> Luck is more of a factor than you may think. �A 6 year old cow that might
> have made 10 years does the splits on some ice. �Has nothing to do with her
> genetic traits, just bad luck cuts her career short. .....
> ......... �Heifer gets pregnant with twins, has a rough calving and
> bingo, an otherwise 10 year old potential cow is toast. �There are many,
> many things that can go wrong, that have �nothing �to �do with genetics,
> the farmer's management skills, sometimes stuff just happens.
That stuff isn't luck. For me there is no luck. That's management.
You picked out two that seem like catastropic, possibly life ending events to
you. Obviously they are such to you.
But not to me. Having dealt, hands on, with thousands of cows over 5 decades,
these two and many others seem routine to me.
You need to have the resources and the plan ready at hand and than act in a
timely manner. There are systematic ways to deal with split cows, and twins,
and probably everything else you think of as luck.
Luck is an excuse not an explanation.
**** Given enough time and enough cows, anything that can happen to a cow,
will eventually happen.****
We need to accept this simple rule and incorporate it into our management.
Our role is to be aware of this, eliminate the hazards (up to the point that
it's economic), and be ready with the resources at hand to deal in a timely
manner with what will happen. But it isn't luck.
--
Kindest regards,
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F. W. Owen
Owenlea Holsteins
9430 Spencer Road
Homerville, Ohio 44235
e-mail fwo@bright.net
home page http://www.bright.net/~fwo
voice & fax 330.625.2369
cell 330.635.2287
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