Jan. 12, 2012 - Proper cattle nutrition should begin with proper parasite control, according to Clay Wright, a livestock consultant for the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation.
"This is something that I believe that you need to work out between you and your veterinarian, because your timing and my timing will be different," Wright explained. "All of these things need to be taken into consideration when planning a parasite control system."
Despite how a veterinarian and producer plan to keep parasites under control, cow-calf producers all expect the same basic things from their cows. The hierarchy of tasks include maintenance, gestation (fetus development), milk production, growth, breeding and conditioning. Nutrients from feed and forage trickle down in that order for cattle and if they don't get enough nutrients, then other tasks on the hierarchy can go uncompleted.
"This is where I think parasites have the greatest negative impact on any operation and that is related to nutrition," Wright said. "Our goal is profitability and sustainability, so we can be in business next year. In a cow-calf operation, the thing that drives profit, the number one factor that drives profit is reproductive performance in that cow, getting her bred, getting her gestating and getting her to lie down and have that calf and raise it. That is the number one factor that affects my profitability, and in my experience, and we saw it all summer long and into the fall, nutrition drives reproduction. Reproduction failure is generally a nutrition problem of inadequate nutrition."
Parasite problems come into play because regardless of how much good feed and forage are provided to an animal, if they have a parasite load, then it is being taken from them, wasting the producer's money and decreasing the animal's condition.
"Parasites affect adequate nutrition," Wright explained. "I love to talk about this hierarchy of nutrition. All it says is that every nutrient that an animal takes in, doesn't matter if it is a suckling calf, a mature bull, a stocker, a first calf heifer a mature calf it doesn't matter, every thing that animals takes in, we are asking her or him to perform these tasks and that animal is going to do them in order."
First is maintenance, everything an animal takes in is going to be used in one way or another, the nutrients available to it are going to be used to maintain itself first before anything else, before any other need is met.
"Maintenance is keeping warm or keeping cool, traveling to graze or to water, breathing, living, all of those things are maintenance. If there are nutrients left over after that, animal maintains is going to use them for whatever the next task is in its hierarchy," Wright said. "At that point in time, these things will change, especially for a mature cow during the reproductive cycle, these things will change, so we have to keep up with that."
During gestation, a cow is expected to take care of that unborn calf, which also needs proper nutrition to grow. While at first it will not take up a lot of the nutrients, it will need some.
"A fetus is mostly water and the fetus will have 70 to 75 percent in its last trimester," Wright explained. "A dry pregnant cow, and a middle-trimester cow that is not lactating, that is the lowest she will be in terms of nutritional needs during the whole year.
"Milk production is a little different," he continued. "Milk production is a tremendous user of nutrients. That is where the most nutrients are used for a female. So, there is maintenance, growing a fetus and then there is a big jump. When she reaches peak lactation after she calves, her protein requirements are going to be twice what they where when she was dry and pregnant."
Then, when it comes to stockers, pregnant heifers, first calf heifers, those classes of cattle are still expected to be growing.
"We are going to ask them to grow, this can apply to anything that is not mature," Wright said.
"Take a first-calf heifer for instance, she has to grow some, but she is going to have to maintain herself," he explained. "If she has just calved, she is going to start producing milk, she has got to grow, she has to complete all of these needs before she is going to grow. This is just one example where a first-calf heifer can be hard to breed back."
Breeding is going to apply to cows, heifers and bulls. Where this task may fall in different place in each of the classes, nutritional hierarchy is still a vital piece in an animals ability to breed and stay fertile.
"We don't ask a whole lot of a bull, we are going to ask a mature bull to maintain himself and to breed," Wright said. "If he is on a plane of nutrition that only maintains himself, he is liable to go sterile and not breed for us. The same is very true for a female. She has to meet all these needs before she is going to breed back."
Finally producers would ideally like to have animals that can do all those things, as well as add condition to their bodies.
"There is a tremendous amount of nutrients required to add condition," Wright said. "This is where parasites come in... Parasites get their share of everything that animal takes in right off of the top. That is why it is so important. That is why it is so important to know what our parasite problems are and to treat them accordingly."
So, in order for an animal to be able to maintain a desirable body score, have successful gestation, produce adequate milk, grow accordingly, breed and eventually add condition, they must have good uninterrupted nutrition. If a proper parasite and disease control program is not practiced, interruptions like external or internal parasite loads can add to stress, low immunity and therefore keep an animal from completing its hierarchy of tasks.
