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Life on a beef ranch. W.A. Ranches. Courtesy of the University of Calgary, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine.
Cow-Calf Ranch Overview
Cow-calf ranches are characterized by large areas of pasture where cows and their calves can roam and graze. Bulls are generally brought into the pastures for a few weeks in early summer. Nine months later, in early spring, it is calving season.
By restricting the period of time when bulls and cows can mate, the producers condense the calving season to just a few weeks. This helps ensure that the calves will mature together, maintaining a relatively uniform size and weight. It also helps ranchers keep close watch on the cows during calving season to ensure they can be on-hand for any birthing complications. In Alberta, where winter weather often persists into spring, ranchers also need to be ready to step in to prevent new calves from freezing to death if they are born in dangerously cold weather. The risk of cold-weather births is offset against the higher price that heavier/older calves will fetch at auction in the fall.
Calves are fitted with plastic ear-tags shortly after birth to help identify them and match them with their dams (mothers). Cows have been known to try to steal each other’s calves! As part of Canada’s identification system, a Canadian Cattle Identification Agency Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag will later be fixed to the calf’s ear, but this is not required until the calf leaves the ranch.
Growing up in wide open fields, the calves don’t have much interaction with humans during their first months of life. The ranchers try and limit their interactions with the animals because it can be very stressful on the calves. In addition, it takes time and effort to round up the cattle and herd them into a facility, for instance for vaccinations.
One of the biggest challenges with respect to AMR is the transfer of ownership that usually occurs when the calves are sold from cow-calf ranches. At auction, calves are sold by weight. There is little or no economic incentive for cow/calf ranchers to invest in the calves’ resilience to disease by performing labor- and cost-intensive processes like two-stage weaning, because they are not likely to recoup their losses. Explore the Weaning and Sales and Transport sections to learn more.
Spring Processing
In their first few months of life calves are gathered up and temporarily separated from the cows to undergo some essential processes. There are some variations depending on the management decisions of the ranch, availability of infrastructure and labor, and method preferences, but the following items will be considered.
For a first hand account of spring processing from a producer perspective, check out this blog post from Grant Ranch.
Ranch System Opportunities
Ranch System Elements
The visual below is based on a framework proposed by Davis et al [9]. to investigate complex systems. Click on each of the icons to learn more about each system element.
For a text-only version of the visual, you can use this page.
Photo courtesy of the University of Calgary Faculty of Veterinary Medicine.
Further Reading
References
[1] K. S. Schwartzkopf-Genswein et al., ‘Achieving pain control for routine management procedures in North American beef cattle’, Anim. Front., vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 52–58, Jul. 2012, doi: 10.2527/af.2012-0049.
[2] K. J. Stafford and D. J. Mellor, ‘Addressing the pain associated with disbudding and dehorning in cattle’, Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci., vol. 135, no. 3, pp. 226–231, Dec. 2011, doi: 10.1016/j.applanim.2011.10.018.
[3] Beef Cattle Research Council, ‘Pain Mitigation – BeefResearch.ca’, Beef Research, Jul. 28, 2022. https://www.beefresearch.ca/topics/pain-mitigation/ (accessed Aug. 17, 2022).
[4] National Beef Quality Audit, ‘2016/17 Plant Carcass Audit’, Nov. 2018. Accessed: Aug. 17, 2022. [Online]. Available: https://www.beefresearch.ca/content/uploads/2022/04/NBQA-Carcass-Audit-Mar-27-2018-F.pdf
[5] D. Furber, ‘Cattle identification: Branding is back’, Canadian Cattlemen, May 20, 2016. Accessed: Aug. 17, 2022. [Online]. Available: https://www.canadiancattlemen.ca/features/branding-is-back/
[6] Alberta Government, ‘Economic Dashboard – Livestock Prices’. https://economicdashboard.alberta.ca/livestockprices (accessed Aug. 17, 2022).
[7] L. A. González et al., ‘Pain mitigation after band castration of beef calves and its effects on performance, behavior, Escherichia coli, and salivary cortisol’, J. Anim. Sci., vol. 88, no. 2, pp. 802–810, Feb. 2010, doi: 10.2527/jas.2008-1752.
[8] J. F. Coetzee, ‘A review of pain assessment techniques and pharmacological approaches to pain relief after bovine castration: Practical implications for cattle production within the United States’, Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci., vol. 3, no. 135, pp. 192–213, 2011, doi: 10.1016/j.applanim.2011.10.016.
[9] M. C. Davis, R. Challenger, D. N. W. Jayewardene, and C. W. Clegg, ‘Advancing socio-technical systems thinking: A call for bravery’, Appl. Ergon., vol. 45, no. 2, Part A, pp. 171–180, Mar. 2014, doi: 10.1016/j.apergo.2013.02.009.
