Agricultural News
Winterizing Cows, You Can Pay Now or Pay Later
Thu, 23 Sep 2010 5:41:46 CDT
Dr. Bryan McMurry is Beef Marketing Manager with Cargill Animal Nutrition and he says that for Beef Cow Herd Operators- fall is a time of the year where it will pay to supplement your forage supplies with minerals in order to keep body condition scores up into the winter season.
Forages are significantly short of critically important mineral nutrients all year, but the most serious shortages occur late in the grazing season when forages are maturing or dormant, especially if the cows grazing these forages are still lactating. Lactating cows grazing late season forages draw heavily from mineral stores in the body. If not replenished, the cow’s diminished mineral status will result in less than optimum performance. Energy metabolism is compromised and cows fail to regain sufficient body condition going into winter.
It’s not wise to allow cows’ mineral stores to become depleted going into the winter months, doing so can lead to low body condition scores (BCS), higher winter feeding costs, prenatal calf losses, or weak calves at birth. Cows in low BCS and poor mineral status can have low quality colostrum further compromising the health of already weakened calves, resulting in post natal losses. Additionally, cows going into spring in a low mineral status are the most susceptible to metabolic disorders like grass tetany. Maintaining adequate mineral status in cows is a good investment, or you can pay later.
For more information, copy and paste Dr. McMurry's email into your email program and ask him to tell you more. Bryan_McMurry@cargill.com
Click here to jump to the Nutrebeef webpage to learn more about this line of beef cattle nutrients that can help you succeed.
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