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| So.....you have your heifers separate and give them better feed then your old cows, then you put them with the cows as they age to breed and they are in "good" condition. So then they have a bit tougher going and some heat stress. In the dairy world the first thing they tell you in cow must be on a positive energy situation to breed. My dairy cows were always on the thin side and freshened from Labor day till Christmas, all AI no hormone shots. Right or wrong my beef cows never walking butterballs that I commonly see in other herds, but when they hit grass in June they are on good feed and when the heat rolls around they do not have the thick layer of fat that insulates them and makes them hot. I saw some cows one evening in September , mind you this is an hour before dark in WI, it was warm, might have even been hot in the afternoon and they were also supplemented with hay, but many of the cows and calves were panting some, not like in the hot sun of July but noticeably, struck me as strange, mine were not. We used a milk test at weaning for pregnancy, out of 50 some had 4 possible opens, couple were quite late and I am quite sure are pregnant, one is a very thin heifer , sorted off and will have calf in the spring (less then 1 % chance) or be butchered. Other 3 had very low levels of progesterone, one or all may have been very shortbred 50-50 chance of a calf on time I would say. I was bracing for more opens as we sampled milk a month earlier then usual and the pastures were a bit mature for longer then I care to admit due to 1 st crop getting late due to excess rain. | |
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Third time losers
