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Beef cow efficiency (New Mexico State University)
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<blockquote data-quote="Nesikep" data-source="post: 1305784" data-attributes="member: 9096"><p>At risk of sounding like a broken record.. I gotta say it again</p><p>I think the milk EPD has to be matched to the forage you have... To an extent, the smaller cow usually makes a little less milk than the bigger cow.. having a smaller cow that doesn't have the genetics to milk well on lush pastures is a waste of feed.. She'll eat like a pig and won't make milk out of it.. just get fat... The inverse is equally true.. The big, high milking cow on bunchgrass is going to milk herself to death (well, infertility). </p><p></p><p>What gets me is pretty much every bull catalog or breed touts their animals as "do it all" types, and perhaps they fool some people, but I just don't think it's possible.. There are just too many different types of environments out there for that to be true.</p><p></p><p>What I'd be curious in seeing is the ratio of weaning weight to mature weight of calves.. because in essence, that's what most of us are striving for.. not too big a cow that raises a big calf.. It's easy to have big cows raise big calves. </p><p></p><p>I'm just a guy fiddling around with a few mutt cows trying to find what works for me.. I have decent pastures, I could manage them more intensively if I cared to compound my workload, but I'm busy enough. I've identified a few outstanding animals, and with any luck I can increase the percentage of them. Last year Chroma, one of my smaller (frame 5/1200 lb?) 4 year old cows had the biggest steer of the bunch, 625 lbs @ 170 days.. I want more of those.</p><p></p><p>Getting back to efficiency, I don't look at efficiency as just a product of cow size, there's far more to it than that... One thing I've been studying is how many times they chew cud, and it's effects on the amount of coarse fiber in the manure.. My most efficient cows seem to chew each mouthful of cud 50-70 times, and thus have less coarse matter in the manure.. Other cows are 'lazy' and only chew 30-50 times.... Surprise surprise, the cows that chew more *seem* to eat less and make better calves. I have yet to determine if it's a genetic thing, or if it's a learned trait.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Nesikep, post: 1305784, member: 9096"] At risk of sounding like a broken record.. I gotta say it again I think the milk EPD has to be matched to the forage you have... To an extent, the smaller cow usually makes a little less milk than the bigger cow.. having a smaller cow that doesn't have the genetics to milk well on lush pastures is a waste of feed.. She'll eat like a pig and won't make milk out of it.. just get fat... The inverse is equally true.. The big, high milking cow on bunchgrass is going to milk herself to death (well, infertility). What gets me is pretty much every bull catalog or breed touts their animals as "do it all" types, and perhaps they fool some people, but I just don't think it's possible.. There are just too many different types of environments out there for that to be true. What I'd be curious in seeing is the ratio of weaning weight to mature weight of calves.. because in essence, that's what most of us are striving for.. not too big a cow that raises a big calf.. It's easy to have big cows raise big calves. I'm just a guy fiddling around with a few mutt cows trying to find what works for me.. I have decent pastures, I could manage them more intensively if I cared to compound my workload, but I'm busy enough. I've identified a few outstanding animals, and with any luck I can increase the percentage of them. Last year Chroma, one of my smaller (frame 5/1200 lb?) 4 year old cows had the biggest steer of the bunch, 625 lbs @ 170 days.. I want more of those. Getting back to efficiency, I don't look at efficiency as just a product of cow size, there's far more to it than that... One thing I've been studying is how many times they chew cud, and it's effects on the amount of coarse fiber in the manure.. My most efficient cows seem to chew each mouthful of cud 50-70 times, and thus have less coarse matter in the manure.. Other cows are 'lazy' and only chew 30-50 times.... Surprise surprise, the cows that chew more *seem* to eat less and make better calves. I have yet to determine if it's a genetic thing, or if it's a learned trait. [/QUOTE]
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