How Many Stomachs Does A Cow Have?

1. CATTLE BREEDING BASICS Breeding cattle generally focuses on three main methods of selection of animal. These are by progeny, by family and by pedigree. Cattle breeders should take all three methods into account. As the name suggests progeny selection concentrates on the actual progeny or descendants of specific animals with known qualities. It can be useful when selecting traits such as milk yield or robustness to specific disease. Its basic drawback is that it can be a slow process requiring careful breeding to determine the specific quality of particular offspring. The only way around this is to spend a considerable amount of money buying the specific traits you need rather than waiting to develop them in your own cattle breeding herd. Do you know how many stomachs does a cow have? Family selection focuses on analyzing the respective qualities of relatives rather than progeny and as such can be a faster method of selection than progeny. Its value lies in being able to accurately estimate sex limited traits such as picking the best males from which to breed. This is important for both beef cattle breeding and dairy cattle breeding. Pedigree selection tends to focus on the actual quality of animals ancestors rather than of the specific animal. It can be a useful technique when wanting to select those traits which are known to have high heritability. There is also a choice to be made between inbreeding and outbreeding. Inbreeding means crossing closely related animals which will enable a specific trait to be intensified or fixed. Outbreeding tends to increase the variability within a herd and can lead to new traits or combinations of traits. Both of these methods can be done naturally or by artificial insemination. The use of artificial insemination allows embryo selection which can be used to increase the required traits in a herd.

2. If using natural methods then it is important to consider the bull to cow ratio. A significant amount of research has been produced in this area and the established rule is to place the same number of cows with a bull as the age of the bull in months. For example a twenty month old bull can be expected to run with 18-22 cows. The selection of appropriate bulls in terms of your objectives should also be carefully considered. For example, if you have good pasture and require a bull to breed with adult mature cows then a bull with similar stature and a high weaning trait in offspring might be important. Similarly if you have more limited pasture capability and want the bull to breed with heifers then ease of calving might a required trait in the bulls progeny.