Managing liveweight production from beef breeding herds

Abstract

Introduction – asking the right question
Too often when the question is asked, ‘How is your beef breeding herd going?’ the answer is a performance measure such as the proportion of cows pregnant or calves weaned. However, profit is primarily a function of live weight production, its value, and the cost of production. Therefore, the question should be ‘How many kilograms of live weight do you produce annually from this management group (herd) of breeding females per hectare?’ For example, if the farmer puts 100 tonne of cows in a paddock after completing pregnancy diagnosis of the herd then 12 months later how many tonnes of beef have been harvested from the herd (includes calves weaned and any cows and bulls sold). The role of veterinarians consulting to beef breeding farms should be to develop management strategies to improve herd live-weight production and identify opportunities to reduce cost of production. However, beef cattle farmers typically use veterinarians only to conduct pregnancy diagnosis, breeding soundness examination of bulls, and investigate outbreaks of disease or lower than expected reproductive performance.