diet be hay or forage. The rest can be made up with a concentrate feed. Many producers also wean
calves earlier than normal to pre- serve cow body condition. “Instead of weaning that calf at 7 months of age,” Banta says, “we wean the calf at 4 to 6 months of age so we maintain some condition on that cow, and have her ready to be more successful when she has her next calf.” He says mature cows should pref-
erably have body condition scores well above 5 at calving to optimize reproduction; 2- and 3-year-olds should be at 6 or greater. “We’re ac- tually thinking ahead,” Banta says. “We’re looking at those cows and if the calves are pulling them down too much, we may want to get the calves off a couple of months early so we can save some condition on that cow and don’t have to feed her
quite as much to get her back to where we need her before calving.”
Warm, dry, cold, wet — weather affects nutrition Weather can also affect the nu-
tritional requirements of cows. The Noble Foundation publication says for every degree the wind chill falls below 32 degrees Fahrenheit, the cow’s energy requirements increase by 1 percent. If her hair coat is wet, her energy requirements go up 2 percent for each degree below 60 de- grees Fahrenheit. This could mean a 50- to 100-percent increase in energy needs in cold, wet weather, but, “often, it’s not safe or practical to feed that much more,” the pub- lication says. “One alternative is to increase energy intake at lower amounts before, during and im- mediately after a winter weather event.” In addition, allowing the
animal access to shelter can reduce the toll of the wind chill. Alkire also notes the relation-
ship between the cow’s nutritional needs and her milking capacity. “From there, we can calculate the nutritional gap between her require- ments and what the forage is provid- ing her,” he says, “and we can fi ll that gap with the best supplement, meaning the cheapest supplement per pound of protein and per pound of energy.” Producers can estimate milk pro-
duction from the weaning weight of the calf and the weight of the cow (see chart on page 68). “Milk pro- duction in beef cattle has increased, depending on the breed, but in the most popular breeds we’ve seen an increase in milk production over the last several years,” says Alkire. “What people used to think is prob- ably different now.
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72 The Cattleman April 2013
thecattlemanmagazine.com
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