After the spring calves are weaned, they may be sold or moved into drylot for backgrounding; the remaining brood cows are checked for pregnancy and soundness. Any animal that is deemed unprofitable should be culled before the new year.

Not too long ago, their salvage value was only worth a few hundred dollars, but in today’s record-high market, even a half-blind, smooth-mouth and open cow is worth significant dollars. Consequently, people should make up a cull list to take advantage of this revenue stream, while also improving the integrity of their cow herd.

All mature cows, first-calf heifers or replacement females that cannot get pregnant or are open should top everyone’s cull list. Infertile cows simply cannot produce a money-making calf for next year. That is the strict opinion of my friend, who operates a 400-head Angus-Simmental cow herd.

I asked him if there were any exceptions to his number one rule of culling open cows. He replied that even if she were the best cow in the herd and was guaranteed to re-breed the next season, she is clearly a depreciated item:

• She did not give birth to a calf that generates his main income,
• She will then incur at least a $3 per day bill for overwinter feed and housing costs (200 days) or $600 of liability, and
• At least she is worth a few thousand dollars in today’s cull market.

The funny thing is that it might not be her fault in the first place. His story continues: much of his cow herd breeding season falls during the hottest days of summer and many cows (as well as breeding bulls) having suffered from heat-stress-related infertility.

My friend says it’s unfortunate, but these cows must be culled for cited economics — not to mention that he has no time, room or interest in creating a pregnant fall-calving herd.

Another producer I know operates a 250-head cow-calf operation, several hundreds of kilometres to the east of my first friend. He has similar views on culling infertile cows, but is ‘open’ (pun intended) to giving a handful of non-pregnant mature cows a second chance. He writes their ear tag number under a ‘maybe’ column on his cull list.

These ‘maybe’ candidates are healthy mature cows that have proven to be good nursing mothers in the past year that have turned out good 600-pound weaned calves by autumn. Given that she might eat $600 worth of overwinter feed until the next breeding season, this producer is willing to take a chance to successfully breed her next year to yield a feeder calf, which is worth nearly $4,000 ($650 per hundredweight) in today’s market.

These two friends sell their cull cows shortly before the end of the year. However, I met a third person who runs a 300-head Hereford crossbred operation and takes a slightly different approach.

He culls his cow herd twice a year. The first culls consist of about 30 open cows after the calves are weaned, and the second group is 15–20 individuals, put together within weeks after the calving season ends — hard calvers and cows that are breeding season stragglers. All cull cows are put in their own pen during an 80-day feeding program to gain 250 lb. and then sold at cull-cow prices.

All three beef producers above cull cows due to infertility; however, there are secondary reasons why brood cows might be sold. Some of these reasons are:

• Old age. As brood cows reach 10 years, their bodies break down, worn-down teeth (smooth-mouth), teats and udders collapse, uterine infections and general lameness are inevitable. They are more susceptible to disease.
• Poor nursing cows. Cows with poor milk production (which translates into poor growing calves) should be culled. One obvious goal of most commercial herds is to maximize total saleable weaned weight of their annual calf crop.
• Rough calvers. Some cows seem to have several hard-calving seasons — a calf has to be pulled or the cow has a prolapsed vagina, retained placenta, milk-fever or serious uterine infections.
• Poor cow health. Some cows are more susceptible to health challenges compared to other cows. Cows with a contagious disease or identified as disease carriers should be removed. Cows with chronic health problems might be culled.

Regardless on the reasons that any cow is culled from its herd, I believe there is at least a 10-15 per cent cull rate on most cow-calf operations.

All of these culls should be replaced by a young, healthy, good milking and promising mother — namely, a bred first-calf replacement female. Soon, she should give birth to a strong, good-growing spring calf, which is sold the following fall as a heavyweight money-maker.

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It often costs the seller and/or the buyer a lot of money. Fortunately, better weaning methods are available compared to the abrupt removal of calves from their mothers. These better weaning alternatives are effective in reducing weaning stress in sold calves as well as putting more money in everybody’s pocketbook.

It’s no secret that the immunity/health status of truck-weaned calves is compromised compared to calves put through good weaning programs weeks ahead of the actual weaning. Reliable field data reports that many stressed-out calves never fully recover from truck weaning and suffer from significant rates of pneumonia and dysentery within weeks of being put in a feedlot. High mortality rates are also recorded.

