Average gain to weaning weight

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Dusty Britches

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I've often wondered about my cows and how well their calves gain.

Let me describe my herd - we have about 25 cows, 10 bred heifers and one bull. Currently, we don't have the facilities to seperate the bull, but we are "working" on that (along with about a dozen other projects). So, needless to say, we have calves year round. The bulk of calves were born in February.

Our bull is a registered Angus. He is about 2200 pounds. He had the lowest birth weight, highest birth to weaning weight gain, and highest weaning to yearing weight gains at the Texas Beef Development Center annual bull sale last year. His birth weight was 62 pounds, his weaning weight was 775, his yearling weight was 1450(+/-).

Our cows are primarily Brangus. Most are first calf, with calves out of the Angus bull. The calves are averaging 375-400 pounds now, average age is 4 months.

Here's my question - what should I expect (or set my goal at) for their 6 - 7 month weights so I can monitor for potential cull cows?
 
I don't know if this is exactly what you are looking for, but on our last batch of weaned calves, we weighed them the day we brought them in off the cows. The weight gain per day of age ranged from 1.6 lbs up to 2.45 lbs. The average for the group of 35 calves was 1.9 lbs per day of age. So I guess using that you could take your BW and age of calves and figure out if they are doing similar. I don't really think the 1.9 is stellar at all. Hopefully some others can chime and we can see what we should be shooting for.
 
i weighed a hand full of my calves sat. 6/11

heifers

dob
1/1 390 last calf with me, she is getting old
3/11 335
2/1 445


bulls

dob
1/21 475
11/9 555
4/9 265
4/10 245
5/1 240

the 390# heifer was the least performing, but her mom is old. last years calf was better.

jt
 
if you want to cull your cowherd based on weaning weight then you should set your weaning weight at 500lbs for bulls an heifers an anything below that look at culling them scott
 

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