It's September 10, and Alan Graybeal is not a happy man. This time of year he's normally taking paddocks out of his grazing rotation to stockpile cool-season forages. It's his standing hay in the winter. But not this season.
"We had herds last year we only hayed for 45 days, and they were still fat," says the Blacksburg, Va., cattleman. But this past summer was one of the hottest, driest he's ever seen. So he is tied to a cell phone, consumed with lining up winter feed for his 500 Simmental-Angus cows.
He's already culled 66 cows—the ones he calls the "easy culls." These cows were open, old, lame or had obvious health problems. The ones left average a 6.5 Body Condition Score (with one emaciated and nine obese). Graybeal scores his cows as they leave the chute after their August pregnancy check.
"The main reason we monitor BCS is we want our cows to breed back on a timely basis," he explains. Graybeal's herd has a short 64-day breeding season. Artificial insemination is used on their first cycle.
"It is incredibly important to have calves born in the early part of the calving season. I want my cows in adequate body condition to calve in February and March, go to pasture in April and breed in May."
Another advantage of a good BCS is cows will be able to produce milk and get those calves off to the best possible start. Graybeal's target weight per day of age from birth to weaning, including the birthweight, is 2.8 pounds. Year in and year out, that's a mark he's hit.
A winter drop in BCS
Graybeal doesn't mind letting his cows drop a little on the BCS over the winter. It's not unusual for them to get down to a 5 by the time grass is growing in April. Essentially, the producer says he sees it as stockpiling body condition, just like he does grass.
Greg Lardy agrees. He's a North Dakota State University Extension animal scientist, and he believes that Graybeal and other producers could even go into calving with a BCS of 5. Heifers are the exception, he adds, explaining they need to be at a BCS of 6 because they are still growing and have higher nutritional needs.
Early weaning pays
For the past three years Graybeal has practiced early weaning. He takes February- and March-born calves away from dams in August, putting them in a dry lot until they go to the feedyard in October.
"We don't do that so much to put flesh on our cows, but so we can stockpile grasses," he says.
Lardy endorses the practice. "Early weaning reduces the cow's dry matter intake and eliminates demand on forage from the calf. The cows still on the pasture have access to more forage, and demands on the pasture are reduced."
Early weaning can work to boost a cow's BCS. "Lactating cows can lose body condition because they use more nutrients," says Lardy. "When there is a drought, it is usually worse because of a lack of forage."
By weaning early, those increased nutrient requirements are eliminated, and cows can maintain or increase body condition before the fall and winter feeding period.
Supplements matter
Research conducted at the USDA/ARS station in Miles City, Mont., backs that up. It showed that cows with calves weaned early were able to maintain body condition from mid-September through mid-December. Cows that nursed calves through December and weren't supplemented lost 1.4 BCS units.
That supplement is important, says Lardy. He stresses that using a supplement helped cows whether their calves were weaned early or not. With a supplement and early weaning the cows actually gained body condition.