Post by daisymilker on Apr 4, 2023 8:14:16 GMT -5
I live a little South of you and this year I'm having trouble with my cows keeping weight on and breeding fitness. All the rain and mud and weird weather is causing a boon year for all the creepy crawlers , protozoans and the grass is growing funny. I took a bunch of cows in to be AI'd by a vet whose practice is all cow fertility. Normally I get really good results with AI ing my cows, this year dismal. The vet did a lot of timed heats and only two had good solid heats. My gut feeling is your pasture is telling the cows to hold off. In the past I had 3 times as many cows on the same pasture this time of year with fat cows with not much additional feed. This year I'm busting my wallet supplementing just to keep them in condition. Somehow the weird combination of tons of rain/mud hot days then a deep freeze after a burst of strong plant growth I think has weakened pastures and bolstered things like fire ants and protozoans. Plant life really was messed up. My big bamboo grove lost all its leaves and I noted this was widespread occurrence. I saw a lot of dead and diseased cows and goats on my daily drive in the last few months. I've been checking ponds that normally have frog eggs by now and see zip. I think the big problem is environmental. I would try rotating pastures if possible. My pasture looks pretty but I don't think it's very nutritious.