News Update
May 22, 2006
Use This Year’s Experience to Improve Calving Next Year
Only a few weeks ago spring-calving cows were calving. Experience would suggest you do not want to ask cow-calf operators how calving is then, because the response would be less than objective, reflecting bone-chilling cold and not enough sleep. If you wait too long, perhaps until this fall, time will have mellowed most of the events and one soon has difficulty matching a calving season with particular problems. Now is perhaps the best time to make a few notes on what to change for next year.
The first step is to list the dead calves. Hopefully, your cattle are in a record system that will provide that information. If not, grab a piece of paper and pencil and list the calves. Your calving notebook should have the dead calves checked off and a brief notation on what happened to each. Until all the calves are listed, the shock of lost opportunities has not had its full effect.
Can you identify a pattern of problems? Was most of the death loss right at delivery, and did it involve 2-year-old heifers? This could indicate sire selection needs to be done more carefully, with attention being paid to low-birth-weight expected progeny difference (EPD) sires for heifers. Perhaps the heifers were underdeveloped. This could contribute to more calving difficulty than necessary. Do you provide assistance to heifers after they have been in stage II labor for one hour?
Was the death loss more prevalent after the calves had reached 10 days to 2 weeks of age? This often means that calf diarrhea (or scours) is a major concern. Calf scours will be more likely to occur to calves from first calf heifers. Calves that receive inadequate amounts of colostrum within the first 6 hours of life are 5 to 6 times more likely to die from calf scours. Calves that are born to thin heifers are weakened at birth and receive less colostrum, which compounds their likelihood of scours. Often, these same calves were born via a difficult delivery, which adds to the chances of getting sick and dying. All of this means that we need to reassess the bred-heifer growing program to assure heifers are in a body condition score (BCS) of 6 (moderate flesh) at calving time.
Do you use the same trap or pasture each year for calving? There may be a buildup of bacteria or viruses that contribute to calf diarrhea in that pasture. This particular calving pasture may need a rest for the upcoming calving season. Plus it is always a good idea to get new calves and their mothers out of the calving pasture as soon as they can be moved comfortably to a new pasture to get them away from other potential calf scour organisms.
Thanks to Kris Ringwall of North Dakota State University for this excellent suggestion to study the calf records now, and start to make adjustments in time to really help the calving season next year.
— by Glenn Selk, animal reproduction specialist, Oklahoma State University Extension
Trade Agreement with U.S. would be Win-Win
South Korea’s commerce minister said Monday he is confident a proposed free-trade agreement (FTA) with the United States will bring benefits to both countries, the Associated Press reported in an article on cattlenetwork.com. “I think signing an FTA will not bring disadvantage to one partner,” Minister of Commerce, Industry and Energy Chung Sye-kyun told reporters.
Chung was speaking just two weeks before the countries are to start negotiations toward an agreement which, if successful, would be the largest such accord for the U.S. since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1993. Formal talks are to begin June 5 in Washington, D.C., putting the countries under a tight deadline as the Bush Administration’s “fast track” trade authority to negotiate an agreement and submit it to Congress for a simple yea-or-nay vote without amendments runs out in mid-2007.
Despite the two governments’ commitment to successfully forge free-trade relations, negotiators must clear some hurdles. Chung expressed confidence that differences can be overcome.
— compiled by Meghan Soderstrom, assistant editor, Angus Productions Inc.
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