Drought and lack of fodder impact production and meat quality

The scarcity of rain in Rio Grande do Sul in another summer will also cause losses for quality beef producers. Many properties, in the middle of the reproductive season, find wombs that have not even gone into heat, and the result will be a meager pregnancy. Others in more integrated and advanced systems, calving in the months of June to August, have cows in an advanced stage of pregnancy, but forage restriction in quantity and quality is affecting the formation of fetuses, with consequences on the formation of muscle and fat cells. . The reflexes will appear when these calves and calves that will be born in 2023 are slaughtered or put into reproduction, within two years.

Technical adviser to the Federation of Agriculture and Livestock of the State (Farsul) and the Delta G Connection, agronomist José Fernando Piva Lobato recalls that even in its infancy the droughts in Piratini and Pinheiro Machado were enormous in the native fields, affecting the region’s livestock.

“We are in 2023. It’s about time we learned, because this happens again and again. We have a huge number of canhadas in Rio Grande do Sul. We need to build dams and retain water in volume and quality. For irrigation of crops and for comfort and watering of animals. This is a factor that also affects production”, he warns.

According to him, the consequences of these food, pasture and quality water crises will not only be immediate.

“We try to survive anyway, but in terms of quality, performance, meat quality, animal development, this forage restriction currently affects lactating cows today. With less milk, there is a reduction in the calves’ weight gain rate until weaning”, he explains.

Lobato details that the calves start grazing, albeit tenuously, from 15 days of age. At 90 days, they graze about 50% of the cows’ time.

“Therefore, this meager and low-quality roasted supply of forage that we have not only limits the milk production of the cows, but also the ingestion of pasture by the calves, who do not receive an adequate diet”, warns the professor.

He also warns that cows between the fifth and sixth month of pregnancy are in the primary cell formation phase for defining the offspring’s muscle mass. It is these cells that will determine the carcass yield and live weight of future calves.

“During this period, adipocytes are being formed, the fat cells for finishing cattle in 2025. These are the calves that are being conceived now, which will be born in the spring, and which will be the precocious calves that we need in two years”, he explains.

The medium and long term sequels will be in the constitution of the meat. Lobato says that fat cells being formed from the fifth to the ninth and a half months of gestation generate the so-called marbling layer, the intramuscular fat of precocious steers to be slaughtered at two years of age, or earlier, as some producers do.

Lobato observes that an alternative for producers who did not take precautions about the cyclical drought would have been early weaning, until December, to reduce the nutritional requirements of the cows.

“If you haven’t been able to make forage reserves, you can put in your budget the purchase of hay and feed for calves weaned in this way. On the other hand, if the cow does not leave this period in very good body condition, she will not become pregnant, reducing the supply of calves in the following year. Furthermore, those who get pregnant in March will have their calves by Christmas and will only be ready for a new pregnancy when the breeding season is over”, she observes.

Professor at the Faculty of Agronomy at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Lobato warns that the areas for breeding or rearing herds of females currently in a considerable number of producers are reduced by occupation in spring, summer, until mid-autumn, with corn or soybean crops, especially. “So we also need to have forage reserves to keep cows in this period of 120 days, approximately 150 days, because they are in the reproductive phase, that is, they are starting pregnancy or postpartum, needing 60, 80 days to come into heat , to get pregnant, because if you don’t get pregnant during the current breeding season, the following spring, we won’t have calves born”, he adds.

According to the agronomist, the problem with beef cattle is the hunger of the herds, with the reduction in the supply of quality forage between May and September.

“Happy are the producers who have arable soil and, in the succession of summer crops, sow oats and ryegrass to provide quality and quantity fasto in the winter. Furthermore, grazing animals favors the formation of soybean crops with better rooting and ensures greater water retention in the soil. Allied to the deposition of manure and urine, the measure further improves the quality of the soil for cultivation”, he analyzes.

The agronomist recalls that the drought and the low supply of food and water affect all of the approximately 290,000 cattle ranchers in Rio Grande do Sul, from those with up to 250 heads, which make up 97% of the total, to those with more than 800 animals, which represent 0.6 % of this audience.

“We have to find solutions for everyone. And the paths are in the retention and supply of water, as well as in the production of quality food all year round”, concludes Professor Lobato.