Market Farming

[Jack Lane <jacklane AT mstar2.net>]

How would you rate your cows in the winter in terms of the BCS (Body 
Condition score)?


For reference Here is a broad overview of  BCS guidlines

*Body Condition Scores (BCS) *

         A BCS 1 animal is severely emaciated. Tail-head and ribs are 
prominent and the animal appears weakened. No fat can be palpated over 
the ribs, spinous processes or hip bones. A BCS 1 animal is near death.

           A BCS 5 cow is considered moderate in condition. The cow is 
generally in good overall appearance. The last two or three ribs in some 
cases can be seen and some fat is apparent in the brisket, over the ribs 
and around the tail-head. Upon palpation, fat cover over the ribs feels 
spongy, and fat around the tail-head can be felt as well.

           A BCS 9 cow is considered very obese, with large deposits if 
fate in the udder, around the tail-head, over the ribs and in the 
brisket. Bone structure is not visible and cannot be palpated over the 
hooks and ribs. The cow appears blocky and mobility may be impaired due 
to excess fate. These animals are rarely seen.

           Many operations have cows that will weigh 1,200 pounds. Some 
of these cows may be frame score 4s and some may be frame score 6x. Part 
of these differences may be due to variations in muscling; however, 
differences in condition have been found to be a large contributor to 
variation in weight. Hence, the importance of collecting body condition 
scores to characterize these weight differences is apparent.     



Does the snow help protect your unharvested forage? What about areas of 
the country (like Kentucky) that get sporadic or no snow in the wintertime.

It seems to me that if you want to raise premium beef Cattle with little 
or no supplementation. You need high quality forage. And in many places 
that means you need to store it either as Halage or Bales.

Last time I heard the only thing premium that came from high fiber, low 
protien, low carbohydrate forage was Manure

Jack Lane





Andy Wendt wrote:

> I don't think it is bad economics.  Any time you have the cow work for 
> herself instead of you working for the cow,  you're saving money.
>
> Some forages are more cut out for stockpiling on the pasture than 
> others and therefore have much higher quality throughout the winter.  
> Take Tall Fescue and Meadow Bromegrass for example, they stands up 
> well with a sheet of snow on top, maintain their quality throughout 
> the winter, and they produce a high quantity of forage, these two work 
> great in Idaho.  Now someone might say "but what about endophyte 
> toxicity?" it just so happens that Fescue loses its toxicity with the 
> onset of colder weather, and if you pick one of the endophyte 
> freindely/free varieties you should just about zero problems.  I 
> wouldn't just have fescue though put a little variety of grasses in 
> the mix.  A monoculture is inherently unstable and takes large amounts 
> of inputs to sustain it.  It also matters how much time you leave the 
> forage to start stockpiling, generally about 75 days is the optimum 
> amount of time to allow a field to stockpile. 
>
> Even if the forage was lower in quality and if the cows had to expand 
> more energy to get their daily intake, it still pays to stockpile 
> pasture.  Stockpiling on pasture compared to haying is less than 1/4 
> to 1/2 the cost.  You can make a lot of errors, and sacrifice a large 
> amount of weight gain for that cost difference.  I am not just making 
> these figures up either this was research done by the Forage Systems 
> Research Center out of the University of Missoiri  in the 80's and 
> 90's (I believe the head man on the research team was Jim Gerrish).  
> Hay making is expensive. 
>
> Thats my 2 bits,
>
> Andy
>
>
>
> robert schuler wrote:
>
> > Around here farmers can generally get at least 4  cuttings of 
> > alfalfa, cutting just before bloom yields the most TDN per acre but 
> > not the most dry matter. Some people confuse dry matter for 
> > nutrients. Old over matured hay contains a lot of indigestible fiber 
> > that a ruminant can not digest and will have to be supplemented with 
> > another protein source. Anytime you have to buy extra  protein your 
> > loosing money. The only way to stockpile forage in the north is by 
> > cutting high moisture green forage and storing it either in a silo a 
> > bag or piled up in a bunker under tarps. I think allowing cattle to 
> > dig for their forage in the snow is bad economics... Bob.
> >
> > Errol Castens wrote:
> >
> > > My uncle used to let his hayfield get desperately overmature before 
> > > he'd cut it, because it created so much more volume, and it made him 
> > > feel like he was accomplishing more. The resulting hay was of 
> > > exceedingly poor quality, and the condition of his cows showed it 
> > > all winter. (His explanation was, "Well, it beats a 
> > > snowball.") Maybe there's a logical difference, but can someone 
> > > explain to me why stockpiling summer grazing for winter foraging 
> > > would yield substantially better quality feed than my uncle's 
> > > hay? Blessings,errol castensOxford, Mississippi
> >
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