Truck-weaned calves suffer more shrinkage than pre-conditioned calves once they reach the feedlot. In today’s market, where prices seem to hit new highs each week, a 650-pound truck-weaned calf that loses an extra six per cent — about 39 lb. — at $550 per cwt is worth about $200 less than a properly weaned pen mate.

Much of this stress in truck-weaned calves is due to breaking the instinctive maternal bond between cow and calf. The University of Saskatchewan demonstrated that when cow-calf pairs in a herd were split in half and each group of cows was given the other group’s calves following weaning, both cows and calves kept searching for their own partner. Before separation, many of these calves were spending little time nursing on their dams (at six months of age, calves receive less than 15 per cent of their nutrient requirements from their dam’s milk). But after separation, it was proved that the cow still provides comfort to her calf.

Slowly breaking this maternal bond between mother and calf during weaning can be employed in the following ways, which not only reduces stress but also gets calves familiar with a new diet and a foreign environment:

• Complete separation: Put cow-calf pairs in the same feedlot pen for a few days to a week. Once the calves get used to the feed bunks and waterers, move the cows out.
• Fence-line weaning: Separate cows and calves by a fence, which prevents them from touching one another but allows visual contact to reduce stress on both sides of the fence.
• Two-step weaning: A method developed by the University of Saskatchewan that outfits each nursing calf with a nose “anti-nursing” device for about seven to 10 days before calves and cows are separated.
• Early weaning: This is a method that can employ each one of the above methods in one way or another, where calves are weaned at four to five months of age (and as early as six weeks of age).

A friend of mine who runs about 400 cow-calf pairs takes a different approach when it comes to weaning his calves in late fall. He believes the key to good weaning is to fill up the calves’ bellies a few weeks before they are actually separated from the cows.

At this time, the carrying capacity of his pastures is low, and there might even be a little snow on the ground. So he makes up a brood-cow TMR, which contains a lot of barley silage, some grassy hay, no grain and a well-balanced trace mineral-vitamin pack.

Then, he dumps this load right on pasture in front of the cow-calf pairs. It takes only a couple weeks of doing this and then these filled-up calves are removed from pasture and put into my friend’s home feedlot to be backgrounded until late February. One or two calves may bawl for a day, but most of them have already nicely adjusted once the feedlot pen gates are closed.

My friend has gone through many successful weaning seasons. It is a great testimony of reducing autumn calf stress, not only when they are taken away from their mothers and weaned but it also helps them get onto new feeding programs in a usually strange new environment. Such challenges may never be eliminated, but using this or similar common-sense approaches goes a long way. And today’s saleable weaned calves, bid at more than $500 to $700 per cwt, are just too valuable to be truck-weaned.

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Therefore, many producers might be compromising their cows’ reproductive performance. Many of these cows often fail to return to active estrus and fail to get rebred and finally become pregnant. Rather than go down this wrong road, producers should review their current mineral-vitamin program and choose one that drives successful reproduction.

Before I make any recommendation to producers as to what kind of mineral-vitamin feeding program is a good choice, most people should conduct a body assessment of each cow and calved-out heifer.

I advocate that all nursing animals should maintain a visible cow’s body condition score (BCS) of five to six (out of 10) by calving, which should be carried on to the end of the breeding season. Such adequate BCS has been research-proven to return a higher proportion of fertile beef cows compared to thin cows (BCS less than four) to active-strong estrus by 80 to 90 days postpartum. Strong estrus should result in highly successful conception rates.

Most mineral and vitamin requirements of even the best-bodied nursing cows and heifers soar as they return to active heat cycles in preparation for conception during a short 60-day breeding season. Postpartum cows’ calcium needs increase by nearly 100 per cent, while phosphorus, magnesium and trace mineral demands grow by 50-60 per cent, and the need for fat-soluble vitamins more than doubles.

For example, the requirement for manganese is about 400 milligrams per day per cow. Known to be involved in enzyme systems that drive follicular/egg development, a lack of dietary manganese is proven to lead to inactive estrus, or “silent heats.” Given that Canadian prairie grasses often contain less than 20 mg/kg manganese, the need for manganese supplementation in a typical cowherd diet is necessary.

In order to assure manganese and other essential mineral/vitamin requirements are achieved, I recommend a “breeder” cattle mineral be fed from calving and throughout the upcoming beef breeding season. Consequently, this type of special cattle mineral is a specific complement of macro-minerals (calcium, phosphorus, magnesium) as well as a high level of trace minerals in particular copper, zinc, manganese and selenium, fortified at the best concentrations as well as in highly bioavailable chelated forms. Once these macro- and trace minerals are consumed at three to four ounces per head daily, they are designed to reach the cows’ digestive tract, where they are quickly absorbed, efficiently metabolized and highly retained to build optimum mineral status.

