Flesh,Fertility&Milk

[EAT BEEF]

I have been thinking about fleshing ability and fertility lately. How they work together and aginst each other.I don't think they are the same thing.I have also been thinking about milk I guess the ideal cow would get pulled down some while raising her calf but gain back quickly after weaning,but cows that milk harder seen to have a higher energy requirment even when not milking. Maybe I'm over thinking this and just middle of the road cows that wean a calf every year is all we need worry about.

What are your thoughts.

 

[Red Bull Breeder]

I don't like a cow that pulls away down, but tend to think that the ones who don't pull down at least some probaly aren't doing there job to good. I don't care if a cow pulls a bit as long as see weans a good calf and bounces back quick.

 

[Boss Cowman]

think balancers

 

[pjr]

Where I come from if a cow pulls down from milking then she is pretty poor fleshing. Or else the pasture is real poor. The experts claim a heavier milking cow requires more just for maintenance then does one with less milk. It seems those heavy milking thinner cows raise some real good calves but eventually come up open. :roll:

 

[EAT BEEF]

Thank you for the replys. milk is the easy one, do you think flesh and fertility really have as much to do with each other as is promoted.How much of fertility is genetic I'm asking more about the cow than scrotal size.

 

[KNERSIE]

The flaw I see in your question is that you left constitution out, without constitution you won't have fertility, milking ability or flesh.

Fertility and muscle go together quite nicely, as long as you don't go extreme for your breed, that holds true for just about every trait. I think the drive for lower and lower backfat is going to come back and bite a few breeds in the butt. Effectively once you've got the backfat down to zero you've also bred away the constitution.

 

[pjr]

It is really hard to split fleshing ability and fertility apart. I think it likely comes down to percentages.
The odds of a thinner poorer fleshing cow to breed back year after year without missing are pretty slim. A fleshier cow seems to improve the chances. A very fat cow seems to run into trouble again but certainly not to the extent the thin cow does. It is frustrating to keep heifers from a successful cow only to have the daughter come up open. The cow is only half the genetics. If the bull doesn't really fit your environment then the odds are his daughters will pull your good cows genetics down. I think a cows fertility is somewhat heritable but is impacted greatly by the environment the cow is in. The cows adaptability to that environment is quite highly heritable. ie fleshing ability; wintering ability; etc. I agree with knersie and think backfat is pretty important. :?

 

[novatech]

I would think that a cow that calves while having a BCS of say 7 would be able to maintain that BCS until bred back, Within 3 months to maintain 1 calf per year. By the time the calf is weaned, 205 days, how much loss in BCS is allowed before you determine the cow is a hard keeper? Personally, I allow a drop of 2 under normal grass conditions.

 

[pjr]

We use a one to five bcs in Canada. A 7 would be a 3.5 and a 5 a 2.5. We like to calve with a body condition score of 6 which with our grass gives good calving intervals. A cow lactating on grass typically gains flesh through the growing season and shouldn't start losing condition until late fall or early winter. I prefer to wean at 150 days to give the cow the opportunity to enter winter in peak condition so the feed bill is not so high. Your bcs of 5 for a minimum sounds about the same. A cow that drops below that would definately be challenged to maintain an annual calving interval. It takes a cow a huge amount of feed to winter here if she starts out thin. In the past a lot of people have subsidised inefficient cattle with grain but those days may be numbered.