Agricultural News
Improving Your Bottom Line Starts with Improving the Efficiency of Your Cattle
Thu, 04 Aug 2016 16:38:22 CDT
Dr. Dave Lalman, Oklahoma State University Extension beef cattle specialist, recently spoke on the issue of reproductive efficiency at the 2016 Beef Improvement Symposium. Dr. Lalman drew from a large pool of data and statistics of the US beef industry and concluded that there is a significant divide in performance of the country.
"There's a fairly dramatic difference say from the northern tier of the country to the southern tier of the country in reproduction or fertility," Lalman said.
He gave some examples of his findings explaining that in the North, pregnancy rates in cattle averaged 96 percent, which he said was very impressive. On the other hand, the South came in at 90 percent; a significant difference according to Lalman. Furthermore, he found that Northern cattle had a weaning rate of 88 to 90 percent and Southern cattle capping at 83 percent.
"There's a lot of opportunity to improve just from an animal health standpoint and a fertility or reproduction standpoint," Lalman said.
Dr. Lalman says if producers improve these two factors in their cattle, it should increase the economic wellbeing of their operation. He says producers could also look into improving their weaning weights, but suggests rather than try to do that, which would be very difficult and costly to do for an already well-managed operation, he recommends considering options to reduce input costs.
"It's going to be more productive I think to focus a little more on reducing costs than it will be on increasing revenue," Lalman said. "If it's not working anyway, why would you pour a tremendous amount of resources trying to force it to happen?"
Listen to Dr. Dave Lalman speak more on his thoughts regarding beef cattle improvement on today's Beef Buzz.
The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the region on the Radio Oklahoma Network and is a regular audio feature found on this website as well. Click on the LISTEN BAR below for today's show and check out our archives for older Beef Buzz shows covering the gamut of the beef cattle industry today.
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