I have met many producers who believe in feeding such a breeder cattle mineral after their calving season is done — but some of them modify it to tackle specific nutritional mineral issues such as “grass tetany” on lush pasture.

In these cases, this breeder mineral can be formulated with four to 12 per cent magnesium and fed during the high-risk period of the first two to three weeks of the grazing season. Other producers I’ve known have added extra copper to the same breeder mineral to combat secondary copper deficiencies caused by excessive amounts of copper-binding molybdenum found in their pasture grasses.

All such types of well-balanced cattle minerals/vitamins should be placed in proper mineral feeders and be accessible to all cows. The feeders should be protected from rain, wind, sunshine and sometimes defecating cows. I am the biggest fan of a two- or three-compartment durable heavy-duty plastic feeder with a fixed metal bar in the centre, which secures a weather-proof rubber flap.

The best ones have notches moulded into the base to bolt it down on top of a truck tire and keep it out of water and mud. Then, two bags of mineral and one bag of salt can be poured into the separate compartments and checked every few days to be cleaned and refilled.

A few springs ago, a friend of mine bought two brand-new blue mineral feeders with the black rubber flaps. He operates a 100-cow red Angus herd and routinely feeds a breeder mineral fortified with extra organic zinc in order to strengthen hooves of the cow herd by the breeding season.

The offbeat thing is that he used to feed this cattle mineral in the trunk of a wheel-less 1962 Oldsmobile found in his yard. He would put out three bags of mineral each week in this way until one day the cattle abruptly stopped eating it. That’s because a fox gave birth to her pups in the back and prevented cattle from sticking their heads in.

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Most of the time, we simply forget it’s present when we provide loose cattle mineral on pasture. However, when it’s not there in the required amounts, or somehow gets biologically tied up, we eventually find out.

That’s why it’s important that cattle eat a well-balanced, zinc-fortified mineral in order to prevent any zinc deficiencies.

Most commercial pasture cattle minerals are formulated with about 10,000 mg/kg zinc to be fed at rates of at least 50 grams per head per day. Such predicted intake covers the National Research Council recommendations for dietary zinc in most classes of beef cattle. Factors such as age of the animals, growing and production status, stress and disease challenges are taken into account and often call for additional zinc to be added to cattle mineral.

Such trace amounts, compared to other essential nutrients, show us just how powerful zinc really is in beef cattle nutrition. For example, an average beef cow requires about one kg (2.2 lbs.) of crude protein per day to cover biological functions: vital body maintenance, producing milk, growth, immune function, reproduction. On the other hand, 500 mg of pure zinc equals 0.7 grams of zinc oxide, which gets lost at the bottom of a small teaspoon.

The odd thing about zinc is that it often works side-by-side with crude protein (and other essential nutrients) in the metabolisms of beef cattle. That’s because it’s scientifically proven to be part of more than 300 of their enzyme systems (specialized proteins that trigger chemical reactions in the body), and therefore is involved in energy metabolism, protein synthesis, DNA functions and the internal workings of cattle immunity.

Here is what we should expect from feeding zinc at recommended amounts to beef cattle:

Strong hooves

Because zinc is part of specific enzyme systems involved in epithelial (skin) formation and repair, feeding extra dietary zinc is thought to strengthen cattle hooves, particularly under harsh field and housing conditions.

A few years ago, I was working with a beef producer who calved out about 150 cows. Many of these cows seem to have very soft hooves and had a higher incidence of foot rot on pasture. Therefore, I formulated a loose mineral with four grams per head of zinc-methionine. It could have been coincidence, but fewer lame cows were treated by the end of that summer.

Good immunity

One particular field study showed zinc-methionine supplementation in spring calves enhanced their immune response to vaccination. The study was conducted on calves no more than two months old — when their colostrum immunity is in decline and their permanent immunity is not yet fully developed.

In this way, a Colorado study showed about one-third of pre-conditioned weaned calves were still getting sick after they were shipped to feedlots. This high incidence of morbidity was traced back to poorly formulated cow-herd mineral lacking sufficient dietary zinc and other important trace minerals.

Reproduction

Zinc plays an essential role in many of the average cow reproductive functions such as strong estrus cycles, improved conception rates, normal post-partum uterine involution and reduction of metritis. In the bull pen, zinc is essential for sperm production and circulating male hormones such as testosterone. A study at Kansas State University demonstrated that viable sperm counts in Angus bulls increased by one-third when bioavailable chelated zinc was fed.

