Calving season is in full swing (or nearing full swing) for spring cows. The fruits of your labor combined with genetic matings are literally coming to life. What an exciting time to recap your choices from the previous year! There’s no bigger reward in this industry than capitalizing on the decisions of last year, but like the tax collector, don’t pay attention to your herd in arrears. The windshield is bigger than the rearview mirror for a reason. Now is the time to begin thinking of next year’s calf crop. A proactive, not reactive, approach to management and nutrition will always drive the profitability of your operation.
Annual and repeatable reproductive success is the critical control point for profitability. Collectively, we need our herd to calve on the same day, if not earlier, in 2026 to maintain our profit margins. The typical gestation length is 283 days, meaning we only have 82 days to rebreed her before profits are lost. We ask each of our cows to clean out, repair her uterus, produce quality colostrum, generate adequate amounts of milk for her calf and breed back in less than three months. This doesn’t even account for those pesky 2-year-olds who are still growing themselves! Obviously, we need to maximize our nutritional offering to the herd during these peak demands. If the cow doesn’t have the means to sustain herself during this critical period, Mother Nature decides she won’t breed back.
Speaking of Mother Nature, she likes to surprise us with some drastic shifts during these winter months. Cows are hardy creatures and can withstand the cold and snowy conditions much better than we can because of their ability to thermoregulate. However, when the environment drops below her lower critical temperature, she now spends more energy just to stay warm. Her body and biology enter survival mode, which takes precedence over nutrient needs for important things such as cyclicity and milk production. They also huddle closely or confine themselves inside during frigid temperatures. More time in close quarters means easier exposure to viruses, bacteria and other pathogens. These environmental stressors do nothing but raise hurdles higher when trying to manage your herd effectively for rebreeding.
Again, try to take a proactive approach to clearing these hurdles before it’s too late. Luckily, there are nutritional tools that can be delivered daily to help alleviate these nutritional strains. Prebiotics can be fed daily and are research-proven to stimulate the populations of beneficial, energy-harvesting bacteria in the gut. More good bacteria mean more effective fermentation of the feeds they consume and greater volatile fatty acid (VFA) production. If VFAs serve as more than 70% of the energy source for the cow and prebiotics can generate 16% more VFAs – that’s an improvement of 11% in total energy available to the cow. Think about the implications of getting 11% more energy from the feeds you provide to your herd with no additional labor. This extra energy boost allows her to withstand lower critical temperatures 11°F lower than a herd not fed that prebiotic. That means more performance or savings in feed costs when your cows don’t have to eat more just to stay warm. Not to mention, the energy can be used toward repairing her reproductive tract and firing up the endocrine system she needs to cycle again consistently.
Don’t forget that the gut is home to more than 70% of the immune system and serves as a barrier to the vital organs of the body. Improving the number of beneficial bacteria helps to crowd out pathogens because they compete for nutrients in the body. When a prebiotic product stimulates the number of good bacteria and improves the barrier function of the gut lining, we’ve essentially strengthened the army and fortified the wall from the bad guys (pathogens) entering. The one-two punch of a prebiotic on improving gut health can pay dividends in improvements in productivity. Ultimately, you can reach your goals of getting these cows cycling sooner and breeding back appropriately.
Don’t forget the other side of the equation
We put most of our reproductive focus on the cows, but don’t forget that the bull plays just as big of a role in achieving our goals and progressing the herd. He represents half of the genetics in your next calf crop. The time, effort and finances you put into the cows are an afterthought if he’s not ready to go to work.
Spermatogenesis in beef cattle is a roughly 60-day cycle, so, as a rule of thumb, spend at least two months ramping up his plane of nutrition before the breeding season. Alternatively, if you purchase a bull this sale season, he was likely fed a hot diet to maximize his performance and marketability. Spend those same two months slowly transitioning to a forage diet. The energy benefit from prebiotic technologies can help bridge the gap between his previous feeding to what he’ll consume in fresh grass this spring.
Don’t forget vitamins and minerals, too. Zinc supplementation is correlated with improved semen quality as well as hoof health and immune function.
Take the time to enjoy the calving season through the short days and long nights. There’s nothing more rewarding than seeing that newborn calf get off to a great start in life. Don’t be reactive – now is the critical nutritional time to prepare your cows for next year. Take a proactive approach. Boost the microbiome with a trusted daily prebiotic; you’ll reap the benefits of annual reproductive success and profitability.
