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“Once weaned” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. The bulk of their life - until month 12-14 is on pasture with the mother. A ~third of those females stay on
by explaininjs 3y ago
“Once weaned” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. The bulk of their life - until month 12-14 is on pasture with the mother. A ~third of those females stay on pasture indefinitely as birthers. The rest go to feed lots (assuming not pasture finished), where they spend the final ~120 days of their life. So at absolute minimum roughly 3/4 of the life is on pasture land.
- PretzelPirate 3y ago> indefinitely as birthers Let's not ignore how terrible of a life that is. Forcefully impregnated repeatedly and then having your calf taken from you while your body slowly falls apart form abuse. Cows aren't dumb beasts, they have social relationships and care for their calves.
- explaininjs 3y agoCalves stay with mothers until appropriately developed. Then some leave, others remain. Humans are the same. But how many human mothers do you know that spend their whole life with 1/3 of their children? To the extent “keeping families together” is something to optimize for, they’re doing better than us.