To some producers, it is a matter of pure economics to put on profitable extra weight on spring calves — while to others, creep feeding makes for better autumn-preconditioned calves. Last and not least, there are producers who don’t see the value of creep feeding.

Many of them might have valid reasons. Yet it seems to me that whether one doesn’t want to creep feed or is one of those who haul out their creep feeders by the end of summer, I advocate that one should calculate its present economics, plus its practical advantages in 2025.

A new beef producer I met last year inherited a 250-head cow-calf operation. He asked me to determine the economic value for him of putting out his creep feeders at the end of this July. He doesn’t expect his spring calves (mostly born at the end of February) to eat much creep feed until the middle of September. That’s because his pastures up to now have received a few timely rains and thus have good carrying capacity, and his cows and first-calf dams are milking well.

Once the weather cools off, he expects all calves eat to up to three kg of creep per head per day. With a feed conversion of 6.5 pounds of creep feed (costing 15 cents per lb.) to one lb. of gain, it should be no problem to add 60 lb. extra weight onto calves that would otherwise weigh 700 lb. at weaning time if the creep feeder remained by his machine shed.

With such pertinent information added into the graph shown here, as well as an already pre-established contract price of $4.95 per lb. of weaned calf sold this October, a tidy profit of about $168.50 per 760-lb. calf or a return on investment of 288 per cent will be directly attributed to creep feeding.

TABLE: Creep feeding program, 2025

Here is a general review of the major factors that determined this profit of $168.50 per head:

Established calf price

Some ag news states that grass and feeder calves are selling on historical highs driven by depressed calf crops and feedlot placements in the United States.

Calf price gradients

There is a sliding price discount as calves hit higher weight classes. In my example, I used a price discount of about $10 per hundredweight. As this price gradient narrows between weight classes, creep feeding becomes more profitable.

Feed costs

Creep feeding profits are attractive when calf prices are high relative to low feed costs. In 2025, I see that forage and grain prices are modest, which contribute to substantial 2025 creep profits.

Feed efficiency

The conversion of a well-balanced creep feed into saleable weaning weight is a major driver in the profitability due to creep feeding. It ranges from six to eight lb. per lb. gain for most grain-based creep feeds. For example, every 0.5 lb. improvement in feed efficiency means an extra $4.50 revenue per calf.

Aside from the almost unbelievable economics of 288 per cent return on investment, there are other practical benefits to creep feeding calves. Some other producers have told me that their creep-fed calves are not as dependent on the nursing cow by autumn.

As a result, calves are much easier to wean with less stress. Other producers say that creep-fed calves are bunk-broke, which is a real advantage when put onto background feeding programs.

Despite such positive and practical creep feeding advantages, I spoke with another cow-calf operator who runs about the same size of ranch, and he never considers creep feeding his spring calves. It’s not that he has anything against creep feeding, but he believes his cows milk well throughout the summer due to his heavily managed rotational pastures. Plus, he grows cover crops, and he pastures both cows and calves on their regrowth from August to late November.

As a result, he successfully gets similar performance on his calves’ weaning weights compared to his neighbours’ calves that are creep fed.

In summary, I value what this producer had to say, but I also value the experiences of people that seem to put their creep feeders onto pasture every year. For them and those new cow-calf operators who might consider creep feeding their calves in 2025, it’s a hard-to-beat profitable creep feeding year.

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Yet, the writing was on the wall with increased world demand for milk-based food and ingredients. Like most dairy producers, some people acknowledge its skyrocketing cost but have become advocates to remain feeding high levels or accelerated levels of milk replacer.

Their endgame is that better-quality calves make better (high-milk producing) dairy cows.

Consequently, Iowa State University proved more 20 years ago that standard calf milk replacer programs (still practiced today) yield only modest calf growth rates. The researchers at that time fed milk powder at the rate of 1.25 to 1.5 per cent of bodyweight to groups of pre-weaned calves, which supplied only enough dietary energy and protein to support maintenance requirements with a little left over for nominal growth. They found that feeding milk replacer at an accelerated rate of two to 2.5 per cent of bodyweight allowed a matching group of calves to achieve phenomenal double neonate birthweight growth.

