References
Feeding the pregnant beef cow
Abstract
Nutritional management of beef cows during pregnancy is critical for both cow and calf health, as well as future fertility. Careful management of cow body condition throughout the year is vital to maintain good cow reproductive efficiency, as well as utilising body reserves during the winter to reduce feed costs. Regular body condition scoring is therefore key, and appropriate action should be taken with cows that are either too thin (below body condition score (BCS) 2.5) or too fat (over BCS 3.5). Forage analyses of grass silage is important for the assessment of forage stocks and appropriate supplementation. Metabolic profile blood testing of cows during the winter housing period for the assessment of energy, protein and mineral status can be a useful management tool to assess current nutritional status. This allows informed decisions to be made to correct nutritional problems before they harm cow and calf health, as well as future fertility.
The primary objective of feeding suckler cows is to produce one viable calf per cow each year, maintain cow health, maximise reproductive efficiency and achieve high calf growth rates during the milk rearing phase (Figure 1). However, given that feeding represents the highest variable cost in suckler cow production, it is important that all feeding decisions are not just made for the least cost, as this may result in compromises that might affect cow and calf health, as well as reduce cow fertility, and so annual production in the herd.
Table 1 shows the main nutritional guidelines for a mature 650 kg suckler cow during key stages of the production cycle. These guidelines will vary according to factors, such as cow condition, controlled weight loss and feedstuffs used. However it should be noted that for a dry suckler cow in late pregnancy, ad-lib intakes (10 kg dry matter (DM)) of modest quality silage (9.5 MJ/kg DM) will easily meet the energy requirements of these cows, and indeed could potentially result in these cows putting on excessive amounts of body condition if fed over the whole winter housing period.
Register now to continue reading
Thank you for visiting UK-VET Companion Animal and reading some of our peer-reviewed content for veterinary professionals. To continue reading this article, please register today.