Calf Value Improvement

Calf Value Improvement is a key component of profitability improvement in any cattle herd. While I was at Beef & Greet in Bentonville, Arkansas, I had the opportunity to catch up with Dr. Deana Hardee for a few minutes. Dr. Hardee spoke at the event and took a few minutes to speak with us. Dr. Hardee has a very approachable personality and provides our listeners with great usable information to improve the profitability of their cattle operations. Dr. Deana Hardee, a technical services veterinarian at Merck, discussed strategies to optimize calf value on the American Cattlemen podcast. She emphasized the importance of tightening the calving window through AI, embryo transfer, or prostaglandin use, which can increase weaning weights by 20 pounds. Hardy highlighted the benefits of a solid vaccine program, noting a $15 per head advantage for calves in the Vac 45 and Vac 60 programs. She also emphasized the economic benefits of implanting unweaned calves, which can add 23 pounds per head, as well as the strategic use of deworming to enhance pasture health and improve calf value and performance.  Yes, sir. As I mentioned, I really appreciate it when both animal health and the economics of it align, and it's the right thing to do for the calf. But I think one of the easy things we can do in the cow-calf space is to tighten the calving window and have a more uniform calf crop. As we consider this, several technologies can be utilized to achieve that goal. I think one of the obvious ones to even potentially bring in different genetics to the herd is something like AI or artificial insemination, and those protocols that allow us to set those females up with a different form of technology. One that we have at Merck Animal Health is the sub calf. When we think about those AI protocols, or even embryo transfer, donor, and reset females, we are able to better optimize the weaning window for breeding, and literally put this on an app on your phone. So again, there are technologies like that that certainly exist. However, if you're going to utilize your own bull battery and want to try to tighten that calving window, that's something you can do. Is something as simple as administering a prostaglandin, such as estrumate, five days after bull turnout? So what that does is essentially allow more females to try to get bred during that first heat cycle, which is the first 21 days. In return, you can shorten or tighten that calving window, and you have more pounds to market at weaning time. So, again, we can be as advanced as an app on your phone, all the way down to something as simple as utilizing something like estimating five days after a bull turnout to achieve a more uniform calf crop. So what's interesting in all of our data is that we see not only benefits at weaning time, but those animals that were born in that first cycle, they're gonna actually be are more fertile, or the heifers that also get bred first, and if you're retaining ownership through the feeding phase, we're gonna hang a heavier carcass in animals. And so intuitively, makes sense, but it's something as simple as, like I said, giving that extermate five days after bull turnout to get those females to drop a calf earlier in that first heat cycle.

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