What makes a beef cow feed efficient?

摘要

With rising fuel costs once more in the news, and the associated rising in fertilizer and feed costs, beef cost of production and feed efficiency become more important in the survival of our industry. In my last article I presented some figures on twopossible beef production systems - winter and late spring calving, and explored some of the feed costs and relationships with calving season. My intent for this article was to follow up on the finished calves from those cows, but I got distracted by the factors that affect feed use by cows. There has been a great deal of research over the past few decades and thankfully it does help to explain some of what we see in cow feed use.