Livestock Management RANCHING
Older Cows Earn Their Keep
The old cow has earned her keep, so keeping her around can increase overall ranch profi tability. By Gary DiGiuseppe
O
LDER COWS ARE MORE OF A CHALLENGE TO MAINTAIN, but they’re worth it — they’ve already paid for themselves.
“It just goes back to pure economics,” notes Mark
Spire, D.V.M., technical services manager for Merck Animal Health. “The expenses associated with cow development have to be paid up front. Once we get her to an older age each one of those early calves has basically paid for her lifetime support, and now that those calves from an older cow are on the gravy side of this thing, we don’t have a lot of extra associated costs with the old cows. So the longer we can keep them in the herd, the better off we’re going to be.” The downside to managing
older cows is a drop in per- formance. Spire says an “old cow” is older than 8 years of age. Her reproductive function will start to fall off until, at 10
tscra.org
to 11 years old, it’s similar to that of a fi rst-calf heifer that’s trying to breed back. As a result, a much larger percentage of those ani-
mals will be open, in part due to the repeated strain from her many calves on her uterus and on the declin- ing function of her ovaries. “But as cows get older, one key driver behind that
reproductive ‘slacking,’ as we say, actually is teeth,” Spire says. “As they start wearing their teeth down and start
Calf delivery among older cows is one less major headache than it is for a fi rst- or second-calf heifer.
missing teeth we’ll actually start having issues with intakes, and we’ll start not holding condition on those cows. That loss of condition seems to be the main driver behind why we don’t get them bred back as well.” Spire suggests when putting
the cows in the working chute for pregnancy checking the pro- ducer also check their teeth.
MORE July 2014 The Cattleman 49
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108