Sustainability Starts with the Cow

by Laura Handke

In December, at the Annual AGA Convention, we had the opportunity to hear Steve Wooten, Beatty Canyon Ranch, talk about what sustainability means for his family’s ranching operation.

As an industry, we hear a lot about sustainability...primarily the environmental pillar.

Economic viability and social betterment often take a backseat in the conversation, and sometimes it’s easy to forget that sustainability only exists at the intersection of all three pillars.

Steve’s photo shone a light on all three pillars: a single shot of a newborn calf — up, vigorous, and ready to make its genetic contribution to the industry.

He explained that the ability for that calf to reach its potential is wrapped up in its first hour of life. I, like many of you reading this, knew that, but I had never thought about it from a sustainability perspective.

Delays in a calf ’s birth, the cow’s initiative to claim and clean it, and the calf ’s consumption of colostrum are benchmarks of that calf ’s ability to reach its genetic potential.

Calving key performance indicators (KPI), if you will. And these KPIs are the cow-calf sustainability “starter pack”.

One chilly afternoon this past February, I watched a new year’s beef sustainability story begin.

A seven-year-old, 1,000-pound cow who has never failed to settle on her first exposure, delivered a 70-pound calf in a sum-total of 24 minutes from the time she laid down until the time the calf was up and nursing.

This is a common story in our herd and countless others that makeup the U.S. beef herd.

I have few doubts of this calf ’s resilience. Sure, we’ll do our due diligence in providing the vaccines and care that will promote success, but I won’t lose sleep or money supplementing its health.

In the fall, he’ll wean around 60% of his dam’s bodyweight nursing milk that is a product of land unsuitable for growing anything but fescue and trees...and rocks, if you ask our ten-year-old daughter.

I’ve watched this sustainability story unfold many, many times per season throughout my life. But it took just one photo and new context for me to better appreciate what is commonplace for so many of us in the industry. And that new context allows for a person to pause and reassess that perhaps sustainability doesn’t begin with the calf, after all, but rather 283-285 days earlier with the cow. And that prepossessing fact positions the Gelbvieh and Balancer® breed as a sustainability frontrunner.

The maternal traits that the Gelbvieh and Balancer breed is known for define sustainability and close the circle on all three pillars for both producers and consumers.

A Gelbvieh-influenced cow will check every box for a producer, delivering heifers that reach puberty earlier and exhibit the exceptional docility and fertility that will secure their place in the herd for a second mating season. Those heifers mature to moderate framed cows that require fewer maintenance inputs and efficiently produce the milk needed to add pounds to their easy fleshing calves. And they will cumulatively express these qualities and efficiencies year-over-year to remain in the herd.

If we think about these attributes from a sustainability perspective, it’s easy to see how the Gelbvieh-influenced female moves sustainability within the beef industry forward.

From a social betterment standpoint, who doesn’t want the peace of mind highly fertile, docile cows provide? And from a consumer’s view, a steak just tastes better when resources were efficiently utilized by a cow that has never failed to contribute to the beef supply.

From an economic and environmental frame, the benefits almost go without noting: An efficient, fertile cow that puts calves on the ground that contribute to the beef industry producing more pounds of protein with fewer head of cattle is a win-win for every stakeholder in the value chain. F