It’s no secret that Beef cow nutrient requirements start increasing prior to calving and continue up until the cow herd is bred.  In spring calving herds many producers have matched these increasing nutrient needs with their calving season to take advantage of these actively growing pastures to help limit the amount of supplemental inputs needed.  There has been a wide variety of conditions across the US this past winter with extremely dry conditions in the west and very cold temperatures in many other parts of the country.  This is a strong reason for concern going into calving and supports the need to evaluate your nutrition program in order to ensure calf health and performance and timely rebreeding.  Reports from the Extension Service in SW Missouri this winter have indicated reduced conception rates and even death losses in cows from the colder than normal weather conditions.  Lingering cold temperatures could easily result in reduced cow body condition if energy adjustments were not made jeopardizing both calving and rebreeding.  Shortcuts in the area of nutrition now can seriously affect your profitability given the current calf prices.

In order to get your cows to spring grass from winter gestational diets that used stored hays, dormant grazing or stockpiled forages, it is a good idea to set aside higher quality forages for this stage of the cows productive and reproductive life.  You can see from the example 1200 pound cow example in the table below that protein and energy requirements increase significantly once you move into late gestation and are their highest from calving through breeding.  And 20 pounds of milk is not considered a high milking beef cow.  This leads me to a couple of areas that are often overlooked when addressing cow herd nutrition.  One is actual mature cow weight in your herd and the other is potential milk production.  The amount of forage required is impacted greatly by the size of your cows and the potential milk production of your herd can influence the nutrients required or the quality of the diet provided.  There are good nutritional tables and guidelines to use for estimating nutrient requirements based on cow size and milk production in the updated (2000) National Research Council’s Nutrient Requirements of Beef Cattle.  These guidelines are a good place to check what your diets are providing based on cow type, size and production level expected.  And don’t forget the younger cows in your herd.  They actually deserve a blog devoted entirely to their management.  Because of their lower dry matter intake, first calf heifers require a more nutrient dense diet and specific supplementation programs as they need to produce milk, add body weight and rebreed.  A tall order, especially if managed with the main cow herd.

A good supplement can help low or medium quality forages meet cow requirements and help her maintain milk production and stay on schedule to breed and calve early.  The benefits of a supplement can help not only support the macro nutrient needs of the cow like protein and energy, but a high quality supplement will also contain a good supply of the required vitamins and minerals needed for optimal performance.  It is easy to lose sight of the micro nutrients when focusing on protein and energy.  Inexpensive commodity feeds like grain processing or ethanol byproducts are good at providing low cost nutrients like protein or energy, however, they often lack micro nutrient and vitamin fortification and in some cases are antagonistic to other micro nutrients in the diet.  Commercial supplements in most cases add nutrients like trace minerals and vitamins in order to provide a balanced diet.  Look at the label to see how much of the cow requirements are being met when evaluating your supplement options. 

So a few take away notes that I would like to leave with you are 1) This past winter conditions have been more challenging in many areas of the US compared to normal conditions and you need to make sure you have kept up with the challenges when providing nutrition to your cow herd.  2) Are you feeding a text-book cow that weighs 1200 pounds or does your herd routinely produce 1400 pound cull cows?  In other words, make sure you feed what you have, not what the book says you have.  3) Have you been selecting for milk in your bulls producing replacement females within your herd?  Check what the sire summaries are saying about the bulls that you are using.  It is not hard for selection that yields an increase in milk to also result in an increase in nutrient requirements that must be addressed.  If not, cows will begin to have more difficulty breeding on time and maintaining condition through the winter.   Make sure your cows are on track going into calving and following through up to breeding.  It is the most critical time of the year and you can’t afford more cows cycling and breeding late, or worse, open…..