Four Star Veterinary Service’s Harrison Dudley, DVM, explains why nutrition, bull management and data-driven decision-making are central to long-term herd fertility and profitability
For beef cattle producers, reproductive management is one of the most important drivers of long-term herd profitability. Yet according to Harrison Dudley, DVM, with Four Star Veterinary Service based in North Carolina, reproductive success is rarely determined by a single event or management decision.
Instead, Dudley describes reproductive management as a year-round system that touches nutrition, bull management, herd health, genetics and recordkeeping. In many cow-calf operations, especially diversified farms, reproduction often becomes a long-term planning challenge because decisions made months earlier can affect pregnancy rates and calving outcomes later in the year.
“Reproductive management is a holistic approach to one of the most fundamental or cornerstone production tenants in the cow-calf sector,” Dudley said. “It is the interaction of environment, animal genetics, the ecosystem and the financial system. It’s the core reason why we have cows on these diversified farming systems.”
Dudley said producers often focus heavily on the calf crop itself, but the foundation of efficient calf production always begins with the cow herd and the systems supporting those cows throughout the year.
“On the cow-calf side, yes, we’re selling calves and yes, we’re focused on producing that calf as low cost and efficiently as possible,” Dudley said. “But the only way to do that is through reproductive management. It starts at the cow level, and we have to think about it from that perspective.”
Dudley outlined three major areas producers should prioritize to improve reproductive performance: nutrition, bull management and preventative health combined with data management.
- Nutrition drives reproductive success
Dudley said nutrition remains the single most important factor influencing reproductive outcomes in beef cattle herds.
While many producers focus on supplementation immediately before or during breeding season, Dudley believes reproductive nutrition must be managed continuously throughout the production cycle.
“#1 is always nutrition,” Dudley said. “I think it is a year-long or production calendar long priority that we have to be focused on.”
He explained that successful reproduction depends heavily on maintaining consistent nutritional intake throughout the year, particularly in forage-based systems when feed quality changes seasonally.
“We have to, first and foremost, be focused on supporting the rumen,” Dudley said. “Then, set up a supplementation plan throughout the year, understanding grass curves and harvested forage availability and quality to make sure that your cattle are getting the appropriate balance of energy, fiber and protein.”
According to Dudley, many reproductive failures are tied not to a cow’s current body condition score, but to weight gain or loss occurring months earlier.
“What we need to know is what was the condition change over the preceding 90 days before bulls went out,” Dudley said. “If the condition changed 90 days after the bull went out, that’s what really determines reproductive success.”
He noted that producers often evaluate cows during pregnancy checks and struggle to understand why cows appearing in acceptable condition still come up open.
Dudley explained that reproductive performance is influenced more by whether cows were gaining or losing condition during breeding season than by what they look like months later.
“Were they body condition score six and losing weight every day, or were they body condition score four and gaining weight?” Dudley said. “That is what truly matters.”
This challenge becomes even greater in regions where forage quality fluctuates significantly throughout the year. Dudley said many Eastern North Carolina operations experience strong spring pasture growth but struggle nutritionally during winter breeding seasons when cattle rely heavily on hay.
He emphasized that producers cannot wait until pregnancy check day to react to reproductive problems.
“When it comes to reproduction, that’s why we have to have a very long-term focus,” Dudley said. “We cannot be thinking about today and just react to what’s happening today.”
Dudley acknowledged that implementing aggressive supplementation programs can be difficult in large, geographically dispersed cow-calf systems. Many operations manage cattle across multiple farms spread over long distances, making daily feed delivery impractical.
As a result, producers often rely on prioritizing higher-quality hay and supplementation for younger cows, first-calf heifers or thinner animals while trying to maximize pasture management strategies.
Still, Dudley said nutrition remains the foundation of reproductive performance.
“Nutrition and making sure you have a quality plan is the most critical thing to me,” he said.
- Bulls require year-round management
The second major focus area Dudley identified was bull management. He said many producers pay close attention to bulls only a few weeks before breeding season begins, then largely ignore them the rest of the year.
“Bulls are needed for a very short time of the year,” Dudley said. “Most of my customers have a 75-day breeding season, then the bulls are sent to a back pasture where they’re kept for the other nine months of the year.”
According to Dudley, successful bull management starts months before turnout. Producers should evaluate body condition, structural soundness, feet, fertility and overall adaptation to their production environment.
“I tell my customers you need to think about bulls at least three months before breeding season begins,” Dudley said.
Dudley also emphasized the importance of selecting bulls that can function under local forage and environmental conditions rather than simply purchasing animals bred for high-end sale performance.
“You’ve got to identify a program that produces bulls that are going to work in your environment,” Dudley said.
He explained that many seedstock bulls are developed under intensive feeding systems and may struggle after being moved into more forage-based commercial cow-calf environments.
“A lot of these bulls are fed silage and precision rations that come delivered to a feed bunk twice a day,” Dudley said. “Then they’re put out in an eastern North Carolina pasture and might go a week without seeing somebody.”
Dudley said producers must also recognize that genetic selection goals for carcass traits do not always align with long-term structural durability or adaptability in tougher forage environments.
Beyond genetics and nutrition, he stressed the importance of routine breeding soundness exams and disease testing.
“We need to have a structure and semen evaluation done in a timely enough fashion prior to breeding season that we can adjust if needed,” Dudley said.
He noted that shared bulls can create additional disease risks if producers skip post-season testing before returning bulls to their own herds.
“A $55 breeding soundness exam is a very nominal expense,” Dudley said, especially considering the value of the calves those bulls are expected to sire.
- Health programs with data management complete the system
The third major area Dudley discussed was preventative health and disease surveillance.While vaccination programs are important, Dudley cautioned producers against expecting vaccines alone to dramatically improve reproductive rates.
“My contention would be that outside of a surveillance program, the vaccine protocols are really only preventing that once in a lifetime train wreck kind of a problem,” Dudley said.
He used bovine viral diarrhea (BVD) as an example, explaining that well-managed herds with controlled cattle movement and strong biosecurity may rarely experience outbreaks, but vaccination still serves as insurance against catastrophic events.
“When that event happens, we will be glad that we have vaccinated against it and spent the money for the last 30 years,” Dudley said.
However, Dudley said the more valuable component of herd health management may actually be recordkeeping and data analysis.
“The part that I want to talk about is disease screening,” Dudley said. “Disease screening is more than just having a record keeping system.”
According to Dudley, pregnancy status alone provides limited value unless producers analyze broader trends within the herd. He encourages producers to evaluate calving distribution, breeding timing, abortion losses and repeat reproductive failures over time to identify underlying system problems.
“I want to know the distribution of gestational dates,” Dudley said. “Are cows all getting bred at the front end? Are we having 80% of our calves in two weeks or are we having a bell curve spread out over 90 days?”
Dudley said reproductive management ultimately becomes a process of using information to make strategic decisions rather than simply collecting data.
“There has to be an element of it’s not just arbitrary numbers and data collection,” Dudley said. “It’s what are you doing with the data.”
For Dudley, that long-term, systems-based mindset defines successful reproductive management in modern beef cattle operations.