Such positive responses were due to feeding more bioavailable organic sources of zinc — namely zinc-methionine. Subsequently, ruminant scientists will tell you that competitive inorganic zinc sources are still biologically active, but their supplementation in cattle mineral often doesn’t elicit a response due to many compounds that may bind them up in the cattle diets. Zinc-methionine, on the other hand, retains its high biological activity because it cannot combine with other systematic compounds.

Regardless of the source, there is no doubt as to zinc’s essential role in beef cattle nutrition. But zinc is only part of any well-balanced cattle diet, which must also contain other essential nutrients such as energy, protein, other minerals and vitamins. Plus, they must all work together to promote successful health and performance in beef cattle.

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Better genetics and nutrition are two good reasons. Yet, these brand-new mothers still require special attention after calving, despite some producers treating them like seasoned mature cows.

I often recommend that a good walk be taken among the main cow herd or segregated groups of first-calved heifers (now young cows). Conduct a proper body condition score (BCS) of each young animal, which determines their nutritional status. From there, select the particular feeding program on which you want to take them, once the heifers are on pasture in order to get rebred with their second calf.

A good BCS of each young cow on the day of calving is a good starting point that will dictate the success of such upcoming reproductive performance. That’s because an optimum BCS of 5 to 6 on a scale of 0 to 9 is an indication of her current nutritional status, which is the single most important factor that controls postpartum interval, milk production, estrus strength, services per conception and, ultimately, successful rebreeding.

In light of research-proven facts, I recently spent a couple of hours with a herd manager of a 350-head cow-calf operation. We completed a body assessment of about 60 calved-out replacement heifers. The premise was:

• Starting calving date was March 1, 2025.
• First-calf replacement heifers were bred three weeks ahead of the main cowherd – allowing 20–30 days of extra post-partum interval.
• All heifers were fed an overwintered diet of 15 kg barley silage, two kg grass hay, 0.5 kg canola meal and four oz. of a well-balanced fortified mineral-vitamin premix. All barley grain was removed a couple of weeks ago.
• Replacement heifers were segregated from the main herd and housed along with cull cows due to a lack of facilities.
• Creep feeders were placed in the pen and filled with a 16 per cent texturized oat-corn ration.
• Bulls are released on pasture during mid-May for a 60-day breeding season.

Most of these calved replacement heifers are well-framed animals that scored the desired 5 to 6, which I believe was directly responsible for only one or two assisted births from the present calvings.

These young mothers were also nursing well with two- to three-week-old calves that had great vitality. Only two replacement heifers were poor doers (thin body condition, due to other factors) and were soon to be culled.

Since there was a good amount of rainfall in the fall, in combination with early spring snows, the manager expects most pastures to be in good shape by the time the cow herd is released. The plan is that his first-parity cows (nursing a new calf) will be moved onto green pastures broken up only a couple of years ago. The high quality of these tamed pastures is expected to match their high energy and protein requirements for lactation, support of good body growth and retaining body condition in order to trigger at least one active estrus before the breeding season.

The manager also routinely feeds a loose mineral on pasture to the main cowherd as well as to all first-calved beef heifers. It has been his experience that a well-formulated mineral should be fed at three to four ounces per day in order to build up the mineral/vitamin status of every cow, which promotes active rebreeding and conception.

His personal choice is a “breeder-type” mineral with 18 per cent calcium and nine per cent phosphorus plus fortified levels of “chelated” copper, zinc, manganese and selenium as well as higher levels of vitamins A, D and E. He has never had much of a problem with grass tetany over the years, so he limits the magnesium to about three per cent, which meets those respective requirements.

Given that good pasture nutrition is in place, his only real concern is a bout of foot rot that hits the same young cow group (with nursing calves). When it happens, about every other year, it starts with one or two cows and spreads to about a third of the other grazers. Luckily, the most visible cases are caught in the early stages and treated with antibiotics.

Beyond that concern, it’s a matter of providing good nutrition and management to a young set of mothers that really started at the beginning of winter and carried on to the calving season. It means carrying on this special attention from calving and right through the breeding season on pasture.

As a result of all these efforts I look forward to successful confirmation of a second pregnancy, 30 days hence.

