The major goal at calving is to calve 70 percent or more of your cows during the first 21 days of the calving season. When making culling decisions, select animals that breed and calve early each year. These animals will continue to be more fertile as compared to those calving late in the calving season.
What is a good calving difficulty percentage?
Ideally select a high reliability bull with a beef heifer calving difficulty figure of less than 7.5%. Heifers that calved for the 1st time at 23-26 month had greater survivability.
What is a good percent calf crop?
This performance measure is an important calculation as it provides an indication of a cow herd’s reproductive efficiency and management during gestation. A goal for herd calving percentage should be 90 percent or higher.
What is a good calving ease score?
Calving ease is scored on a scale from 1 to 5. A score of 1 represents an unassisted calving, 2 is some assistance, 3 is mechanical assistance, 4 is a C-section, and 5 is an abnormal presentation.
What percent of the cows mother should a calf gain?
Although it depends on location, nutrition, and genetics, a good calf weaning weight should be around 50% of its mother’s body weight or between 500 and 700 pounds.
What is the target 6 week calving rate?
90%
Farms with a 90% six-week calving rate expect half the herd to calve in 16 to 18 days. For a 100-cow herd, this is about three calvings per day; for 300 cows it’s an average of 10 births/day. The number of calvings can spike in any day. It won’t be spread evenly over the period, so you must be prepared for this too.
What percentage does a cow dress out?
63 percent
As a general rule, most cattle will have an average dressing percentage of 63 percent. This means that a beef animal weighing 1,000lbs will result in a carcass that weighs only 630lbs after slaughter. Although the average dressing percent for beef is 63 percent, several factors may affect the carcass weight.
What color calves sell best?
Among heifers, Red Angus-sired calves had the greatest (P
What is the best weight to sell a calf?
In general, the value of gain on 300-400 pound calves tends to be higher than for 500-600 pound calves. Use the light-weight feeder steers as a base to view the price differences as you add weight to various endpoints. This measurement is commonly used by stocker operators.
What is the best grain to finish cattle?
10-15 lbs. per day of corn, oats or barley fed to grazing cattle is a good finishing ration. This fed to a 900-1000 pound steer for 3-4 months should will you a nicely finished animal. If you do not have access to pasture or if you are finishing during the winter, you might increase the amount of grain to 15-18 lbs.
What does good calf genetics mean?
What Are Good Calf Genetics? With good calf muscle genetics, the proportion of Type II to Type I muscle fibers in your gastrocnemius is high, meaning the size and strength of your calf muscles is highly responsive to training. Good calf muscle genetics also includes a large muscle belly and desirable muscle shape.
What is the average calving interval for a cow?
An expert in cow fertility says an average calving interval of less than 400 days is achievable in all dairy herds.
What is the easiest calving bull?
Ivor: Limousin bull
Ivor is extremely easy-calving; 2.5% calving difficulty on beef cows and 6% calving difficulty on beef heifers.
What percentage of cow births are successful?
Previous research on reproductive wastage has indicated that maximum pregnancy rate per oestrus is expected to be in the vicinity of 75% (Holroyd et al.
How do you tell if a calf is getting enough milk?
A simple system is to give the calf a tag with the same number as its mother. Calves that look cold, hunched up, and droopy should be suspected of not getting enough milk. A quick check of his mom’s udder (either tight and overfull or flat and milk-less) will often reveal the reason this calf looks hungry.
Do bigger cows make more milk?
The critical limiting factor is total Dry Matter Intake (DMI) – bigger cows are capable of higher milk yields but there is a limit to the size of the rumen and appetite!
How can I maximize my calving 6 weeks?
7 ways to help you achieve a six-week calving
- Heifer management. Monitor liveweights of youngstock to ensure they are on course to achieve target weights – aim for 60% of mature weight at mating.
- Body condition.
- Nutrition.
- Heat detection.
- AI practices.
- Issues relating to cows not cycling.
- Cow health.
How can I increase my 6 week calf rate?
How to lift your herd’s 6-week in-calf rate
- Make sure your herd’s calving, mating, and pregnancy records are current.
- Resolve any herd record queries.
- Set up access to your Reproduction reports on MINDA Live if you’re an LIC customer or get in touch with your service provider.
What percentage of calves are stillborn?
Across several large studies, stillbirth rates have ranged from as low as 4.3 percent to as high as 10.3 percent. Calves should be sat upright shortly after calving so that they can expand both of their lungs.
What does dressing percentage tell us?
The ability to determine dressing percentage allows a producer to estimate the carcase weight of a live animal, for example to compare the price that would be received on a liveweight basis with the price received on a carcase value basis. The term ‘yield’ is often used instead of dressing percentage.
What percentage of meat do you get off a cow?
The expected yield of retail cuts from beef carcasses ranges from approximately 55% to 75%, depending on the fatness and muscling of the animal, and the type of cuts produced.