We Lost A Pioneer
Dick Diven, helped dozens of Ranching For Profit School alumni determine the optimum timing for calving and slash their feed costs. To Dick, “ranching with nature” wasn’t just a throw away phrase. It was the pathway to profitability in the cow/calf business. Dick pioneered this pathway.
For the last few years Dick had been battling cancer. After several failed attempts to contact him over the last six months I feared the worst. I learned last week that Dick lost his battle earlier this year. Because he’s been in my thoughts lately I wanted to share with you some of the powerful principles Dick identified and used to help many of our alumni reduce costs, improve production and increase profit.
Dick pointed out that deer, elk, bison and other wild members of the family Bovidae are seasonal breeders. While we have selected away from this phenomenon in the domestic members of this family (e.g. cattle, goats and sheep) Dick showed that photo-period still has a strong influence on the fertility of all wild and domestic ruminant species.
Dick presented data showing that at 40ºN (the Kansas-Nebraska border) a cow in body condition score 6, calving in February, would take an average of 73 days to start cycling. Calving in June, an identical cow would start cycling in just 38 days. He showed that the closer calving is to the summer solstice, the shorter the postpartum interval becomes. He also showed that the further north you go, the more extreme the difference.
Research shows that cows are relatively infertile during their first estrous cycle. It is important that all cows cycle at least twice during the breeding season and three times would be better. Since a cow’s estrous period is 21 days, this means that the post partum period must be less than 43 days.
It is easy to see that the February-calving cow, with a postpartum period of 73 days, has a problem. She’s about to become hamburger. More to the point, the rancher who has that February calving cow has a problem too. He raises or buys high priced replacements and three years later sells them as culls.
He can either try to feed is way out of this jam (adding one condition score will shave about a week off of the postpartum period) but that’s expensive and doesn’t make up the full difference. The resulting high feed costs and cow depreciation costs make most ranches unprofitable. Dick showed people how to change that. For tables showing the relationship of latitude and calving season to the postpartum interval click here.
We incorporated Dick’s concepts into the Ranching For Profit School almost 30 years ago. In fact, Dick wrote the nutrition chapter in the book we use as prework for the school. I’ll miss Dick as a friend and a colleague. Our industry has lost a pioneer.
Thank you, Dick Diven. Your research showed what so many of us in the field wanted to hear, "it's too damn cold to be stripping down to pull a calf in the middle of winter!"
Jesting aside, this information is crucial to profitability for all ranchers and yet I'm surprised how little it is heeded. I guess feeding hay gives most a sense of purpose, whatever the cost. Unfortunately, this cost can be the ranch itself.
Once again, thank you Dick Diven for showing how important calving with nature is in regards to sustainability and profitability. You will be missed.
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Thank you for sharing this Dave. You are absolutely right, Dick was a pioneer and he will be greatly missed. There aren't very many schools (other than the Ranching For Profit School) that I've ever recommended to people, but Dick's Low Cost Cow Calf Production School certainly was one of them.
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Dr Diven has greatly impacted our operation in a positive way. I, too, had been trying to touch base with him for several months to no avail. Thanks for the update.
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I am posting an excerpt of an e-mail I received last week with the author’s permission. The full e-mail is too long to post, but it brings up some important points related to May/June Calving. An excerpt of my response follows.
Dave,
Please remind folks that when they make changes things don't always work out as well as we hope. Last year when we moved our calving season to May-June it resulted in a 50% pregnancy rate. We culled the old cows and bred the rest for fall. Got all those cows bred with the same bulls.
Now fall calving hardly matches high nutritional demand with available forage here in Mo. So we went again this year with our heifers and the cows that got bred last year. Pregnancy rate 20% this year. I'm about to breed the herd and last years fall calvers and move to a fall herd. I don't see this as being very efficient as no matter how much grass you have stockpiled, when Feb and March gets here you don't have much quality left.
