Today we examined another herd at Corai Cue, one of the last two herds that still has to be examined. The job I was assigned was to administer the vaccination that all the cows receive twice a year, in March and September, to prevent foot and mouth disease. Basically I had to fill a syringe gun with the antidote and then go down the line of corraled animals vaccinating them one at a time. You vaccinate the cows at the base of their neck in their muscle. The reason the shot is given in the neck is because neck meat is worth very little in comparison to the other parts of a cow and should the animal have a bad reaction to the antidote, a stiff nec won't impede there life as badly as perhaps a swollen leg.Safety is important on the farm, which is why all cows have their horns removed when they are young; removing the horns prevents accidental injury to workers and makes the animals more docile. Unfortunately during the removal process, some horns are not fully removed which means they grow out as the cow ages. To alleviate the damage, the horns can be cut back, but still some cows are missed which means these animals grow massive pointy horns which are very dangerous.
When a cow is young, its horn is a small growth nubbin on each side of its head. At a few months, an empty metal tube is pounded onto the nubbin and then snapped out to get the root of the horn as well. This causes a lot of bleeding, so moth balls are crushed into a powder then caked into the bleeding hole. The powder coagulates the blood to slow and stop the bleeding, and the concoction prevents insects from getting in and infecting the wound. If the root is not fully removed, this is when horn will grow later on.
While vaccinating, it was obvious that cows don't like having their neck jabbed with a vaccination gun. Their automatic reaction to being stabbed is to shoot their head backwards to remove the annoyance. This meant I had to make sure to be quick and angle my body correctly so I didn't get hit with the horns.
When vaccinating, only needle is used for all the animals. When I was at Felseck Farm and vaccinations were being administered to the sheep, each animal got its own needle so that no diseases could spread between the sheep. Though that is the ideal, it would cost too much time to change the needle for every cow at Salvacion, so they take the risk of spreading a disease. (No diseases have spread in this way at the ranch in the past.)
Today the cow branding meanings were clarified to me as well. In my first record, I said that the "1" indicated the cow has a calf and the "x" meant a cow was not pregnant. This is partially correct. Cows are branded with the last digit of the year they gave birth to a calf - "0" for 2010, "1" for 2011 and "2" for 2012. Since the herds are always divided into their specific pregnancy regimes, so it can be more easily tracked which cows gave you calves and when they did so.
The pregnancy regimes are as follows. The spring mating season is in October, November and December. Those cows will give birth to calves in July, August and September of the following year. They will then be put with the bulls in the spring mating season again, while nursing their calves. Diego, the vet, will know if an animal conceived in the spring by March. If the cow is pregnant, then it will stay on the spring pregnancy and conception cycle. If it is not pregnant, the cow will have their calf removed (because nursing decreases the ability for an animal to conceive), and the cow will get a second chance to conceive in the fall mating season of mid-May to mid-June. If the cow doesn't get pregnant after the second mating season, it will be sent to the slaughter house. The cow is only allowed to skip one conception period.
So how is this documented on the cows. For example, "0X1X" means the cow gave birth in 2010 to a calf, then didn't get pregnant in its mating season so it was given a second chance without the calf, got pregnant and gave birth to a calf in 2011 but then didn't get pregnant again in its mating season so now has had its calf removed and will try to get pregnant again. Another example is "8901" which means this cow gave birth to a calf in 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 all on the same mating cycle (either the spring or the fall).
When we were done at Corai Cue, we went to Isla Negra where the crew was in the process of separating the calves from their mothers in one of their herds. This was the first time the animals have been separated, so the scene was quite a clamour. Once separated, the mothers would be put back out to pasture, while the young would stay put for two to three days to quiet down, before being taken to a pasture at a great distance from their mothers. Within 10 days, the animals will have forgotten one another and be silent again.
The herd at Isla Negra were mainly red cows known as Bonsmara. The Bonsmara is a cross breed of cattle known for its high quality beef. Originating in South Africa as a scientific experiment of professor Jan Bonsma, the Bonsmara was created after many criss-cross matings consisting of 5/8 Afrikaner, 3/16 Hereford and 3/16 Shorthorn animals. The herd has been specially selected so as to eventually breed high-calibre Bonsmara animals. I asked what the meaning of the yellow tags were on some of the cows, and learned that the tags indicate that a cow has been inspected by the Argentinian cattle agency responsible for evaluating the breed - the Asociacion Argentina de Criadores Bonsmara. When a cow is evaluated, it received a registration tag, and a branding on its right side. The brand is either a B, B1, B2, B3 or B4. "B" is the branding received by all the animals I observed in the herd which means the cow is basic or meets the minimum requirements of the breed. A B4 however is a premium Bonsmara that has been bred with other Bonsmara for four generations. The benefit of having premium cows is that the meat and the animal will bring in a return of 30% more just because of the breeding selection.
For example, we have all heard of Angus beef. An Angus cow or bull is worth more to other producers than an Angus mix, and Angus meat too is worth more to a retailer than mixed meat. Unfortunately Angus cattle can't be produced in this part of Argentina because the heat would kill them. The Bonsmara is relatively new to the area, and Salvacion was the first to introduce them, though about five other producers are now breeding Bonsmara in the area as well. Originally, most cows around here were cross bred with a type of cow particularly resistant to heat and draught because of the climatic conditions.
For an interesting list of the types of cattle breeds that exist and their uses check out this summary from Wikipedia.
No comments:
Post a Comment