2023: Record Number of Non-Pregnant Open Cows
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Douglas Landblom
DREC Beef Cattle and Integrated Systems Specialist
Dickinson Research Extension Center
Office: 701-456-1109; Mobil: 701-690-8245
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Depending on who you talked to or noticed the number of open cows sold at auction markets this Fall, it became depressingly obvious that range beef cows did not breed up very well and there was a large number of open cows. Anecdotal reports ranged from 20 to 40%, or even 50% opens. So, what caused the problem? While may people are speculating as to what the causes may have been, there’s no doubt that the cause is a culmination of multiple factors all converging during the 2023 breeding season.
Let’s begin with listing the potential factors and then discuss them individually. Vibriosis and trichomoniasis are diseases that cause reproductive failure. However, the incidence is so low that these diseases would not have been the widespread cause. Smoke from Canadian wildfires was thick for long periods of time. Information related to breeding cattle residing in the wildfire smoke for long periods of time is not readily available. Nonetheless, combined with other factors, smoke could have contributed to dampened estrus activity, but this is not proven; just speculation.
Various kinds of stress contributed to the large number of open cows. Stress from wind, snow, and the brutally cold November and December months of 2022 carried over to be breeding season of 2023. In addition to winter stress carry over, summer stress from seemingly uncontrollable infestations of blood sucking horn flies increased stress among herds across the region. Blood sucking horn flies are annoying and painful causing significant economic loss in weaning weight ranging from 10 to 15%. Face flies, on the other hand, do not suck blood, but have sponge like mouth parts and feed on tears and muzzle fluids of cattle. Most importantly, face flies are a vector for animal-to-animal transmission of pinkeye caused by the Moraxella bovis bacteria and when an animal has a pinkeye infection estrous activity is depressed. Large infestations of horn and face flies that were difficult to control using traditional control methods combined with the other stress factors had a negative effect on reproductive performance.
Snow melt and Spring-2023 seasonal precipitation produced good forage production across most of the region. Under these conditions, grasses elongate and the nutritional content per unit of forage is lessened due to water content and lower dry matter content. Historically, calf weaning weight is reduced when pasture forage growth is above average. Genetically, cows with milking ability potential that doesn’t fit the forage resource can have a negative effect on rebreeding performance. As such, cows with the potential for higher milk production require greater total dietary energy than cows with a genetically lower potential for milk production. Metabolically, cows with higher milk production potential that do not fit the environment will shunt energy to milk production to feed their calf at the expense of rebreeding and do not become pregnant.
The combined negative effects of these various factors contributed to the large run of open cows that were sold this Fall and early winter. What can be done to alleviate the problem for next summer’s breeding season? The key is better winter nutrition from higher quality hay combined with protein/energy supplementation and well-balanced mineral supplementation prepared with chelated mineral-amino acid complexes.
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