The article starts out with “A troubling trend has occurred for ranchers in NE Washington”, the Capital Press is reporting, as an area rancher said their cattle are experiencing breeding issues since the migration of wolves to the area. This is the land of the wolf. Their home for centuries before any of these ranchers. Then the mass slaughter of wolves began, and by early 1900s, after years of trapping and poisoning campaigns and government-sponsored bounties, our wolves were eradicated from the U.S. Pacific Northwest.
According to the Diamond M Ranch’s Len McIrvin, the rate of female cows ranging for them that didn’t become pregnant has increased from five percent to about 20 percent. A cow must raise a calf every summer for the rancher to recoup costs, and while the Diamond M Ranch is big enough to absorb the loss of producing cattle by auctioning the cows that don’t become pregnant off in Hermiston, smaller ranchers may not be so lucky.
They will get compensation very easily be signing a damage prevention cooperative agreement.
Here are a few reasons why cows might not become pregnant.
- Diseases
- Subclinical uterine infection.
- Vibriosis and trichomoniasis in natural breeding.
- Leptospirosis and haemophilus.
- Viruses (IBR/IPV, BVD) and maybe others.
- Ureaplasma and mycoplasma.
- Toxicity (i.e., ketone bodies, mycotoxins, high blood urea nitrogen (BUN) and endotoxins).
- Imbalance of calcium, phosphorus, vitamins A, D, and E and carotene.
- Anemia.
- Hormonal imbalance (i.e., intake of forages high in estrogen).
- Use of low breeding efficiency sires.
- Improper use of drugs or hormones that impact reproductive function. It could also be
- Excessive weight loss or poor body condition.
- Improper palpation technique during pregnancy exams.
- Heat stress.
- Inseminating cows too late in relation to ovulation.
- Deficient crude protein or excess degradable protein intake.
- Gross over-conditioning.
Diamond M also has a winter range to cut costs. The ranch says they lose 70 head to wolves in a year, while the Department of Fish and Wildlife can confirm about a handful of the depredations. Yeah, sure, so that is a lie!
Losses can be prevented with all the deterrents available. In North America, the grey wolf is so far down on the list of things that can kill livestock as to render this reason completely ridiculous–and, what’s worse, incredibly easy to check. You think you can’t just look up the numbers and see what kills livestock? This isn’t up for debate! This is thoroughly surveyed every year!
The idea that carnivorous predators are a major problem for agribusiness is like saying the cost of maintaining movable type is a real problem for the newspaper industry. That’s just not how these things work anymore; if livestock is your business, you’ve got a lot of problems, but wolves aren’t even close to one of them. Millions of cattle die every year from respiratory problems, digestive problems, disease, birthing and weather and the list goes on. Compared to cattle killed by wolves is only about 2%
So all these lies and excuses are great cause for concern. Are they setting the wolves up, yet again? We already know they want more killed and happy if they were all eradicated.
http://chewelahindependent.com/cattle-producer-says-wolves-cause-breeding-problems/