For example, a 150-dairy cow operator that I visited a few years ago switched up his automatic calf feeding system to feed a reconstituted 1,200 grams of 26-26-18 milk replacer (from a standard 20-20-20 milk replacer of 800 g) to each of his pre-weaned calves.

At 56 days or eight weeks of age, he weaned them off the milk replacer and was able to achieve an average weaning weight of 102 kg (1.05 kg per head per day). He then put them on a modest-energy heifer grower diet until they were bred at 14 to 15 months of age. He then reduced their dietary energy slightly until they were finally brought onto the milk-line at about two years of age. His first group of accelerated heifers yielded about 15 per cent more milk during their first 305d-year of lactation as compared to past milk-reared animals.

It should be mentioned that this producer also introduced a 21 per cent protein texturized oat- and corn-based calf starter to all his pre-weaned calves at seven days of age. At first, they nibble at it, but by three to four weeks of age, they were eating about 700 g, which by nature stimulates good rumen development. By the time, these calves reached 56 days of age, most of them were eating about 1.2 kg, which is proven to facilitate weaning/transference onto post-weaning replacement heifer diets.

My case-study dairy producer was always aware of the cost of his accelerated calf milk replacer program in order to achieve its superior benefits. See the included simple 2025 balance-sheet of his accelerated milk replacer program as compared to a current conventional feeding option.

1. Investment of each program — It costs about $156 or 60 per cent more to feed Holstein dairy calves on an accelerated dairy program. At first glance it seems excessive to spend over $400 per calf weaned at eight weeks of age. However, weaned heifer calves are no longer worth $400 as they once were, but $1,000 to $1,500, depending on health and genetic statute of each weaned calf.

2. Investment in a consistent milk-based program — Investing in an accelerated milk replacer feeding program just lends itself to feeding a well-formulated 26-26-18 milk replacer that now costs about $110 per 20 kg bag. The advocates say that it cannot be substituted by feeding less-expensive milk replacer or pasteurized whole milk that often cause digestive upsets when fed at higher than conventional milk-feeding levels.

3. Importance of good quality and clean water — All conventional and accelerated milk replacer feeding programs requires high-quality water free of high total dissolved solids and other contaminants. I recently witnessed a 100-cow dairy that fed milk replacer to their calves. They put in a water-treatment system in their calf barn in 2024 and within a few months, significantly improved calf health and performance.

All three points are valid. It is a matter of “accelerating” young pre-weaned dairy calves on a better plain of nutrition to meet their full growth potential. A full transference of such superiority means more milk produced and thousands of dollars earned in the not-so-far future.

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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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First, I walk along the bunk and look at the cows that are eating — and look over to the cows lying in their stalls. I’ll also pick up a handful of lactation diet and pick through it.

In these short five minutes, these observations give me a ballpark idea as to how much lactating diet is being eaten on an as-fed and dry-matter intake basis.

When the dairy producer walks with me, I often fine-tune these observations by asking specific questions about the cows or something about the diet. By getting a handle on the dry matter intake of the lactation barn, I am really getting an idea of the amount of dietary energy intake that drives milk production — which in most cases is almost a perfect correlation.

With the advent of more robot milking systems, the dry matter intakes of lactating dairy cows have dramatically increased, and milk production follows along. For example, I can design a PMR (partial mixed ration) to be fed in the bunk at 50 kg on an as-fed basis (25 kg, dmi) and another five kg of robot pellets fed at the milking stations.

As a result, the dairy cows are cleaning up about 30 kg of actual feed on a dry matter basis to produce 40-45 kg of milk per day. Such intake and performance were really unheard of 10 years ago in the traditional parlour milking systems.

Whether lactating cows are milked in a parlour or robot barn, high-quality forages have always promoted high dry matter intakes. The science is simple: more kilos of a well-balanced lactation diet tend to pass through the cows’ rumen, because its fibre portion tends to be more efficiently digested by the resident rumen microbes, which also speeds up its rate of passage throughout the whole digestive tract. Naturally, there are many chemical restraints in the rumen that kick in along the way, which also help maintain such good rumen function.

