Are You Sure That Is What You Want?

By John F. Grimes

We are finally seeing signs that spring may be here in earnest. Temperatures have been a bit uneven but are trending warmer. Grass is greening up and soil conditions are becoming more favorable for farmers to accomplish field work. Most cow-calf producers are starting to wind down their spring calving seasons and in some cases have started or will soon start their breeding season.

As we move into breeding season, it is a great time to evaluate the early returns on this year's calf crop. While we have a ways to go to evaluate growth and other traits, we need to evaluate the results from this most recent calving season. There is no doubt that this winter's weather complicated the calving season with record cold temperatures, snow, and ice. How much calving difficulty did you experience this year? Were your calves bigger this year? Did you have to provide more assistance with heifers or cows during calving? What percentage of live calves were delivered at birth?

As I visit with commercial cow-calf producers in the region in my roles as an Extension Educator and a seedstock producer, the most important trait that I hear expressed by the average bull buyer or those choosing sires for artificial insemination is calving ease. I can't disagree with that opinion because a cow needs to deliver a live calf every year if she hopes to have a chance at profitability.

This sentiment was confirmed in a recent survey by "BEEF" magazine. The magazine surveyed cow-calf producers on what was important to them when buying herd bulls. Producers were asked "Which of the following information do you require to purchase a bull?" Here were the top five answers:

• Actual birth weight-72.9%
• Birth weight EPD-68.6%
• Calving Ease-Direct EPD-58.5%
• Actual weaning weight-55.3%
• Weaning weight EPD-52.9%

You can see that calving time is clearly on the producer's mind. However, I would recommend a change in the prioritization of traits that impact calving ease. Obviously, calf birth weight does play a role in calving ease but remember that actual calf birth weight is greatly impacted by environmental factors. In fact, birth weight is more impacted by environment than genetics. True calving ease is impacted by multiple factors which include birth weight, shape and muscularity of the calf, etc.

A better approach would be to focus on calving ease Expected Progeny Differences (EPDs) over actual birth weights. Calving ease direct EPDs provide information about the expected assistance required at birth for an animal's calves and predict the ease with which calves will be born. Calving ease maternal EPDs go one step farther and give an indication about the expected assistance required for calves out of an animal's two-year-old daughters. Both of these EPDs factor in actual birth weight along with other factors to provide the cow-calf producer much more valuable information about potential calving issues.

It has been my professional and personal experience that many cow-calf producers are not totally committed to improving calving ease and are conflicted on how best to achieve it. Producers say they want calving ease but do their actions speak louder than words? Here is my case to make this point:

1. Many do not record birth weights and document any assistance provided at calving time. Do you have documentation to assist you in making solid breeding decisions?

2. Producers that utilize a single sire with their cow herd actually tend to over-compensate for calving ease by trying to match a sire for any replacement heifers that have been retained. This practice often results in a poor sire match for the mature cows in terms of overall performance.

3. There are those that will limit feed females in the belief that they will get females too fat and cause calving problems when more problems can actually result from females that are too thin at calving.

4. It is human nature to place too much emphasis on the physical appraisal of a bull to determine calving ease. We all like to look at physically impressive animals but they may not be the right choice for calving ease. Will you use a true calving ease sire if he doesn't pass the "eyeball" test even though that may be what a group of heifers may need?

5. Many believe that by focusing on calving ease there will be a sacrifice in performance of other economically important traits. Nearly all breeds have bloodlines available that will allow you to have calving ease with very acceptable growth, reproduction, and carcass traits. Do you make every effort to identify those genetics that will help keep your operation profitable?

Calving ease is clearly an economically important trait for the cow-calf producer. I believe all of us can agree with that statement. I recommend it is time to take advantage of modern selection tools like EPDs to improve our calf crop percentages. I would expect that it will make the management of your cow herd easier and maybe avoid those unpleasant emergency phone calls to your local veterinarian!

Source:osu.edu