Webinar discusses strategies for calving, weaning and feeding during drought

Ward Laboratories hosted the second in their series of webinars March 14, Drought Challenges and Strategies Part 2: Calving, Weaning and Feed Cost.

The webinar featured Ben Beckman of Nebraska Extension, Adele Harty of South Dakota State University Extension, Carmen Willmore of University of Idaho Extension, Melinda Ellison of University of Idaho Extension, and Megan Van Emon of Montana State University Extension in a discussion on drought challenges and strategies in various parts of the United States.

Ward Laboratories, Inc. Professional Animal Scientist Rebecca Kern moderated the event and said many of the geographical areas covered by the Extension professionals haven’t seen much improvement in their drought situations. In November 2021 areas of Montana, Idaho, Nebraska and South Dakota were experiencing some severe and extreme drought. By mid-March, there has been some improvement across the West, but snowfall typically doesn’t improve drought.

“We don’t want to get too optimistic about this,” Kern said. “We do need to still be drought planning, considering how we’re going to feed and care for these animals as we go.”

Beckman said in Nebraska conditions have gotten drier and he’s hoping to see some moisture in the spring.

Looking at some of the subsurface soil moisture maps, there’s been depletion through the fall, and if there isn’t any spring rain to replenish things, summer might be rough.

“Just keeping that in the back of mind as we go forward,” he said. “It’s going to be really important that we’re kind of in that wait-and-see stage.”

Harty said although the drought monitor for South Dakota shows how dry it is it’s not entirely representative of what’s actually being seen, especially in the western part of the state.

“We’ve had very little snow this winter,” she said. “I would say for the most part we’ve had less than a half inch of precipitation in coming from snow so far. And so we’ve got a lot a lot of pastures that are grazed off shorter than my producers would like them to be.”

There’s been a lot of wind, blowing what moisture was there away. As well, there’s been above normal temperatures, and like Nebraska, producers would be OK with a little bit of mud to contend with.

“We’d be okay to have a little bit of mud to help with what the future might look like,” she said. “We’re definitely going to need some March and April precipitation to continue moving us forward.”

Van Emon agrees, and said the drought monitor doesn’t really show how bleak the conditions really are, especially in eastern Montana.

It’s nice to have good weather for calving, but right now Van Emon and her producers would take some precipitation.

“I think right now most of us would take a muddy calving season just to guarantee some rain and it was foggy today,” she said. “So hopefully by mid-June when everybody’s getting ready for their first cutting it’ll rain on it.”

Things aren’t looking good on the eastern side of Montana, and pastures are “pretty much gone.”

“And it’s going to take a lot of recovery time to get them back,” she said. “So until we know what forages are going to do and what our spring moisture’s looking like a lot of our guys are probably going to look at selling cows first part of spring after calving.”

Van Emon said in some areas of Montana 20 to 50% of the cattle have already left the state.

“A lot of them did actually go to Nebraska to graze corn stalks but I don’t think any of them are going to return here this spring for calving season,” she said.

Most of her producers have reduced their herd numbers to 10 to 20% of their entire herd in order to have enough to calve out and keep enough to maintain the genetic base.

Idaho isn’t any better off and Wilmore said many irrigation districts are reporting between 75 and 90% of the snow water equivalent for the past 20 years.

She’s hoping for a few more inches of precipitation before the real growing season hits.

Ellison said producers are calling her looking for alternative feeds and what they can do to cheapen up their feeding costs.

And if there isn’t any moisture, it’s going to get bleak for the growing season this year. For the rangeland, Ellison said last year was as tough as any.

“Best case scenario would be to really hold off and wait for some precipitation and some good growth before we go out on range,” she said. “But given that it’s been tough to even come by alternative feeds, it’s going to be a really challenging year.”

Livestock producers have cut back on numbers pretty dramatically and many are looking at early weaning options to try and overcome the obstacles thrown at them.

“The biggest thing now is it’s not the first drought we’ve ever experienced, but it is the first drought with things costing the way they do,” Ellison said. “That’s something that’s going to be a big challenge for producers moving forward.”

Is early weaning a solution?

Kern noted a lot of the Extension professionals discussed early weaning in their opening remarks and asked them to give some key points to implementing early weaning.

Ellison said the clear thing to do when trying to early wean—whether it be calves, lambs or other ruminants—is they need to be started on a creep feed or grower feed as early as possible.

“I know that’s an expense moving forward, but if you can get them going well on some good quality alfalfa and some growers and whatever, you can really end up being able to wean those a lot earlier than if you just operate the way that we usually operate, which is hoping that the mothers can do something with them prior to weaning,” she said.

Having the animals at a good nutritional standpoint when you do make the decision to wean helps ensure they stay healthy during the process and encourages good growth.

Ellison said as far as creep feed goes, when starting out aim for something with 18 to 20% protein and as they get older, other feed sources or forages can make up the difference. This allows you to back off to that 14 or 16% protein. She also said to buy the brands you know and trust.

Finding a knowledgeable nutritionist can be beneficial too.

“I don’t think this is a bad year to find a nutritionist that can help you really dive in and nail down what your nutrition looks like,” she said. “Because the opportunity here is to provide a really pointed, balanced ration so that your animals don’t suffer from the stress of the drought quite as badly and your range lands and your pastures won’t suffer from it as badly if you’re really pointing in on your balanced ration and getting to those really specific marks.”

Harty had two points when it came to early weaning. And although she agreed with Ellision on her nutrition considerations, she also believes having a good health program that includes proper vaccinations sets those calves up to be successful. Work with a veterinarian so they know you’re planning to wean early and they can work with you to manage them appropriately.

Van Emon said one of the main questions she gets when it comes to early weaning is at what age can the calves be weaned?

“Usually my general recommendation is no younger than 80 days,” she said. “You could probably push it to 60 if you absolutely had to, but that’s a lot of extra stress on you as the as the manager of the cattle but also on those calves.”

By 80 days the calves are starting to graze in the pasture and beginning to establish their rumen function. Immune function is also better at this age than any younger.

Looking ahead to spring grazing

When it comes to the prospects of grazing a cow-calf herd this spring, Beckman believes it’s going to depend on what kind of precipitation an area ends up getting and if the pastures bounce back.

“If we’ve over grazed a pasture already, we’ve put stress on that plant, it’s going to take it a while to recover,” he said. “And so the biggest thing I think is that we can’t expect to go out and stock a pasture that we’ve over grazed and already stressed at 100% and expect it to totally recover within one year.”

Beckman said to look at it over a longer period of time. Consider the recovery time and precipitation needs for that pasture to fully recover.

A producer needs to determine whether or not they want to make a sacrifice area and do some supplemental feeding or reducing numbers. Dry lotting is an option, but it’s going to be a costly option in 2022 due to the feed and hay prices.

“Looking forward—we really have to start putting pencil to paper and figuring out just what strategy is going to work for us,” Beckman said. “And it’s not necessarily going to be fun, but doing that here well ahead of time and starting to think about some of these things and start to pencil some of these things out might make it a little bit easier when we actually have rubber hit the road and have to start making these decisions.”

Kylene Scott can be reached at 620-227-1804 or [email protected].