Based on these broad-based nutritional principles, here is a set of dairy barn suggestions that in my experience help achieves optimum feed intake among lactating dairy cows.

Set up a close-up dry cow feeding program

Close-up dry cows (three weeks before calving), which consume about 12 kg of dry feed daily, have been shown to have greater DMI as early lactating cows and fewer post-partum metabolic problems.

Promote good rumen fermentation

Typical rations for lactating dairy cows should be formulated to contain 19-21 per cent acid detergent fibre (ADF), 28-32 per cent neutral detergent fibre (NDF) (with 75 per cent coming from effective forage fibre) and limitations of 35-42 per cent placed on non-structural carbohydrates.

Know DMI and as-fed intake

A weekly schedule of DMI and as-fed intake of the lactation herd, as well as the moisture content of the diet, should be recorded. A friend of mine, who milks 350 dairy cows, measures their DMI and as-fed intake every few weeks and their dietary moisture levels about once per week. In doing so, he has significantly decreased the incidence of ketosis in his fresh cow group.

Formulate healthy rumen diets

Feed a portion of the grain that has slower rates of starch digestion, such as grain corn, to prevent acidosis. Avoid feeding too much bypass palm fat. Make sure to limit feed unpalatable feed ingredients. Lastly, check forages and grains for visible mould and other contaminants.

Use a direct-fed microbial (DFM)

I often formulate a DFM into lactation diets. It contains bacteria, grain and forage enzymes and yeasts, which have been shown to improve feed digestibility and prevent sub-acidosis rumen acidosis. Fed at 10 g per head per day, it costs about 25 cents per head per day.

Most of these suggestions take time to implement, but sometimes it only takes five minutes of common sense to promote dry matter intake in lactating dairy cows.

At one farm I visited recently, the bunk ration seemed to be very dry. All it took was adding 100 litres of water to the PMR that helps increase its consumption and subsequent milk production — just a little bite.

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He joked that he is ready to lock them up inside the creep enclosure and force-feed them. Like most people, myself included, he wants to add about 60 lbs. of creep-fed weight to each calf, in order to take advantage of 2024’s record-breaking feeder prices.

Dried-out pastures make any nutritious creep feeding program work, but we seemed to forget that a lot of rain makes us dependent upon profitable economics, if we are going to creep-feed calves until late autumn. Consequently, I have calculated the profitability of creep feeding calves for 2024, which targets 60 lbs. of extra weaning weight in a 100-day creep feeding program and I compare it to that of non-creep-fed animals. The main profit drivers of this year’s creep-feeding are:

• predicted feeder prices during this autumn andinto winter,
• current feed prices, and
• feed efficiency in which creep-feed is turned into heavier weaning weights.

For 2024, the accompanying spreadsheet shows that to put 60 lbs. of creep-fed body weight on large-framed calves (segregate out the replacement heifers) in a 100-day creep feeding program looks unbelievably profitable.

I estimated a base $4.50/lb. for fall-weaned 600-lb. calves and the recent decreased creep-feed prices of 15 cents/lb., together with an estimated 6.5 feed efficiency and a 10-cent/cwt. market discount. The yield from those calculations is an unheard-of $150 premium, or a 250 per cent return on investment, for creep-fed calves.

It has been my experience that when producers wait until late summer to put out creep-feeders, feed intake by spring calves is dictated significantly by pasture quality, even though mum has already dried up.

This means calves usually start to come up to the creep feeders and eat a couple of pounds of creep each day, for a few days. Then they might not come up again for about a week. It’s only in early fall that calves tend to tackle creep consumption to an optimum seven to eight lbs. per day, which continues until they put on an extra 60 lbs. until weaning.

To drive such great creep feed intake, I believe that only a highly nutritious grain-based creep feed should be provided. As a beef nutritionist, I have formulated many creep rations that fill this nutritional gap for spring calves. One of my favourites is a 14 per cent protein and medium-energy feed pellet, made up mainly of wheat middlings, and some barley and supplemented with high-protein concentrates such as corn distillers’ grains. Its mineral/vitamin profile also contains a complement of calcium, phosphorus and salt with essential trace minerals and vitamins A, D and E.

