Cattle farmers can achieve efficient cattle raising only by making good production plans

Formulating a production plan for a cattle farm facilitates the organization of production, including breeding and calving plans, herd organization and replacement plans, feed plans, and milk and meat production plans.

(1) Herd organization and replacement plan

1. Herd organization Doing a good job of herd organization and replacement planning on large-scale cattle farms is an important guarantee for completing production plan tasks and expanding reproduction, and it also facilitates the organization and management of production. On a cattle farm, older cows, low-yielding cows and adult cows with poor reproductive function should be culled in a timely manner to improve the herd's production performance and the number of calves born. For this reason, the organization of raising heifers and calves must be done well so that the number of cattle needed for production can be replenished in a timely manner. In production, staged feeding should be carried out, with groups divided according to the cattle's age, sex and production use. On a cattle farm, the herd can generally be divided into a calf group, a heifer group (with males and females separated), a fattening cattle group, and an adult cow group, etc. The proportion of each group in the whole herd should be determined according to the farm's production direction, production plan tasks, years of use, the cattle's maturity period and other aspects. The base cow herd determines the farm's production scale and production capacity, while calves and heifers provide a guarantee for expanding the production scale and determine the number of commercial cattle and fattening cattle. Herd organization is arranged around the scale of the base cow herd. In the base cow herd, proper culling is needed each year because of increasing age, disease, low yield and other reasons. Whether the number of culled base cows can be replenished and expanded in a timely manner is determined by the number of reserve cattle and their maturity period. Therefore, maintaining or expanding the farm's production scale is related to the years of use of adult cows and the maturity period and number of reserve cows.

On large-scale cattle farms, the years of use for cows are generally 10-12 years, and the culling rate of adult cows can reach as high as 20%-25%. This culling rate helps maintain a relatively high milk yield and reproductive performance in the herd. Considering the selection of superior reserve cattle and the elimination of inferior ones, the proportion of reserve cows is higher than the cow culling rate. Heifers should account for 25%-30%, of which mature reserve cattle account for 10%-12%, and cows under 12 months of age account for 15%-18%. Adult cows should account for 60%-65% of the herd, of which first- and second-parity cows account for 20%-25%, third- and fourth-parity cows account for 25%-30%, and cows with more than 6 parities account for 15%-20%. To ensure balanced milk production, lactating cows in the adult cow herd should be maintained at about 80%, dry cows at about 20%, and female calves at 10%-15%.

2. Herd replacement plan During the production process, because some adult cows are culled, newborn calves are transferred to heifers or sold as commercial cattle, heifers are transferred to production cattle or fattened cattle and sold for slaughter, and cattle are purchased and sold, the herd structure is constantly changing. This increase and decrease in herd organization structure over a certain period is called herd replacement (turnover). The herd replacement plan is the reproduction plan of the cattle farm, and it is the basis for formulating production plans, feed plans, labor plans, breeding and calving plans, capital construction plans, etc. To effectively control herd changes and ensure the completion of production tasks, a herd replacement plan must be formulated.

1) To prepare a good herd replacement plan, the following materials must be mastered:

(1) The inventory numbers of various types of cattle at the beginning of the planned year;

(2) The number of cattle and the production level to be reached at the end of the planned year;

(3) The number of cows to be culled, young cattle to be sold and fattening cattle to be sold in the planned year;

(4) The number of calves surviving from breeding, the planned number of cattle to be purchased, and the number of female calves born from July to December of the previous year.

2) Preparation methods and steps:

(1) Make a herd replacement plan table

(2) Fill in the numbers of various types of cattle at the beginning of the planned year and the numbers of various types of cattle that should be reached at the end of the planned year in the corresponding beginning-of-month and end-of-month columns.

(3) Fill in the number of female calves to be bred in each month during the planned year in the “breeding” column for female calves.

(4) Female calves that reach 6 months of age are transferred to heifers. When transferring to heifers, the numbers that died, were culled, or were sold should be excluded. Find out the number of female calves born in each month from July to December of the previous year and fill them in the “transfer out” column for female calves from January to June; fill in the number of female calves born in each month from January to June of the current year in the “transfer out” column for each month from July to December.