3 month old heifers

[Backbone Ranch]

Our Murray Grey herdsire just turned 3 years old this year. Last year he sired 4 calves, one of which was a heifer. She is developing very well, but her dam was our best cow who has produced some great calves in the past... we were not sure if it was the mother that had a larger impact on the quality of that particular heifer.
Our herd bull, Tony, has now sired 8 more heifers. These heifers are now 3 months old. I know that they are young, but what are your thoughts on them?

This heifer is out of a 9 year old cow. She had a 72 lb birth weight. She was born while we had 2 inches of sleet on the ground. She is a purebred Murray Grey.

Here is another purebred Murray Grey heifer. She was 81 lbs at birth and is out of a 4 year old cow. Like the heifer above, she was born while we had sleet on the ground.

This heifer is 75% Murray Grey and 25% Guernsey. She was 70 lbs at birth. Her dam has the same spots as a Guernsey, but instead of being orange and white, she is grey and white. This heifer is out of a 3 year old cow.

This heifer is also a purebred Murray Grey. The bull JOPA Elation Power shows up in her lineage a few times. She was 83 lbs at birth. She was the second largest calf that was born this year. Her dam is 5 years old and a frame score 3.

One last photo. This is a 75% Murray Grey x 25% Angus heifer. We were unable to weigh her and tag her at birth because she was too fast for us to catch at just a few hours old.

Tony sired 3 other heifers and all of them are about the same quality as these heifers too.

 

[fenceman]

Don't know a thing about this Murray Gray breed.
But those are nice calves. :tiphat:

 

[torogmc81]

Nice looking calves!!

 

[hillbillyhammer]

Don't know a thing about this Murray Gray breed.
But those are nice calves. :tiphat:

My sentiments exactly.

 

[crossbredcalves]

Very nice calves

 

[Rafter S]

Nice heifers. They'd look good in my pasture.

 

[Named'em Tamed'em]

They look real nice, the last one with a little Angus in it looks a little more beefy.

I'll take the one you don't want!

For what I know :tiphat:

 

[Williamsv]

Beautiful calves. I would be proud to have any of them in my pasture.

 

[branguscowgirl]

Very beautiful heifers.

 

[WalnutCrest]

It's good to see good cattle. MG flesh easily and that ability would help many producers.

How many head are you running power acre?

 

[Backbone Ranch]

Thank you for the comments. We are very happy with what our young herdsire is producing.

We are able to run a cow/ calf pair on 10 acres here, so we could run a maximum of about 80 pairs on our ranch. We currently are running 18 cow/ calf pairs, 4 bred heifers, 9 yearling heifers, 10 steers, a mature bull, and 3 yearling bulls. We also lease part of our acreage, and the grazier runs 20 cow/ calf pairs. We are buying several more bred cows this fall and some weaned heifers.

 

[WalnutCrest]

Interesting. Do they graze what they want, or do you rotate them? If so, how often?

 

[Backbone Ranch]

Interesting. Do they graze what they want, or do you rotate them? If so, how often?

We have divided our property into 17 different pastures. We rotate the herd every 7 to 10 days. Our cow herd is currently grazing the stretch of topland that we do have. We would like to get them into smaller paddocks for shorter periods of time eventually, but we are right now trying to get fences back up in the river bottoms; they were washed out due to our most recent flood.

 

[WalnutCrest]

Interesting. Do they graze what they want, or do you rotate them? If so, how often?

We have divided our property into 17 different pastures. We rotate the herd every 7 to 10 days. Our cow herd is currently grazing the stretch of topland that we do have. We would like to get them into smaller paddocks for shorter periods of time eventually, but we are right now trying to get fences back up in the river bottoms; they were washed out due to our most recent flood.

Ah. Ok.

Based on what I've read of your place before, I think that with more paddocks, you can dramatically (!) increase your stocking rates (and therefore your profitability).

We do daily moves and are right at one head per acre (supplementing our standing forage with one large roll per head during the winter).

 

[Backbone Ranch]

Ah. Ok.

Based on what I've read of your place before, I think that with more paddocks, you can dramatically (!) increase your stocking rates (and therefore your profitability).

We do daily moves and are right at one head per acre (supplementing our standing forage with one large roll per head during the winter).

We think that you are absolutely correct! I've been reading about the benefits of high intensity grazing. Our family currently divides our time between the ranch and Dallas, but we intend to be living at the ranch full time within the next 5 years. We would then be able to rotate the cattle daily through small paddocks. I am looking forward to that day!

 

[mrvictordomino]

Outstanding calves, very nice.

 

[Backbone Ranch]

Here is another heifer calf that our herdbull, Tony, sired. She was 70 lbs at birth. She is pictured at 3.5 months. She is 75% Murray Grey and 25% Angus. We really like how she is developing.

 

[Karin]

Very nice heifers. I'd love to see how they grow and develop over time.

 

[Backbone Ranch]

The weather has been great the past few days, so I have been able to get a few pictures of the cow herd. The grass is right now greener than I can ever remember at this time of year.
This heifer is 4 months old now. She was pictured earlier in this thread. She is 75% Murray Grey and 25% Guernsey. I am still surprised at how little dairy influence she shows.

This heifer is also shown earlier in this thread. I know that this photo makes her neck look a bit short, but she is one of my favorite calves that was born this year. She is extremely deep bodied and has a good back end. Her dam is one of our prettiest cows; she is a frame score 3 and weighs over 1,400 lbs as a 5 year old.

This particular heifer was born on February 27, 2015. She was 76 lbs at birth and is sired by a Murray Grey bull named Cadella Park Golden Boy. She too is 4 months old. She was born during an ice storm, and was our second AI calf.

This cow is OK Iris. She is the dam of the Golden Boy heifer. She is 4 years old. She was AIed to a bull named MCC Trigger's Champion last month. I really hope that she took.

This last photo shows a cow/ calf pair. This heifer calf was 66 lbs at birth and born on the first of the month. Normally, we do not have calves born at this time of year, but we were trying to move this cow up to the spring calving season instead of calving in the fall.

 

[WalnutCrest]

Very handsome!