Two readers of our blog (see the Roundtable below and the comments added) have prompted a response from Bill Roberts of 12 Stones Grasslands Beef.<\/p>\n
To comment on both thoughtful comments to the blog:<\/em><\/p>\n We work with top grass fed cattle producers coast to coast. \u00a0Several run grass cow\/calf operations in the thousands and several finish fats in the multiple hundreds. \u00a0Other than genetic potential, the three most common issues concerning limitations of grass cattle to grow and breed early or finish early are\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n 1) Total nutrients available for the daily grazing<\/em><\/p>\n 2) Adequate energy to meet animal requirements in the volume consumed daily<\/em><\/p>\n 3) Mineralization<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n 1 – is obvious. \u00a0There needs to be enough total feed in the area the animal can cover in a day. \u00a0This is more limited in the west arid regions and can be an issue. \u00a0However, it is often an issue in other areas due to overgrazing, poor diversity, poor soil fertility etc.<\/em><\/p>\n 2 – energy is a key issue. \u00a0The person commenting from Vermont has a very high maintenance energy requirement in the cattle during the winter. \u00a0When you consider stockpile or hay can run from 2 brix to in the 20’s, the energy per pound consumed varies greatly. \u00a0Poor forage cause grass cattle to go backward in the winter because of not enough energy. \u00a0Some grasses do not supply adequate energy even in the growing stage in monocultures. \u00a0Energy is more often than not the limiting factor. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n To get a heifer to breed at 14 to 15 months (which incidentally is what they will do in a continuing herd environment – ask Ian Mitchell-Innes) they have to have the genetic capability and the energy to grow to that maturity. \u00a0Quality forage as mob grazing builds and faster moves allow the cattle to get that energy.<\/em><\/p>\n 3 – proper mineralization to build the endocrine system that “drives the the train” is absolutely key as well. \u00a0A poor endocrine system will cause late breeding and non-breeding heifers as much as anything.<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n Once all these factors are addressed and in alignment, the performance of the animal will tell the producer if they can successfully breed early or not. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n The purist with capital may say whenever heifers breed routinely efficiently and can calve and be in condition to rebreed efficiently, that is the age I will breed and be happy. \u00a0The commercial man who has money borrowed from the bank to buy bred heifers\u00a0will want the animals that can breed early in his environment and generate a return rapidly enough to meet his cash flow requirement. \u00a0That is why animals who do not effectively breed early efficiently are rarely used in large scale operations. \u00a0Right or wrong, short sighted or not, economics are a huge part of management decisions.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Two readers of our blog (see the Roundtable below and the comments added) have prompted a response from Bill Roberts of 12 Stones Grasslands Beef. To comment on both thoughtful comments to the blog: We work with top grass fed cattle producers coast to coast. \u00a0Several run grass cow\/calf operations in the thousands and several finish fats in the multiple hundreds. \u00a0Other than genetic potential, the three most common issues concerning limitations of grass cattle to grow and breed early or finish early are\u00a0 1) Total nutrients available for the daily grazing 2) Adequate energy to meet animal requirements in the volume consumed daily 3) Mineralization \u00a0 1 – is obvious. \u00a0There needs to be enough total feed in the area the animal can cover in a day. \u00a0This is more limited in the west arid regions and can be an issue. \u00a0However, it is often an issue in other areas due to overgrazing, poor diversity, poor soil fertility etc. 2 – energy is a key issue. \u00a0The person commenting from Vermont has a very high maintenance energy requirement in the cattle during the winter. \u00a0When you consider stockpile or hay can run from 2 brix to in the 20’s, the energy per pound consumed varies greatly. \u00a0Poor forage cause grass cattle to go backward in the winter because of not enough energy. \u00a0Some grasses do not supply adequate energy even in the growing stage in monocultures. \u00a0Energy is more often than not the limiting factor. \u00a0 To get a heifer to breed at 14 to 15 months (which incidentally is what they will do in a continuing herd environment – ask Ian Mitchell-Innes) they have to have the genetic capability and the energy to grow to that maturity. \u00a0Quality forage as mob grazing builds and faster moves allow the cattle to get that energy. 3 – proper mineralization to build the endocrine system that “drives the the train” is absolutely key as well. \u00a0A poor endocrine system will cause late breeding and non-breeding heifers as much as anything.\u00a0 Once all these factors are addressed and in alignment, the performance of the animal will tell the producer if they can successfully breed early or not. \u00a0 The purist with capital may say whenever heifers breed routinely efficiently and can calve and be in condition to rebreed efficiently, that is the age I will breed and be happy. \u00a0The commercial man who has money borrowed from the bank to buy bred heifers\u00a0will want the animals that can breed early in his environment and generate a return rapidly enough to meet his cash flow requirement. \u00a0That is why animals who do not effectively breed early efficiently are rarely used in large scale operations. \u00a0Right or wrong, short sighted or not, economics are a huge part of management decisions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7,8,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-breeding","category-minerals","category-nutrition","category-roundtable"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1608"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1609,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1608\/revisions\/1609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}