Hard Cull'in during Heifer Development?

[Stocker Steve]

I culled a number last fall for low growth or confirmation or attitude. I culled a couple before breeding this summer for being too tall and framy. Now the remainder are a meadow fescue/OG pasture for the fall - - several don't look as good as before and one (who was weaned a little early) looks better. Is there a typical development point where comfirmation and condition stabilizes? Can weaning time shift this point?

 

[AllForage]

Steve, I judge mine harder right before breeding. Culling for slower growth might be shooting yourself in the foot sometimes as that nice easy fleshing type ain't always the fastest growing. The growthiest ones often get too large. Just my experience.

 

[dun]

I've never found any timeframe that is cut and dried and works for all of them. We had a heifer at weaning that we kept because of her genetics but the vet said she sould go down the road. The following spring when he was doing Repro Tracts he commented on one heifer and what a great heifer she was, when he had his arm in her he asked what we had done with that crap heifer frm the fall. When I told him he had his ram in her He about crapped. She turned out to be a real power cow, had half a dozen calves that were all dandys and finally got foot rot that got into the joint so she left.
We've had otehrs that fell apart between breeding and calving and others that just always looked good from birth. Still have 4-5 of those.

 

[Stocker Steve]

Culling for slower growth might be shooting yourself in the foot sometimes as that nice easy fleshing type ain't always the fastest growing. The growthiest ones often get too large.

I know I culled a couple smaller ones I should not have in early years. Now I try to differentiate between poor milking cows and easy keeping cows.
I usually sell the biggest bred heifers to folks with extra feed, so I am not afraid of too much growth.
Seems like they are 3 year olds before you realy know what you have got.

 

[Nesikep]

Attitudes rarely get better, so I pay close attention to how they behave (overly pushy, etc), after that, if they breed and don't cause me grief, I can give them some time to grow and come to full milk before judging them. This year I kept 4 heifers, the mothers of 2 of them are full sisters, but the calves are completely different, one is super stout, and the other is framey. I think she'll always be a framey cow like her mother, but she makes good calves every time and has loads of milk.

 

[ousoonerfan22]

Two years ago when weaning some heifers we had a small black baldie calf out of a small first calf heifer that I was going to haul off but took a chance and hung on to her. She was the smallest out of the group but now is the largest and best looking heifer we have raised so far. It's amazing how she stays so fleshy because she doesn't get any extra feed. We have some more in the corral right now weaning them and there's a black baldie heifer smaller than the rest just like the heifer I described so I'm curious how this one will turn out.

 

[Stocker Steve]

Attitudes rarely get better, so I pay close attention to how they behave (overly pushy, etc), after that, if they breed and don't cause me grief, I can give them some time to grow and come to full milk before judging them.

- Good input. Motherhood is the ultimate test.
- I am looking at running fewer stockers and retaining more heifers. I enjoy the breeding match up challenges and I am working on ways to keep the feed bill down.
- We got rain this fall so I put the bred heifers on the stocker pasture regrowth after AIing in August. They have gotten fat on meadow fescue and will stay on it till the snow gets deep.