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My thoughts shifted from the skies to them, and I thought they were in pretty good body condition and would be ready, if they were to calve in a couple of months. They only needed to retain this condition with the help of some well-balanced diets once they are nursing a new calf and looking forward to be successfully re-bred. That means they should maintain a visible body condition score (BCS) of 5 to 6 (out of 10) by calving, which should be carried to the end of their breeding season. Such adequate BCS is research-proven to return a higher proportion of fertile beef cows compared to thin cows (BCS less than 4) to a strong estrus 80 to 90 days post-partum, which ends in high conception rates. Their next-year’s calves, which are born earlier in a desired short-calving season, also result in higher autumn weaning weights (by as much as 23-25 kg).

The average cow produces about 10 litres of milk for a newborn calf (about 60 to 75 per cent of all milk is produced in the first few months post-calving). To feed the calf and retain body condition requires a good solid intake of essential nutrients. First-calf heifers also need more of the same nutrients to gain a couple of hundred pounds of weight as they grow into maturity.

Consequently, an average nursing beef cow requires about 25 to 50 per cent more energy, 20 to 25 per cent more protein and nearly double the minerals and vitamins compared to an early gestating beef cow. Her post-calving forage-based diet at this time should contain about 58 to 62 per cent total digestible nutrients, 11 to 12 per cent protein, 0.7 per cent calcium and 0.5 per cent phosphorus, with a fortified compliment of other macro- and trace minerals and vitamins. Such NRC requirements are also based upon the same cow consuming about two to 2.25 per cent of her body weight (dry matter basis) or about 10 to 13 kg of dry-based feed. The more traditional cow herds that calve out at the beginning of February to the middle of March, the coldest months of the season, will be further be challenged nutritionally. As noted by university and extension researchers’ cold weather rule of thumb: for every 1 C drop in temperature below 0 C, the beef cows’ TDN (total digestible nutrients) energy maintenance requirements are increased by about two per cent.

A few years ago on the same subject, I asked a few beef producers how they successfully maintained their cows, which calved out during the coldest months of winter at a BCS of five to six.. This is how they responded to me:

• 250 beef cows: The producer feeds a traditional overwinter diet of 35-40 lbs. of good quality alfalfa-grass wrapped hay to his Simmental x black Angus herd. Once they calve, three to four pounds of barley are supplemented. Three to four ounces of a 1:1 breeder cattle mineral with salt are fed on the side.

• 200 beef cows: This beef producer’s purebred red Angus brood and first-calf cows are fed a total mixed ration (TMR) of 20 lbs. of corn silage (with lots of grain) and 25-30 lbs. of second-cut alfalfa hay, mixed with four ounces of a 3:1 vitamin premix with monensin. A few pounds of extra grain are only fed when the windchill temperature dips below -25 C.

• 220 beef herd of crossbred Herefords: This couple feeds an overwinter total mixed ration of 25 lbs. of barley silage and 20 lbs, alfalfa/grass hay. They grain-feed at two to five pounds of grain and usually feed even another pound or so when the windchill temperature dips below -18 C. As the weather gets warmer and the cow herd is past 60 days post-partum, grain feeding is eliminated; also, less barley silage is fed and is replaced by lower-protein grass hay.

Most beef producers, including these three testimonials, often estimate the amount of feed they will need for the winter, first feeding their early-mid gestation cows the lower-quality feeds such as straw-based diets or fair-quality grass-type hays, where cow requirements are modest.

Then, as the calving season approaches, they implement more nutritious saved feeds in their diets such as legume/alfalfa hays and ensiled (higher-energy) forages such as barley silage.

Once the cows calve and their nutrient requirements are at their highest point, depending on forage quality, they bring out their all-star diets, similar to those post-calving diets examined above.

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Yet, nobody should open the gate to any field and allow cows to stampede into it. That’s because there are still some issues in order to make grazing standing corn a good winter forage. I recommend that a mid-winter review of any such feeding program be made to assure all cowherd requirements for essential nutrients are met.

For example, the higher dietary energy of standing corn makes it nutritionally more attractive as compared to other common overwinter forages, as illustrated in the table here.

I recognize that the nutrient requirements of mid-gestation cows need 52-55 per cent TDN and about eight to nine per cent crude protein on a daily basis to maintain an optimum body condition of 5 to 6 and an early-term fetus.

As they move into the last trimester of pregnancy (where 75 per cent fetal growth occurs), pre-calving cows need 56-58 per cent TDN and about 11-12 per cent protein. It seems to me corn grazing will cover both phases of dietary energy requirements.

