| centralmnangus - 11/24/2024 08:24 I wonder if some of that isn’t starting to show up in the beef industry. Have all these flashy high production genetics but at the cost of longevity and maternal traits. If I remember right it was something like 5 calves is all a cow lasted in the beef herd on average which doesn’t seem right to me… she should still be in her prime at that age. Don’t see why a good beef cow can’t go 12-15 years still doing her job. That high turnover rate could get quite spendy for the ones raising heifers. It wasn’t that many years ago Holsteins would go 10 plus years and now it seems they just get burnt out from being pushed
The good ones do last that long. Its the poor ones that drag the average down.
IF you account for every female that is exposed to a bull, any heifer that doesn't get bred and gets sent to the feedlot is just like an acre of corn that drowns out. You have incurred costs and you have nothing to show for it.
Then you have a heifer that calves and goes nuts so after she gets weaned you send her to town. Then you have a what should be a 3rd calf cow show up open because she didn't get enough groceries to maintain her condition (since the owner refuses to baby a cow by providing her anything more than a fully mature cow) and send her to town. It doesn't take many of those to drag the herd average way down just like it doesn't take many acres of drown outs to drag the avg yield down on a quarter section of corn.
Sows are the same way. The average parity in a typical sow herd is less than 3 litters. The best sows (for longevity) might farrow 10 litters.
|
Short dairy cows
