Managing Young Cows

In a recent analysis of SPA records from the Northern Great Plains, pregnancy percentage, calving percentage and weaning percentage were important production variables related to profit (Dunn, 2000). The high profit group did not wean heavier calves than the medium profit group. Consistent with other studies, the high profit group had lower investment and total expenditures per cow than the medium or low profit groups. Although describing what makes a cow-calf enterprise profitable is not as simple as we might like, there is strong evidence that relatively high reproductive rate in combination with low cost of production is a very important part of it