It should also be noted I have formulated rolled creep feeds with a similar nutrient profile, largely using steam-rolled oats in combination with a special protein pellet. Plus, all of my creep feeds contain five per cent molasses to improve and steady feed consumption by young calves. Brewer’s yeast is often added to improve forage digestibility and monensin sodium (a coccidiostat) is added to prevent the devastating effects of coccidiosis.

As an alternative to my creep feeding program, a feed mill operator for whom I worked part-time 15 years, and who owns a 100-cow-calf herd, takes a more aggressive approach. His sons put their creep feeders out much earlier in the spring. Initial consumption by spring calves starts at one to two lbs. per head per day, but steadily increases throughout a normal grazing season (with timely rains, no drought) in a step-up fashion toward autumn.

As a result, weaning weights of their spring calves are consistently higher by 20 lbs. (80 lbs., total) with better feed efficiencies of six lbs. of feed per pound of gain compared to the above conventional creep feeding program.

The funny thing is, whether my other friend is truly serious about locking his calves in to creep feed them, or my former employer puts out their creep-feeders much earlier in the season, both producers should make more creep profit than ever. And it’s not just a couple of loonies, but a $150 profit per creep-fed calf. So, it’s never too late to creep feed, even when feeders are pulled as the first snowflakes fall.

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Such practice is unacceptable today. Assured good mineral intakes by breeding beef cows builds up good macro, trace mineral and vitamin status, which contributes to optimum health and high conception rates. All it really entails is that each cow eats a few ounces of a nutritious mineral on a daily basis. At times, this simple task is challenging, but with good, committed management can be achieved.

Consequently, many factors either promote or hinder the consumption of a commercial cattle mineral, so each cow consumes 56 to 112 grams (two to four ounces), daily. Here is an outline of some major factors:

Mineral formulation

Salt-free mineral is eaten to a lesser extent than one containing 10 to 15 per cent salt. If salt makes up at least 20 per cent of this mineral, one should adjust suggested mineral intakes accordingly.

Note that cattle also may shy away from mineral that contain excessive amounts of limestone (calcium), phosphorus (over 10 per cent), or salt (over 25 per cent).

Water quality

The mineral content and salinity in cows’ drinking water is one of the biggest challenges to get breeding cattle to eat loose-fed mineral.

A few years ago, I recommended a 2:1 cattle mineral (with 10 per cent salt) to a 200-cow cow-calf operation that grazed rotational pasture and drawing water from a natural spring. It contained low levels of salt and minerals; the cattle ate about four ounces of mineral daily. Weeks later, the cattle were moved to a new pasture in which the well-water was very saline. As a result, cattle mineral consumption fell to zero.

Timing

Whether cattle are overwintered on a good mineral program or not, it seems providing loose mineral on pasture is a new experience for even the most mature cowherd. Overconsumption of cattle mineral is initially expected, which should taper off after a week or so. Because of this phenomenon, it important to keep loose mineral available at all times.

Overcoming these few obstacles to good cattle mineral consumption is a matter of consistent mineral-management. We should:

• Calculate the amount of mineral you would need to carry the cows, every few days. It goes something like this: 300 cows x 112 grams of mineral x 3 days = 100 kg or 4 x 25 kg bags of mineral.
• Place about one third of a bag in about a dozen durable mineral feeders (one per 30 cows).
• Check back every few days and refill mineral feeders. Note: adjust mineral consumption as the summer progresses and spring calves start eating minerals too.

By experience, I prefer to fill with mineral the three-compartment plastic mineral-feeder covered with a thick rubber flap. A few years ago, I knew a producer with the same amount of beef cows as above (roughly 300 cow-calf pairs); he mounted seven new mineral-feeders on tractor tires.

These mineral feeders were spread out over summer pastures, with one or two of them placed near water-filled dugouts in which the cattle congregate. Caked and clumped mineral were removed and fresh mineral was placed every few days.

