chute and take a look at the following:
Management decisions based on sound information increase the profit potential of cow-calf operations. Information collected on your cow herd can be used in several ways to improve breeding programs, forage budgeting, marketing and other judgement calls you need to make to improve your operations bottomline. Over the next few weeks we will continue to take a closer look at what some basic information collected on cows at weaning can tell us.
References
Beef Cattle Manual. Eight Edition. E-913. Oklahoma Cooperative Extension. Chapters 20 and 36.
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