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<blockquote data-quote="Travlr" data-source="post: 1821105" data-attributes="member: 42463"><p>There's a conflict between expecting continuing fertility into whatever years you deem appropriate to cull a cow for age... and culling a cow at an earlier age just to protect yourself from the possibility of an infertile cow due to age.</p><p></p><p>If you want cows to be productive until they are 15... then you have to keep heifers from cows that have performed well into their teens. If all your replacement heifers come from 5 year old cows you are going to be getting replacements from cows that will only last 5/6/7/etc. years. Some will outperform their mothers, but your average will be going down. Of course there is no guarantee that a specific heifer out of a 15 year old cow will outperform the average, but the numbers show a group of heifers from 15 year old cows will be more fertile, longer as an average. And when you couple those heifers with a bull that came out of an older cow, and from a line of bulls that came from older cows, you will get heifers with a greater propensity to maintain fertility into age.</p><p></p><p>It costs money to replace productive cows, but it also costs money to keep unproductive cows. Culling a cow early costs as much as culling too late.</p><p></p><p>This business is predicated on averages and improving them. People that buy animals with this in mind do better than people that only buy the cheapest things they can find and have no plan to make improvements.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Travlr, post: 1821105, member: 42463"] There's a conflict between expecting continuing fertility into whatever years you deem appropriate to cull a cow for age... and culling a cow at an earlier age just to protect yourself from the possibility of an infertile cow due to age. If you want cows to be productive until they are 15... then you have to keep heifers from cows that have performed well into their teens. If all your replacement heifers come from 5 year old cows you are going to be getting replacements from cows that will only last 5/6/7/etc. years. Some will outperform their mothers, but your average will be going down. Of course there is no guarantee that a specific heifer out of a 15 year old cow will outperform the average, but the numbers show a group of heifers from 15 year old cows will be more fertile, longer as an average. And when you couple those heifers with a bull that came out of an older cow, and from a line of bulls that came from older cows, you will get heifers with a greater propensity to maintain fertility into age. It costs money to replace productive cows, but it also costs money to keep unproductive cows. Culling a cow early costs as much as culling too late. This business is predicated on averages and improving them. People that buy animals with this in mind do better than people that only buy the cheapest things they can find and have no plan to make improvements. [/QUOTE]
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