The effects of undernutrition in late pregnancy on beef cattle production

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Abstract
A study of the effects of a high, in contrast with a very low, plane of nutrition prior to calving, on the performance of hill-country beef cows and their calves, is described. On 8 June 1964, 122 three- to eight-year-old pregnant Aberdeen Angus cows were allocated to two equal groups. Thereafter, one group was maintained on a high plane of nutrition and the other group on a low plane of nutrition for, on average, 90 and 83 days respectively, until calving. All cows were offered a high plane of nutrition after calving. Low plane cows lost on average 155 lb, and high plane cows 38 lb, between initial liveweight and post-partum. After calving low plane cows rapidly recovered in liveweight, and, by weaning five months later, had compensated for their previous liveweight loss. The number of calves present at weaning as a percentage of the number of cows at the start of the experiment was 93.4% and 75.4% for the high and low pre-calving treatments respectively. Low plane calves were 121b or 20% lighter than high plane calves at birth. The mean difference in calf liveweights between treatments was 36.4 lb at weaning.