Tim Clark | February 27, 2018
Most spring calving herds are well into the calving season with busy days of tagging calves and weeks of less sleep due to those late night trips checking the calving pens. An important activity that needs to be part of the calving season is body condition scoring (BCS) the cows.
Many are either in the midst or soon to be in the middle of spring calving. Hopefully your cows have been well prepared for the changes that face cows entering lactation. While it can sometimes be a mindless exercise in repeating the same things year after year, there are a couple of changes that may have taken place within your herd that has crept up on you over the years and negatively impacted reproductive performance and overall profitability.
Late winter/early spring is usually a time of muddy sloppy conditions, which can spell trouble for hooves. From cracked hooves to foot rot, poor hoof health takes a toll on your livestock, no matter what the species. Wet, sloppy conditions just exacerbate hoof problems, softening them up, making them more susceptible to injury and microbial entry. The best way to combat poor hoof health is to grow a strong, hard hoof in the first place.