Unfortunately, cows grazing standing-corn acres as their source of overwinter feed will barely meet crude protein requirements during mid-gestation and fail to meet them during late-gestation.

READ MORE: Intercropping corn for better shoulder season grazing

That’s why there are many commercial protein supplements that help complement a gestation beef feeding program based on grazing corn fields. For example, many producers purchase protein range cubes/pellets, often made from high-protein distillers’ grains or 20 to 30 per cent protein cattle lick-tubs, that can be placed for every 25 beef cows throughout the cornfield.

Supplementing protein to grazing corn seems like a straightforward fix; however, I’ve talked to many producers and they tell me there are other unique hurdles. Here are some of their experiences to overcome them.

Field acidosis

One producer moves his 150 black Angus cows, from one grazed paddock to a fresh paddock of 10 acres, every week. In this way, he prevents acidosis upsets, since palatable ears of corn are eaten first (two to three days), then the leaves and thin stalks (two to three days), and finally leftover hard stalks.

Mould and mycotoxins

During a particularly wet fall, I drove past a field of standing corn in which its leaves were literarily blue with surface mould. To prevent abortions possibly caused by potential mycotoxins, I formulated a mineral with mycotoxin binders that was fed to this cowherd grazing within its blue corn field acres.

Water intake

Many producers rely upon adequate snowfall throughout the winter to meet the natural water requirements of their grazing beef cows. In one particular case, there isn’t enough snow, so the producer dug a water line and placed an accessible waterer along the corn field near his home farm.

Mineral program

Corn plants are notoriously low in calcium content. Since a beef cow requires up to 30 grams of calcium per day (as well as other macro- and micro-minerals and vitamins) a well-balanced high-calcium/modest phosphorus commercial mineral should be provided at 70 to 100 grams per head per day.

Cold weather

As the winter weather becomes much colder; the beef cows’ dietary energy requirement, just to stay warm, increases by two per cent for every 1 C drop in temperature below 0 C. This means that when the outside temperature is -25 C, the cow’s energy requirements increase by 50 per cent. To remedy this issue, many producers provide energy-enriched supplementary feeds.

One producer told me that he did not set aside and grow 200 acres of standing corn fields that he normally would have planted in the last 10 years. Instead, he planted and set up barley swaths (nutrient value also outlined in the table here).

The reason for the switch: three years of drought had led to not enough corn biomass on its own merit to overwinter his 350 beef cows.

The way this producer and other people still assess it, grazing standing corn is a good forage to overwinter beef cows. Its success depends upon how well its nutrition (and overcoming hurdles) keep the cow herd in good body condition until calving time — more specifically, when a healthy cow gives birth to a vibrant newborn calf.

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The remaining cow herd is now in its earliest weeks of gestation and requires a modest level of nutrition. It is an opportunity to feed some of the most cost-effective forage diets. But as time goes on, beef cows’ nutrient requirements steadily increase, and new enhanced diets are required.

Unfortunately, some producers do not follow suit, which often leads into a poor calving season. To avoid such catastrophe, a nutritious early-gestation diet should be established for the cow herd that can be built up as winter and their greater nutrient demands descend upon them.

Even before we get started on setting up any gestating cow feeding programs, most producers should walk through their herds, whether on pasture or at home, and think about which cows should be culled. There might be many reasons that beef cows are to be culled; the top qualification on most peoples’ list should be open cows.

I recently spoke to a lifetime producer and friend, who operates a 400-Angus/Simmental cow herd. He allows no exceptions to this rule. He figures that if an open cow (that is, not pregnant) is not sold, not one dime will be generated until the fall of 2025, even if she gets rebred by next spring. And she is already an $800 liability when she is overwintered. Besides, with the strong cull prices at the saleyard, it only makes common sense to put $2,500 per cow in your pocket.

Once these open cows and other stragglers are gone, it’s time for producers take a second walk and assess the general body condition of each gestating cow. That’s because a properly fed cow during autumn and going into winter with an optimum body condition score of five to six — on a scale of one (emaciated) to nine (obese) — has a great chance of maintaining a trouble-free pregnancy and good calving season. This compares to a thinner cow with a BCS of less than four, which is most likely to have difficulty surviving winter and often ending up in a difficult calving situation.

Early- to mid-gestation mature cows make the best overwintering candidates to either maintain their optimum BCS of five to six or build it up. In the fall, their nutrient requirements are comparably low to other times of the year.

