Culling conundrum

[Andyva]

I too am always looking for a reason to turn one into a check and someone else's bad luck. Just be careful you don't cull a good cow because of something the bull did. (Or didn't get done.) If I saw very many cows getting bred and then coming back in, I would think seriously about ordering a BSE on my bull.

 

[Nesikep]

I was trying to build numbers for a long time, and starting off we only had about 16 cows, with a good portion of them just lousy cows we didn't want heifers from.. so we had a couple decent replacements every year which was just enough to replace the worst offenders.. prolapses, bad hooves and udders.. especially when you have years with 70% steer calves.

 

[Putangitangi]

I too am always looking for a reason to turn one into a check and someone else's bad luck. Just be careful you don't cull a good cow because of something the bull did. (Or didn't get done.) If I saw very many cows getting bred and then coming back in, I would think seriously about ordering a BSE on my bull.

But that's "making an excuse" for a cow. ;-) I've made excuses for good cows when the reason she's empty is something to do with my poor management. Why shoot myself in the foot for future production because I didn't get it right now?

I was trying to build numbers for a long time, and starting off we only had about 16 cows, with a good portion of them just lousy cows we didn't want heifers from.. so we had a couple decent replacements every year which was just enough to replace the worst offenders.. prolapses, bad hooves and udders.. especially when you have years with 70% steer calves.

My experience has been much the same. Some years it was really hard to keep enough good replacements for the cows which needed to go. These days it's hard to find enough spaces for the replacements to be able to join the herd. So pressure builds and presumably the herd keeps getting better.

 

[ANAZAZI]

Why shoot yourself in the foot by keeping a cow that one time did not get bred? The ones that were bred are the good cows.

 

[ANAZAZI]

I was trying to build numbers for a long time, and starting off we only had about 16 cows, with a good portion of them just lousy cows we didn't want heifers from.. so we had a couple decent replacements every year which was just enough to replace the worst offenders.. prolapses, bad hooves and udders.. especially when you have years with 70% steer calves.

A heifer even out of your worst cow by a good bull is a substantially better option than keeping your worst cow.

 

[Nesikep]

Every heifer is a gamble.. some work, some don't.. and with heifers you gotta feed them for a full year and not get anything out of it.. Keeping a late bred cow still gives you a calf for that year. In this particular case, I know the late bred cow has lots of milk.