Stayability and milk. Has there been any studies?

[aj]

Are they inversely connected?  We have like a 11 year old cow and my wife said that the cow has never had a great big calf at weaning.

 

[mark tenenbaum]

You hit it on the head although cows that dont milk etc generally dont stick around-nor are they worth the expense of a study.-I was at my buddies place in Iowa in October after a pretty bad summer-there was a great big Salute cow that could have walked into a show ring-when the other cows looked a little rough-Then we saw her calf-almost stunted-tough mangy hair-all the effects of no milk-There was a HI$ heifer in with a bunch of heifers that were in too good a shape-that looked like she was going to die of starvation -SIMILAR BREEDING-same bigtime breeder from the same state-The guy in Iowa had tested her for everything and basically had to ship her-The cow went too-But judging from her condition and performance the cow  probably would have lived a long time, the heifer was so hardoing there was something VERY WRONG and the Vets couldnt figure it out-needless to say-she would never been able to raise a calf O0

 

[aj]

I was thinking in another direction. Hard milking cows......do they flush out of a program earlier.....because they don't breed back.

 

[knabe]

Are they inversely connected?  We have like a 11 year old cow and my wife said that the cow has never had a great big calf at weaning.

9 calves? what did you see?

 

[Franke]

Here is one of our cows. Has brought in a keeper every year. First two years she was not AI’d but has taken every year but last but caught first round with bull. Last year we had terrible luck on our AI program, switched companies. She isn’t showing any signs of slowing down yet. She just had her 7’th calf before her 9’th birthday. Not all cows are like her though. https://herdbook.org/simmapp/template/animalSearch%2CAnimalSearch.vm/action/animalSearch.AnimalSearchAction

 

[WinterSpringsFarm]

I would think a hard milking cow would breed back easier. She should have less strain on her, but one would think she would be culled because of low weaning weights.

Have to find that happy medium IMO

 

[RyanChandler]

Are they inversely connected?  We have like a 11 year old cow and my wife said that the cow has never had a great big calf at weaning.

9 calves? what did you see?

10 would be better.

I bet I’ve culled SH cows 5:1 for no milk versus too much. 

 

[cowboy_nyk]

A lot of Angus breeders are looking for a more moderate milk epd for this very reason.  Typically the heavy milking cows have high energy requirements and work them selves out of the herd in a hurry.  I have honestly never seen an angus cow culled for lack of milk in these parts.  It's always for having too much which leads to poor udder/teat structure or poor fertility.  There is a lot more money to be made by raising 10 600-700lb calves than 5 800lb calves.  Anecdotally I have noticed that there are 2 kinds of cows.  Ones who raise an awesome calf on their first try, and ones who will raise and awesome calf after their 2nd calf.  The latter are the ones who last longer.

 

[OEF Simmentals]

Good topic. There was a study conducted by a grad student from Colorado State. The study looked into environment as well. The study wanted to know if cows with high milking ability would last longer in areas with good nutrition vs. areas with average nutrition. The study did not find a correlation between high milk and increased probability of being culled.

https://dspace.library.colostate.edu/bitstream/handle/10217/88514/Culbertson_colostate_0053N_12801.pdf?sequence=1

However, from our experience, we see problems with bags in older cows who are good milkers. Bags can drag in mud and are sometimes too big for young calves to suck easily. I agree with Winter Springs Farm. A moderate milker is the best kind of cow.

 

[aj]

Thanks. They always told me that the first thing a cow does is milk. Then if she has sufficient energy and nutrients she will cycle in order to re breed. I spose breeds might vary. I can't think of to many things other than milk and diet that would prevent a cow from rebreeding. Her ability to fight off coyotes.......so she doesn't get culled for loosing a calf? Fesque tolerance? I'm thinking in terms of a common range cow. Fleshing ability in sawdust and sand type diet?

 

[aj]

I had a college A and P instructor that gave me hell at a seminar in college. I made the claim that crossbred cows may be more fertile in percentiles than a purebred cow. He jumped me an asked me why? Do there ovulate more eggs? Do they digest nutrients better. Was my statement false? I didn't know and still don't but they claim that heterosis affects fertility some how.

 

[mark tenenbaum]

I was thinking in another direction. Hard milking cows......do they flush out of a program earlier.....because they don't breed back."  I would think it would come down to the condition they are in- O0

 

[aj]

That was my point. Using epds to make cattle fit the existing enviroment.

 

[mark tenenbaum]

They are doing some with fescue tolerance etc-But the EPDS and real world performance of a lot of cattle arent very accurate I had LCS Designer daughters who was the so called LOW BW milk bull of the breed-One milked but had huge calves-one didnt and had low BWS the other did neither had ones with low milk epds that were some of the very best cows. The one had big ones  who milked the best lived and raised them till she was 14-here daughters appeared to be the same grandaughters are long lived almost everybody made 13 years .O0

 

[Medium Rare]

That was my point. Using epds to make cattle fit the existing enviroment.

Without the fescue test, epds from operations outside of the fescue belt are near worthless here. I can make one of the top bulls in the breed for growth look very very average on a year the ergot goes nuts. Females appear to melt down in august and never live up to epd expectations. It's always been that way, but I couldn't ever prove why the bull lines "just didn't work" here.

Luckily, I identified a very high ranking young female before they shut down the testing. I see no way of searching the best scores, but she has to be on the top end based on my browsing and is at least something I can move forward with.

 

[shortybreeder]

I've only been able to find 1 study in our university database to look at anything like what you're asking. Here's a quote from the abstract, "whereas the risk of being culled increased with increasing maternal breeding values for preweaning gain (P < 0.05)."

Here's the name and authors if anyone is so inclined to look it up. Evaluating longevity of composite beef females using survival analysis techniques
By:Rogers, PL (Rogers, PL); Gaskins, CT (Gaskins, CT); Johnson, KA (Johnson, KA); MacNeil, MD (MacNeil, MD)

 

[aj]

There may be a way to play with this deal with the parameter search deal with epds.

 

[CAB]

Milking ability is not very heritable in general.
Herefords are great in some of the countries fringe areas because they don't as a rule milk too heavily and can survive, breed back, and bring in a calf.
Speaking of Herefords, have many of you looked through Copeland's bull sale catalog? Looks like a great set of bulls to me.

 

[mark tenenbaum]

That red calf last picture in your post sure is cool-Like to see one like that big enough and relatively safe calving on one of your shorthorns O0