My point is not to whine about the bad turn of events here but to remind you and the other ranching for profit teachers to point out to midwest fescue country students that breeding in the heat of our humid summers may not result in profitable ranching. I think at least part of the problem is that much of the grazing and repro data we are using is coming out of the mountain west. (not from areas with hot humid summers)
In my area there are a number of herds with breed up problems. I called Dr. Volkman our therio expert at the U of Mo and he tells me of 4 herds he had just preg checked that were breeding for a May-June season and they all had 40% or less preg results. He reports that the biggest problems were with intensive grazing managers who appeared to be doing the best management but couldn't get the cows bred. Neither he nor I are satisfied with just blaming the heat, yet we have been unable to identify a disease problem. Some of these outfits are grazing 30-40% warm season natives. Nearly all have fenced the ponds and removed a method to cool the cows.(that's me). As we go to intensive paddock grazing shade becomes a premium on some farms. Most are using black hided breeds that absorb the heat. I see lots of contributing factors but I'm still faced with calving back when I used to (March) or going to fall (Sept.-Oct.) and neither matches my resources. May have to go to stockers.
Anyway that is what I'm seeing in Mo. Caution students that moving the calving season looks good on paper but is fraught with risk. We have had 2 particularly hot July-August periods back to back. If you have any other ideas on how I may move in a better direction both I and my clients are interested.
Thanks.
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Thanks for your comments. Diven was right. There are only so many days to get a cow pregnant if she's to produce a calf every year. He's also right when he says that photo period and body condition impact a cow's post-partum anestrous period. Everything else being equal (and that's the part that a lot of people don't hear) synchronizing calving with the peak forage (for body condition) and the summer solstice (for photoperiod) reduces substitute feed costs and improves fertility...but as you point out, everything else is not equal. Heck, in California, on our foot hill rangelands (Mediterranean climate) you'd be ill advised to calve in June...I wonder if you'd get even 50% conception. Our optimum calving probably comes in mid March or early April. Like everyone else, our longest day of the year is still June 21. But in our case the "everything else" outweighs the impact of photo period. It sounds like that's the case in your situation too.
From what I've seen, and what you've confirmed, the "everything else" for you includes tall fescue and heat w/humidity.
Of course the best solution for some folks may be not to have a calving season at all. If someone with snow up to their eye balls for 5 months wants to know how to raise cows profitably, I usually tell them to go some place where they don't have snow up to their eye balls for 5 months. The same may apply to environments where, because of what ever extreme condition, its best use is seasonal. Putting a year-round animal into a seasonal environment may be equivalent to cramming a square peg in a round hole. The simplest, most profitable answer for many folks in that situation is some sort of seasonal enterprise.
If a person chooses to run cows in your area year round, and wants to identify the optimum calving season, I would start by mapping out each month what my feed conditions were. Then write in what a cow's body condition would be in that month if she were to calve that month and if she were not being given any substitute feeds (hay). Use the Little/Good, Plenty/Good, Plenty/Poor, Little/Poor classifications we use at the RFP school.
It might look something like:
March. Plenty/Poor BCS:3
April. Little/Good BCS:3
May: Plenty/Good BCS: 4
And so on...
I'd take a hard look at calving in the earliest month that her condition rose to a 5 (without substitute feeding). If that happened to coincide with fescue or humidity issues take a hard look at the month with the best body condition as closest to the Solstice that falls outside of the trouble zone.
When we discuss the calving/breeding seasons at RFP, the instructor says "THIS IS NOT A RECOMMENDATION!" Some think, "Riiight" as though we were giving them a wink and saying that everyone ought to be calving in June. The problem is that it really isn't a recommendation, just something to look at.
I'm concerned re: the recent problems. I'd like to see the forage/BCS chart
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I realize that this is a "Johnny come lately" comment but please pardon that--I've been "out of the loop" for the past few months.
Anyway, I am always humbled by such news. I first met Dick Diven in 1983 when we attended together the "Savory Grazing Method" school put on by Alan and Stan in Albuquerque.
His passing reminds me of how tenuous life can be and how important it is to live every day of it as though it was the last.
He is missed.
jtl
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