Therefore, to support their own vital functions and an early-term fetus, cows require 52-55 per cent TDN (dietary energy), nine to 10 per cent crude protein, 0.4 per cent calcium, 0.25 per cent phosphorus, 0.2 per cent magnesium and salt, essential trace minerals and vitamins.

With the advent of bountiful cereal straw across the Prairies this autumn, I have already built a couple of dozen diets to meet these initial nutrient requirements from late October to the middle of December. Plus, I am prepared to increase their plane of nutrition as we progress into the colder weather of winter. In the table here you’ll see six well-balanced early gestation diets for 1,200- to 1,400-lb. pregnant beef cows.

One assumed consideration in all these just-under-$2 diets is to include an accompanying mineral-vitamin program. In this way, I often recommend to producers that they feed their cows a well-balanced yet less costly standard cow mineral for the first 90 days of early to mid-gestation and then switch their herd over to a breeder mineral formulated with organic trace minerals and higher vitamin levels for the remaining 60 days before calving.

It is common that many people forgo this two-step mineral program and feed the latter fortified breeder mineral for the entire gestation period.

As a beef nutritionist, I am aware that these outlined early-gestation diets (with a good mineral-vitamin feeding program) have a limited overwinter purpose. By mid-December, they should be re-evaluated and necessary changes should be made to enhance the level of their nutrition.

Such changes may include replacing a significant amount of straw with more nutritious grass hay and corn silage, or it may simply mean adding a couple extra pounds of barley. Either way, the essential nutrient requirements in most cowherds are achieved until the calving season.

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In short order, my girlfriend and I took a two-week vacation to South Korea and had a once in a lifetime opportunity to visit a typical Korean beef finisher operation.

Before I get started on our visit, let me put in perspective some important numbers comparing South Korea to Manitoba and Canada. The population of South Korea is 52 million people living in one-third of a total land mass of about 100,000 square kilometres (two-thirds is mountains), compared to 1.4 million Manitobans living within 650,000 sq. km (including 100,000 lakes).

South Korean agriculture encompasses about 3.25 million acres, while Manitoba tills about 17 million acres, both for a variety of crops. For example, half of the arable land in South Korea is set aside for rice; the rest seems to be pear farms, which produce 185,000 tonnes per year of Asian pears.

On the livestock side, Canada slaughters about two million cattle per annum, while Koreans slaughter nearly 900,000 Hanwoo beef steers, which originate in this country.

READ MORE: Canada struggles in Korean beef market

With such information, we are now ready for our visit to a traditional Hanwoo beef finishing operation located right outside Naju City (population 120,000) in the country’s southwest.

It so happens the owners are my girlfriend’s uncle and aunt: Sang June Kim and his wife, Hee Jong. They bring in about 170 Hanwoo-steer calves at about eight to nine months of age and 300-350 kg. The calves are raised and marketed at 1,000 kg at 24 months of age. No hormonal implants are used on this operation.

All animals are housed in pens with an open-roof barn, which reminds me of a U.S. dairy barn. There are three or four steers per pen with plenty of living and bunk space. No straw bedding is provided.

Feeding is once a day at 3:30 p.m., sharp. Sang June first blows the bunks absolutely clean of residual feed with a leaf blower. He then cuts and loads plastic-wrapped bales (each 500-600 kg) of complete diet (forage plus concentrate) in a small TMR mixer, mounted on a small truck. I calculate that he feeds seven to eight bales per afternoon.

With the same truck, Sang June can unload the feed along the feed bunk in a very precise manner. Subsequently, I took up a handful of diet — a grower-type diet, containing about 50 per cent rice straw and 50 per cent concentrate. The concentrate portion was rolled corn, rolled soybeans and ground barley.

I also understand from Sang June that the rice-forage portion is locally purchased from a feed mill, which combines it with grains, proteins and a mineral-vitamin pack imported from Australia. Though I didn’t confirm it, I would assume these cattle are fed a higher concentrate ration as they move into the latter finishing stages of growth to market.

Consequently, I calculate their overall growing-finishing average daily gains (ADG) to about 1.5 kg (3.2 lbs.) per head per day. Comparably, our Canadian finishers are slaughtered at about 650–700 kg at about 18 months of age, yielding comparable ADGs.

Hanwoo carcass yields are also similar to those recorded in Canada, which are about 60-63 per cent. Hanwoo cattle, though, are raised to unaccustomed hefty weights and their inherent breed meat quality differs substantially from our typical Angus- or Hereford- terminal cross.

