Org Business Menu Beef. Higher Pregnancy Rates William E. Kunkle University of Florida Gainesville, FL Variations in body condition of beef cows has several implications for productivity of your cows and should affect your management decisions. These data show that calving cows at BCS 5 or higher with modest weight loss after calving is essential for a high pregnancy rate.
Young cows tend to get thinner than older cows when nutrition is limiting.
We have concluded that thin young cows have a lower pregnancy rate and maintaining BCS 5 or higher in young cows was even more important than in mature cows. Young cows in marginal BCS supplemented with natural protein have shown significant improvements in pregnancy rates over young cows grazing forages marginal or deficient in protein. Cows in BCS 5 or higher have a higher percent calf crop and heavier calves than cows in BCS 3 or 4. The opportunity to increase cow condition and net income is from weaning to calving. Managing thin cows to improve condition can be done with higher quality pastures such as fertilized stargrass, limpograss or bahiagrass with aeschynomene.