The funny thing is that this producer had low mineral problems for the first few weeks of that year’s summer. His cow herd would eat barely a half ounce (15 grams) of salt-free mineral per day. Subsequently, he solved/increased his herd’s mineral consumption in three ways:

• Switched to a mineral with 15 per cent salt. Removed most of the free-choice blue-salt blocks from pasture. Mixed one-third salt with two-thirds of this new newly formulated mineral and poured it into the mineral feeders.
• Moved feeders closer to the dugouts.
• Stopped feeding liquid molasses in a lick-tub near one of the mineral feeders. As a result, mineral consumption leveled off to 70 grams per head per day.

It feels good to hear such mineral intake success stories. This problem wasn’t solved with a lot of scientific fanfare, but with some common sense. It also reminds me that good mineral intake of a cattle mineral goes hand-in-hand with a well-balanced mineral formula — one that meets the essential mineral and vitamin requirements of breeding cows and eventually helps get them pregnant.

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This practice maintains a 13-month calving interval. Unfortunately, the onslaught of cystic ovaries in 30 per cent of all breeding cows makes it a challenge. Yet, there is hope that good nutrition, prior to and right-after they calve, can eliminate a significant number of cystic ovaries from occurring in the first place.

Energy status in lactating dairy cows is the first limiting nutrient that most affects the incidence of cystic ovaries.

The actual energy requirement for successful follicular ovulation is very low, at three megajoules (MJ); it also takes on an extremely low priority, compared to 60 MJ for vital body needs and up to 250 MJ for milk production during early lactation days.

Early-lactation dairy cows do not consume enough dietary energy to meet such high levels of milk production and thus are in a “negative energy balance” (NEB) for about six weeks after calving, which adds to the energy challenge.

As a result, one can speculate that being in a NEB makes cows even more susceptible to higher incidence of ovarian cysts.

Reproductive research dictates NEB in dairy cows can adversely affect normal development of follicles by disrupting the production of essential tissue-specific and systematic hormones.

For example, it has been proven that when a cow has poor energy intake there is a significant decrease in the levels of follicular and corpus luteum hormones that complete her normal estrus cycles after calving. Other similar studies demonstrate that the release of large amounts of fatty acids from the breakdown of body fat during NEB is also poisonous to fertile egg cells, even if they are released during the ovulation process.

What to do?

Over the years, there have been several hormone protocols using GnRH, progesterone and prostaglandins to treat cystic ovaries in chronic cows. Subsequent research suggests they are highly effective to induce ovulation, but often retain lower conception rates.

Although I know of several dairy producers who have complete reliance upon periodic hormone treatments, I suggest they shouldn’t give up on a good nutrition program that could help reduce ovarian cysts in their early-lactation cows. My dietary suggestions:

Pre- and post-partum feed

Implement proper transition/early lactation diets (three weeks before and three weeks post-partum). This should be done to promote good dry matter intake, optimum body condition (see below) and reduce NEB during early lactation. Close-up dry cow diets should dovetail into early 60- to 90-day lactation rations.

Both diets should provide adequate dietary energy, as well as provide enough forage fibre to maintain excellent rumen health. Another of the goals is to build up feed intake to about 3.5 to four per cent of cows’ body weight by nine to 10 weeks post-partum.

BCS at its best

Maintain a body condition score (BCS) of 3 to 3.5. Existing research demonstrates that over-conditioned cows (on a BCS scale where 1 = emaciated and 5 = obese) are 2.5 times more likely to develop ovarian cysts during the first 60 days, post-partum, compared to lactating cows with an optimum BCS of 3 to 3.5.

A direct link to cystic ovaries has yet to be proven, but thin lactating dairy cows of less than 2.5 BCS have been shown to have a high incidence of silent heats and lower conception rates.

Serve up supplements

Feed adequate levels of trace minerals and vitamins. Deficient levels of copper, manganese, zinc and selenium and inadequate vitamins A, D and E are known to cause anestrus in female cattle.

