Agricultural News
Let the Drought of 2011 Work to Your Advantage This Spring- Glenn Selk of OSU
Tue, 13 Mar 2012 03:37:44 CDT
As drought conditions in southwestern Oklahoma continue, Oklahoma State University Emeritus Extension Animal Scientist Glenn Selk says this is an excellent-if unwanted-opportunity for cattle producers to fine tune management practices for future gains.
The hot, dry weather of 2011 across the Southern Plains certainly created a hardship for commercial cow calf operations that are short of standing and stored forage. Water supplies also are limited in many areas. It is difficult to see a silver-lining to this "lack of clouds". However, some producers are using this as an opportunity to tighten the management and change the genetic makeup in their cow herd. Culling has been more rigorous in this situation than in most years. Therefore, this has been an uninvited opportunity to identify inefficient cows and remove them from the herd.
Although some areas of the country are "rebuilding" the cow herd, (just look at replacement heifers prices for proof), many in Oklahoma and Texas are limited by the lack of forage and surface water. Therefore cattle numbers on native pastures will be kept low to allow the range condition to improve with the better rainfall in 2012. (My fingers are crossed, I knocked on wood, and said another prayer!).
Rather than blindly rebuilding numbers in the cow herd, why not use this as an opportunity to tighten the management in your cow herd?
1) Shorten the breeding season and therefore the calving season. Marketing a uniform set of calves that are born and raised together will have a price advantage versus selling one or two calves at a time.
2) Examine when would be the best time to breed the cows-in the late spring/early summer or in the late fall/early winter? Your answer may depend on the forage base, your other farming enterprises, and off-farm job responsibilities. Fall-calving makes a lot of sense in Oklahoma if the owner/manager can make it work with other responsibilities. Avoiding the intense heat of an Oklahoma summer during breeding will improve reproductive efficiency.
3) Keep only the cows that have been weaning a calf that is very near or at 50% of the mother's body weight. It is very difficult for 1400 pound cows to meet this criteria. The biggest cows are not often the most efficient cows. Select only replacement heifers that will grow into cows that fit your environment.
Everyone can think of other management ideas that can improve efficiency as we go forward, but these three would be a very good start.
Our thanks to Dr. Glenn Selk, Oklahoma State University Emeritus Extension Animal Scientist, for providing these ideas in his regular electronic newsletter, Cow-Calf Corner.
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