Does anyone have any advice on getting my limousine heifers back in condition after they calve. They look pretty good until about 2 to 3 weeks post calving. I bought 4 angus based commercial heifers 2 years ago and they never got this drawn down. Getting them bred back is also a concern. They have plenty of rye grass and clover and eat all day. I have put out the safe guard worm blocks. My mature cows all look fine. Thanks for some suggestions. What would you supplement them with?
Condition of 1st calf heifers
- Thread starter Pharmer
- Start date
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To supplement these 2 and not poor unneeded feed into the others you'll have to eithr have a way of seperating them for a while or at least seperate them once a day at least. If you can sperate them and leave them apart from the others, feeding a high qaulity alfalfa hay would help but will take some time. You would be replacing some of the watery feed with a dryer high protein feed. I'ld still graze htem on the other stuff but feed them alfalfa as a supplemnt. Ifyou can only sperate them once or twice a day I would feed a high protein grain supplemnt. If they weren;t on squirty pasture I'ld look at corn gluten, but since that tends to make them squirt I'ld look more at aombination of corn gluten and soyhull pellets or something of that type.
dun
dun
No.. As lon a she breeds back on time we leave the calf on her. If she doesn;t brred back she grows wheels. She'll regain condition between when the calf is weaned at 6 1/2 -7 months to be in condition of BCS 6 or better when she calves the next time. There are alwasy variables, nothing is dead bang certain. If the pastue goes away weaning early may be beneficial. Creep, for some, may be an alternative. But weaning at 2-3 months is giving the cow a free ride for way too long. If they don;t work in your environemnt you may want to find others that do.
dun
dun
cypressfarms
Well-known member
Pharmer":2auqninv said:
Pharmer,
you didn't mention if you had free choice minerals out for them. This could be a limiting factor. Also, are the safeguard worm blocks the only worming medication that you use? You hit it head on....several weeks after birth is the most draining time for moma. If she has a large parasite burden or insufficient minerals it could be dragging her down. Would it be possible for you to give the heifers a shot of ivomec plus or something similar? If their eating ryegrass and clover, that's about the best forage (besides alfalfa) that they could get.
It's so much harder to get a cow back up in condition (especially a 2 year old) once she's lost condition. I would rather have them go into calving with a slightly higher BCS so they could coast for a couple of months.
MoGal
Well-known member
You might want to get a bag of the Right Now Onyx - its the breeding mineral that they make. In this fescue area, person needs the high mag and I mix the two - one scoop of Onyx to one scoop of Gold
