During the holiday season, finding the right gift to give is sometimes difficult, especially when trying to find that perfect gift that is also meaningful to the recipient. There are many ways in which people open up their hearts during this season, whether it be putting money into the red kettles, donating items for those in need, or paying for the order of the person behind you in the drive-thru. These are gifts that keep on giving while providing joy to many.

You can give a meaningful gift to your cow herd too, and it’ll have a generational impact and keep on giving. That gift is supplemental nutrition to support fetal programming.

What’s going on in the third trimester

Fetal programming, otherwise known as developmental programming, is the theory that the maternal environment during gestation can have a lasting impact on the offspring. In other words, if cows are undernourished during pregnancy, their calves’ performance may be compromised — particularly in terms of immune response, growth rate and potential longevity as replacement females in the herd.

There are critical windows of development during which certain growth parameters receive priority for the developing calf in utero. During the third trimester of pregnancy, we see a substantial amount of calf growth happening, roughly 75%, along with the organs maturing to be capable of functioning outside of the mama cow. If the mama cow isn’t receiving the nutrition she needs to help her calf thrive during this time, research confirms that there will be detrimental effects, and these effects can be felt for generations down the line.

Many of the studies in this area tell us that when cows don’t receive their full nutrient requirements during the last one-third of pregnancy, calf birth weight may be compromised. While some may think smaller calves will result in less dystocia, nutrient restriction isn’t the answer for calving ease. Changing the growth trajectory of calves by nutrient restriction actually leads to less mature organs, impaired ability to store body heat or regulate body temperature, and less vigor and strength at birth — all which may work against early calf survival. Genetic selection is a better option to promote calving ease.

Long-term effects of nutrient deficits in utero

Long-term impacts of inadequate nutrition in utero have also been measured on both the heifer and steer sides.

In most fetal programming research, treatments are put on a group of cows during a certain time frame, such as the last 90 days of pregnancy. The treated cows are then commingled with others and kept on the same plane of nutrition upon calving, to measure the effect nutrition had during a certain time period.

In one study, heifers born to cows that were nutrient-restricted during the third trimester were lighter based on adjusted 205-day weaning weights, pre-breeding weights, and pregnancy check weights (Martin et al., 2007). While pregnancy rates were 93% in heifers born to supplemented cows, they were only 80% in the lighter heifers. Of the 93% of heifers born to supplemented cows, 77% calved in the first 21 days, compared to only 49% of the 80% born to unsupplemented cows (Martin et al., 2007; Funston et al., 2008). When heifers calve early in the breeding season, they are more likely to stay in the herd longer, generating more revenue.

Work has also been done looking at reproductive performance in relation to the number of oocytes a female is born with, with nutrient restriction in utero having a negative impact on how she is programmed.

On the feedlot side, better nutrition during the last part of gestation is correlated with fewer treatments in the feedlot. This suggests better organ development and proper maturation in calves born to cows receiving the required nutrition during pregnancy. In some studies, 11% of calves born to cows not supplemented were treated in the feedlot, in comparison to only 2% of calves born to supplemented cows (Larson et al., 2009; Mulliniks et al., 2007). The difference also impacted quality grades, with a greater percentage of the calves born to supplemented cows graded choice and upper two-thirds choice, even when all calves were on the same diet from birth through finishing (Larson et al., 2009).

What about fall calvers?

For our fall calving herds, this time of year is not a time to skimp on nutrition either. The first and second trimesters also have critical windows of development for that calf in utero. During the early part of pregnancy, the placenta is developing, attaching to the important sites to help get blood flow and nutrients to the calf. Additionally, organogenesis, or the formation of the organs and cells, is underway, paving the way for proper organ development later in pregnancy.

Since programming starts at conception, it is important to provide the best nutrition from the start to be set up for success.

Drought and fetal programming

A few years ago, a cattleman in Texas told me he could look at his records and tell just from pregnancy results which years were dry. Heifers conceived and programmed during the droughts were poorer performers when they got to breeding age, and they fell out of the herd a lot sooner. This is exactly what university research has demonstrated: that nutrient restriction, as often handed to us during dry years, has negative impacts on heifer performance due to programming that happens before the calf hits the ground.

What to supplement

Hopefully, by now you are convinced that getting the right nutrition into the cow is important for the developing calf. The next question is, what do you supplement? That is a bit of a loaded question. The answer is, it depends on the quality of forage you are feeding and what other feedstuffs make up the diet of your cow herd.

For low-quality forages, we recommend a supplement with 30% protein, such as BGF-30™ or Blueprint^® 30, to improve the digestibility of those forages and get the energy out of them that your cows are requiring. You would also want to supplement with a mineral such as Mineral-lyx^® or Blueprint 6% Phos, as mineral requirements are climbing through the end of pregnancy and into lactation as well. If feeding a moderate-quality forage, a BGF-20™ or Blueprint^® 20% AN, along with a mineral, will do.

Talk to your local Crystalyx^® dealer, and give the gift that keeps on giving by providing Crystalyx brand supplements to your cows for the gift of successful fetal programming.