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Reproduction is arguably the most important economic driver of your farm or ranch. A common benchmark for tracking reproduction in a herd is calving interval – the length of time between the birth of one calf and subsequent birth of the next from the same cow.
Do you read reproductive or animal health questions posted on some Facebook pages? Someone is disappointed in calf health or herd reproduction and asks something along the lines of “Why did our cows not breed back very well this year?”
The drought of 2021 hit Western beef operations particularly hard. Reports from the field indicate pregnancy rates last fall were 3% to 10% lower than normal with scattered reports of greater reductions in pregnancy rates.
When it comes to a cattle operation’s profitability and efficiency, reproductive life is one of the most important metrics for a brood cow. A continuous calving program with timely rebreeding contributes to a better cash flow and easier management.
As a producer, you strategize your mating decisions with expected progeny differences (EPDs), genomics, feed efficiency databases and years of production history to meticulously accelerate your herd as though you are calculating chess piece movements across a board.
Have you ever sat down and figured out what it costs to breed a cow? It might seem like an easy number to calculate, since we can add up all of our natural service bull purchases and subtract out the salvage value of any bulls sold.
As calving season starts heating up in spring-calving herds across the U.S., livestock producers should start planning for the breeding season and managing the postpartum interval, which would be the time frame from calving to the resumption of estrus.
Calving and rebreeding are two of the most notable events for a beef cattle operation. These two times of the year have a major impact on profitability.
Preparing for any breeding season is a year-round process, regardless of what breeding season you manage your cows for. With fall rolling around, there are things to consider, plans to be developed and decisions to be made.
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