By Roxanne Knock, PhD, Dakotaland Feeds, LLC
 


Are you ready for the pre-season? No, not baseball. I was thinking more along the lines of calving season. For those who calve in the spring, it is getting down to crunch time to make your preparations. Get your nutrition program fine-tuned.
You may have been supplementing cows and still allowing them to do some picking prior to calving. And that can work, but you need to make sure you are meeting protein and energy requirements for the cows entering the last third of gestation. Their protein and energy needs jump by 25% during the last trimester compared to mid-gestation, and if those needs aren’t met, cows can start going backward and losing weight at a critical time during fetal development. Cows should be getting around 9% protein and 56% TDN (Total Digestible Nutrients) to maintain weight and meet the needs of fetal growth. If your cows could use a little extra body condition, we need to make adjustments to the TDN to allow for some extra gain.

Vitamins are critical in the pre-calving time frame. In particular, Vitamin A and E are necessary. Both of these vitamins accumulate in colostrum, and because they don’t cross the placenta from the cow to the calf, Vitamin A and E need to be in the feed for them to put it in the colostrum. Vitamin A deficiencies are related to diarrhea in newborn animals of multiple species, underscoring its importance to the newborn calves. Vitamin E deficiencies are associated with increased incidence of retained placenta, which can lead to uterine infections and poor chances of re-breeding. The B-vitamins are made by the rumen microbes in cattle and are not necessary to supply in a mineral or supplement program for the cows. There is no benefit of adding B-vitamins to the rations of cows pre-calving.

Mineral programs are as equally important as the vitamins prior to calving. Minerals essentially work the opposite of vitamins in the cows. Minerals cross the placenta to the calf but are very low in colostrum and milk. Supplying a high quality mineral to the cow prior to calving will help build liver concentrations of minerals in the calf, which allows the calf to mobilize those stores after birth. This is essential to allowing a calf to respond to the antibodies in the colostrum. The minerals help build more immune cells to fight off those early calfhood diseases and influence calf vigor. Availa-4 minerals from Zinpro in products available through your Dakotaland Feeds dealer help build the fetal stores of mineral and give your calves a good start.
Rumensin to the cowherd is something we have been talking about for about 10 years now. The benefits are pretty clear once you have tried it. The cows stay in better condition on less feed.  The Cow Balancer R800 product comes standard with the Availa-4 trace mineral package, and we have the option of adding the Diamond V Yeast Culture to help further boost colostrum quality. It is an excellent fit for putting through your mixer wagon in a high roughage cow ration so you can be confident all of the cows are eating their mineral. It is designed for ½ lb per head per day in a pellet form. By adding 200 mg of Rumensin per cow into the diet, you can save approximately 10% in feed consumption every day. Plus, you get the added benefit of cleaning up the calving area from coccidia when you start feeding Rumensin at least 30 days prior to calving.