For example, a Hanwoo ribeye contains about 40-50 per cent fat compared to a Canadian cut of marbled 20-25 per cent fat. It just so happened that I took a snapshot of a few Hanwoo meat slices sold at the local Korean store in Nagu City. It sold for about C$16 per 100 grams!

In the end, this excellent tour in itself was totally unexpected. That’s because I didn’t know my girlfriend had an uncle and aunt who raised beef in the first place. Plus, it taught me that high-quality beef is raised in other countries with both different and familiar feedstuffs. And saving the best for last: I want to thank Sang June and Hee Jong for their great hospitality in welcoming us to their farm and home.

The post Korean beef: similar feed, but much more marbling appeared first on Grainews.

That’s a good thing because last year, many cow-calf operators bred more replacement heifers that are now calving or about to calve.

Some of these producers told me they throw them into their main cowherd if they are big enough, while others are going to keep them separated until the new breeding season on pasture. I would also treat them as a special group in order to get them bred with a second calf.

Most people will agree that fresh first-calf cows (no longer called heifers, but new cows) need extra time and care to return to active reproduction. After all, they usually take a few extra weeks to a month to shrink their gravid uterus back to normal.

At the same time, they are new to nursing a newborn calf, and are expected themselves to grow into maturity. It is on my own personal wish-list that all new cows should have at least one or two strong and fertile heat-cycles by the start of a 60-day breeding season.

For example, I have known a few producers over the years who failed this challenge and their operation paid dearly. That’s because many of their young cows struggled with nutritional and health-related issues during the next few months; some failed to conceive and were culled. Yet, I feel it doesn’t have to turn-out adversely, if three special guidelines are implemented in most first calf-cow groups:

Best possible BCS

Maintain an optimum body condition score (BCS) of three to 3.5 (out of five). This work starts in hindsight with a well-balanced overwintering feed and management program that supports a gain of one to 1.5 lbs. per head per day by calving. After calving, a more enriched post-calving lactation diet (62-65 per cent TDN, 12 per cent protein) supports similar growth, yet takes on the extra nutrient demands of producing 10 litres of milk per day for nursing calves.

Account for limited dry matter intake

A new 1,000-lb. beef cow has less feed capacity, so it eats less than a 1,200-lb. brood cow. However, its total energy requirements are no different. As a result, this large nutrient load must be condensed into a denser post-calving diet, if their requirements are met. Given that a post-calving first-calf cow should consume about 2.5 per cent of her bodyweight in dry feed, a typical animal weighing 1,000-1,100 lbs. should consume 25 lbs. of feed on a dry matter basis per day.

Emphasize a well-balanced mineral/vitamin program

After calving until breeding, a well-formulated mineral should be fed at three to four ounces per day. This amount helps build up mineral/vitamin status that promotes active rebreeding and conception. It should be fed in loose form or mixed into the daily diet. My timeless favourite is an 18 per cent calcium, nine per cent phosphorus (three per cent magnesium) mineral (with fortified copper, zinc and selenium, plus extra vitamin A and E), which complements many types of replacement-cow diets made up mostly of drylot forages.

Consequently, here are some pre-pasture examples of post-calving lactation diets for 1,000-lb. first-calf-cows in a three to 3.5 BCS that implement my above three points:

Example 1

• Free-choice alfalfa-grass hay
• 1.0-1.5 kg barley or corn
• 3-4 oz. of 2:1 breeder mineral

Example 2

• 25-30 kg barley silage
• 3.0 kg grass hay
• 0.5 kg canola meal
• 3-4 oz. of 2:1 breeder mineral

Example 3

• 25-30 kg barley silage
• 1.5 kg straw
• 1.0 kg protein distillers’ grains
• 3-4 oz. of 2:1 breeder cattle mineral

The nice thing about these diets is that they are built upon feedstuffs that are readily available to most western provinces. However, there are years of drought and feed shortages, where overwintered first-calf cows become run down by calving time and people are often forced to feed them to increase BCS, afterward.

Fortunately, university field trials demonstrate that high-energy diets (usually meaning more grain is available) should be fed during a few weeks before and a few weeks after the start of breeding season. This allows some thin replacements to “catch up” to the rest of the cowherd by laying down enough body fat to achieve strong heats to be rebred.

It’s a last-resort practice that doesn’t always work. Therefore, I maintain that newly fresh cows are to be separated as a special group — first properly overwintered, calved out and then continuously fed/managed from calving to the breeding season.

Here, they might join the main cowherd on breeding pastures — or they might be bred on special pastures of their own for better chance of successful conception and finally dovetailed into maturity.

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