For example, Ohio State University animal scientists reported cystic ovaries were diagnosed in 19 per cent of a split-group of dairy cows injected with selenium, compared to a 47 per cent incidence of cystic ovaries in an untreated control group.

Avoid mouldy feeds

Zearalenone, a mycotoxin produced in mouldy corn, has estrogen-like properties and has caused many reproductive problems including a higher incidence of ovarian cysts in dairy cattle. The poisonous threshold of zearalenone is 200 p.p.b. in lactation dairy diets.

These are only a few good suggestions I believe can reduce the incidence of cystic ovaries in many dairy herds. Regimens such as good early-lactation nutrition — which can affect the matrix of 30 to 40 reproductive hormones for successful release of an ovum — should be seriously examined and implemented.

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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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Some people have taken advantage that three-month-old replacement dairy heifers have a fully developed rumen and can truly digest lower quality/cost forages.

There is nothing wrong in feeding this way, but these forages must be well balanced with other more nutritious feedstuffs that together meet animals’ essential nutrient requirements. Plus, we need to avoid the common pitfalls, such as digestive upsets, which are associated with some diets — again, by providing the right overall nutrition.

Regardless, I always keep in mind that good dry matter intake (DMI) comes first in setting up any well-balanced heifer replacement feeding program. It’s synonymous with essential energy/protein/mineral/vitamin intake that drives growth, optimum body condition and good health by the time they are ready to be put on the milk-line.

It has been my experience that many promising replacements don’t make their full-performance potentials and are culled, because their dry matter intakes were ignored or challenged.

Such good DMI is controlled by the natural forces of heifers consuming these forage-based diets and its ensuing fermentation in the rumen. At the same time, the rate of feed passage through a heifer’s digestive systems comes into play in a big way, which not only controls good dry matter intake, but almost every digestive process afterward, including cud-chewing.

That’s especially so when we feed them high-fibre, lower-quality diets, such as proposed by South Dakota State University a few years ago.

The SDSU researchers fed high-fibre shredded corn stalks supplemented with wet distillers grains to help meet the energy and protein requirements of a group of growing dairy heifers. The SDSU results showed heifer gains — although lower than conventional diets formulated with corn silage, haylage and alfalfa — were quite acceptable. A significant cost saving of 40 per cent was recorded because corn stalks and wet corn distillers grains were purchased at much lower cost than other routine feedstuffs.

Along the same dietary lines to save on feed costs I routinely balance a bred-heifer replacement diet (15–22 months) for a 150-lactating dairy. This diet is limited by the quantity of good-quality forages such as alfalfa hay and drought-stricken barley silage. Yet this farmer has a decent supply of low-quality barley straw and slough hay. So his current diet is what you see in the table here:

In review of this diet, I believe we are barely meeting these bred heifers’ dietary energy (64 per cent total digestible nutrients and protein (14 per cent) needs for 1.8 pounds gain per day. Plus, this total mixed ration is simply too dry and a couple of kilos of added water would improve its density. The funny thing is that DMI by these replacement heifers during the last few months has been acceptable (2.8 to three per cent of body weight).

Nevertheless, during our last cold spell of –30 C in January, a few heifers showed signs of anorexia, inadequate manure output and abdominal distention — all encompassing signs of impaction.

Any threat of dietary impaction is serious and that is why I am vigilant of it when feeding low-quality forages to replacement dairy heifers. It can be fatal, and stems from:

• High forage-fibre content: the rate of digestion is slow since it takes a long time to ferment and break down lots of cellulose/hemicellulose fibre.
• Inadequate protein: heifer diets often do not supply enough dietary protein-metabolites to the forage-digesting rumen bacteria. It leads to decreases in the overall rate of forage-fibre digestion and feed passage, including DMI.
• Inadequate water: in feed digestion, water is a primary lubricant. For example, a particular dry heifer diet during an impaction incident is possibly more viscous, which impedes its movement throughout the rumen-gastrointestinal tract.

