Page 16 - MWC 9-15-2022s2

The Midwest Cattleman · September 15, 2022 · P16
SORTING FOR OPTIONS WITH THIN COWS

By Justin Sexten - Precision Animal Health
Compensatory gain is one fits of early weaning
of the most valuable traits in to addressing drought
the beef industry. If you don’t pastures. Early wean-
believe me, compare the pric- ing can improve re-
es of “green” and “fleshy” feed- production and cow
er cattle some time. Sure, the condition by eliminat-
program cattle will ring the ing milk production
bell but a set of green steers demands. Seems sim-
off grass are a close second ple but there are two
and hard to imagine a more key challenges limit-
discounted weight class than ing adoption: wean-
6 weight fleshy heifers. ing early enough and
Ironically the value prop- managing the calves.
osition is the exact opposite Early weaning has
for the cow herd. Thin cull the greatest benefit
cows find few friends and to the cow herd when
a thin bred cow in October there are days left in
has even odds of becoming the breeding season.
a pound cow or going back Once the breeding sea- Set aside the biological ad- due to a limited buyer pool
to the ranch. With much of son ends any reproduction vantages of decreased energy that is likely in a similar
the US cow herd in some benefits are delayed until the demands of milk production drought situation. Option-
form of drought the odds of next year. When using a con- and weaning age, let's consid- ality is an underappreciat-
thin cows heading into the trolled breeding season this er what weaning accomplish- ed marketing characteristic.
autumn weaning season are means early weaning needs es from an economic perspec- Once weaned the options to
high. Let’s look at practical to occur between 90 and 150 tive. Simply put, weaning market or retain cows and
approaches to wrangling the days of age. For many oper- separates the cow herd into strategically manage our for-
challenge of dry pastures and ations this is a dealbreaker, diverse marketing units. age resource get much sim-
thin cows. trading the challenge of thin Trying to reduce ranch nu- pler. Weaning is the first step
There is no shortage of ar- cows for that of managing trient demand by marketing to unlocking optionality. The
ticles highlighting the bene- flyweight calves. cow-calf pairs is challenging

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