It is my understanding that this producer drenched each impacted dairy heifer with a gallon of mineral oil. Within a couple of days, animals were up to the water trough and feed-bunk. It was a lesson for me, namely that it is important to meet all essential nutrient requirements for growing and healthy dairy heifers. It can be done utilizing a cost-effective lower-quality forage as part of their whole diet, yet there should be a wide margin of adequate nutrition built into each diet.

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Then, I looked at some pictures in a cattle parasite book and to my surprise, this common gastrointestinal worm is no more than a quarter- to half-inch long and inhabits the cow’s abomasum wall, giving its mucosa a surface of bumpy lesions.

What you see in the accompanying photo seems harmless enough, but these parasites can cause a lot of damage in both cows and calves, such as persistent diarrhea, indigestion and compromised immunity. These all lead to reduced feed intake, poor feed efficiency, poor body condition score (BCS), inadequate weight gain and even slower recovery from scours or pneumonia. That’s why I advocate a solid deworming program — and it should be implemented on nearly every cow-calf operation.

Before setting up any deworming program, we should be familiar with the life cycle of the brown stomach worm. It encompasses a period of about three weeks:

• Infected cattle pass worm eggs in manure, excrete it onto pastures.
• Eggs hatch into first-, second- and third-stage larvae, and develop in the same manure.
• Third-stage larvae migrate onto pasture grass.
• Cattle ingest third-stage larva on grazed grass; the larvae migrate to the abomasum mucosa.
• Worms mature into fourth-stage larva and finally into egg-laying adults, yet often arrest final development to hibernate in the overwintering cows until spring.

The extent of worm contamination on pastures usually parallels cow and calf grazing activity. This means there is a modest increase of worms during the first couple of months of spring, followed by a dip in midsummer, ending in a population explosion.

READ MORE: When the worms come marching in

It seems mature cows shed the most worm eggs in the early spring; those eggs then develop into larvae, which either contaminate the entire pasture or simply die off. Meanwhile, new spring calves are also starting to consume contaminated grass, thus becoming worm carriers. The calves deposit them back as shed eggs, which lead to most of the late-pasture contamination.

I used to work for a local feed mill that still owns a 150-beef cow operation. Years ago, my friend developed his own cattle deworming plan based on the above natural life cycle of round stomach worms. It mainly uses two chemical types of anthelmintic dewormers: avermectins (ivermectin) and benzimidazoles (fenbendazole). His primary goal is effective worm control as well as to minimize chemical resistance by the worms.

In a three-year cycle, he uses the Ivomec (five mg/ml ivermectin) pour-on for two years in a row at the rate of one ml per 10 kg of bodyweight of both cow and her calf, before they are both released onto pasture.

For the third year, he switches to Safeguard drench (100 mg/ml fenbendazole). In this latter treatment, he provides one drench of 2.5 ml for every 50 kg of cattle bodyweight. Then he returns to Ivomec for the following year, which creates a new cycle.

My friend prefers the Ivomec treatment, because it offers two weeks of residual power against worms and controls other external parasites. In fact, he often goes onto a third straight year of Ivomec pour-on, when lice and mange flare up during a hard winter. In comparison, fenbendazole is also effective control against stomach worms, but it makes no claims against other cattle parasites.

Despite my friend’s or anyone’s deworming plan, we should always know the cost/revenue benefits of worm control in cattle. The above investments are:

• Ivomec Pour-on = 1 ml per 10 kg; 75 ml (@ $205 for 5 litres) per 750 kg of beef cow + calf = $3.08/pair.
• Safeguard Drench = 2.5 ml per 50 kg; 37.5 ml (@ $550 for 3.78 litres) per 750 kg of beef cow + calf = $5.46/pair.

Some Canadian research demonstrates an 18-pound weaning-weight advantage due to deworming cattle compared to untreated controls. For example, if my Safeguard input cost (cow + calf) is $5.46 per pair and estimated revenue (18 lb. x $3.50/lb.) is $63 per weaned calf; the net revenue is $57.54/treated calf. For a 150-cow/calf operation that is an extra $8,600 in revenue.

Such an economic benefit is always good news. In the end, we may not be able to get rid of every last worm in the average beef cow herd. However, we can reduce their negative impact on cattle health and performance.

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