More cows vs. Big cows

[Jessica06]

A lot of articles have been written lately encouraging producers to start selecting for females with a mature weight in the 900-1100 pound range. That more, smaller calves is more profitable than fewer, bigger calves. The logic is that a big cow eats a LOT more, you can't have as many of them, and she has to wean a really big calf to be pulling her weight. For a 1700# cow that's an 850 pound calf to just make it to 50% of her body weight. That's about the size of a good F1. We put scales under our chute last year, and it has probably been the best investment we've made to date. Now that we are getting closer to our ideal stocking rate, the inefficient, tiny, and huge cows are the next to go.

I took this picture while we were checking cows a few days ago, and I thought that she was a perfect example of what they mean. She weighs about 1000 pounds medium bred at a BCS 6. She has a calving interval of 339 days after 5 calves. The steer in the picture is 4 months old. Granted she is one of our outliers as far as fertility, but if you could have a whole herd of cows this productive and this size, why not? And we are focusing on NUMBERS here, not looks. Thoughts?

 

[Putangitangi]

Mine are around 1200lbs and my calculations are getting closer to discovering the number of cows I can carry so they all maintain good body condition on grass only all year round. (We're in a temperate region, so grass grows slowly right through winter and we don't generally suffer seriously from drought.)

The calves wean at 575lbs average (6-7 months weaning) and when my usual buyer gets her feed right and there's no drought they're finishing at around 20 months for slaughter. She's making a living and so am I.

The heifers mostly make it to mating weights by 14 months and the others go to slaughter around the time their sisters are calving for the first time.

Your markets' expectations of cattle size might be different. Our export steer markets are fine for the animals coming out of my moderate cows and the retail heifer plants like the heifers at that smaller carcass size.

 

[DOC HARRIS]

rbrancher-

The conclusions to which you have arrived are absolutely - RIGHT ON! (One might even say - SPOT ON - as is the current British "fad" commentary lately!). The 'uninformed' beef producers who argue against the fact that smaller cows are more profitable than larger ones because - as they continue to incorrectly blather "They still pay by the pound, don't they?" - neglect to take into consideration many factors which will absolutely create more profit on the bottom line at the end of the year! I would suggest that before one opens their mouth and crams both boots into it, they think pragmatically about their overall COSTS in the producing of those ". . . pounds of pushing down the scales which bring in the dollars!".

Consider a few facts here: It is true that smaller cows wean a higher percentage of their body weight and you can run more of them on the same acreage. That is pretty straightforward, isn't it? But how small is small? An Arkansas Extension study found that 1100 pound cows weaned 47% of their body weight (517 lbs), while 1400 pound cows weaned only 40% (563 lbs). As "they" say - DO THE MATH! Plus you can run 116 1100 pound cows for every 100 pound 1400 pound cows. Smaller cows make $75 more per cow per year! You have to feed the dams whether it is pasture grass, hay , supplement, minerals, water, corn stalks, silage, haylage or whatever you have on hand. It still costs money. Less cost is less cost, and it shows up in your profit margin.

Size DOES count! . . . and I won't even go into the discussion of the costs of developing replacement heifers (smaller than larger). . . . or selecting for Feed Efficiency (by calculating smaller cows AND genetically influenced replacements) in your "thinking-ahead-protocols" for PROFIT MAKING three, six, even nine years down the road.

This argument about "Cow Size" is NOT an argument - it is an UNdeniable fact that Beef Producers make more PROFIT breeding and managing smaller cattle (NOT tiny cattle) than by breeding larger frame size cattle!

Are you interested in having your eyes OPENED? Get a scale, and find out what your cattle REALLY weigh, as opposed to what you think they weigh! :deadhorse:

DOC HARRIS

 

[Chris H]

Doc has a good post, worth saving and rereading when picking out your next bull, or at culling time.

A very wise cattleman once told me your mature cow size should be approximately the weight of the desired butcher animal. 1200-1400 lbs seems to be what has been in demand for a number of years now.

 

[alexfarms]

Excellent posts! If you mate those smaller framed cows right, they will raise you high quality calves. It doesn't take a big cow to weigh 1200# if she has some meat and captivity to her. I am 54 years old and have been working with cows continuously all my life. I look at most of today's "contemporary" beef cattle and I see way too much dairy and dual purpose breeding in them and they don't fare we'll without a reliable grain/grain byproduct diet. Jim Lents once wrote 'they've turned beef cattle into grain fed pigs'. Too much showing and too much performance testing to select the calves that take the longest to get fat on grain.

 

[Kingfisher]

If my my Baldies turn out that small I'll be a happy rancher. I was in a supply house the other day that showed an " award winning" Hereford Bull from 1952 compared to another from the 80's and the 52 model looked like a dwarf! Not to hijack your thread but if the Bulls 50% where are bulls heading? I've poked around for some pics of award winning Hereford from the 50'-60's and I'm sure someone can explain how frame size changed ( and will change?" ) due to I suppose market and range conditions.

 

[alexfarms]

If my my Baldies turn out that small I'll be a happy rancher. I was in a supply house the other day that showed an " award winning" Hereford Bull from 1952 compared to another from the 80's and the 52 model looked like a dwarf! Not to hijack your thread but if the Bulls 50% where are bulls heading? I've poked around for some pics of award winning Hereford from the 50'-60's and I'm sure someone can explain how frame size changed ( and will change?" ) due to I suppose market and range conditions.

This has been a problem in the beef industry: swinging from one extreme to the other. The answer to your question is moderation. Maintain a practical efficient beef cow herd.

 

[Black and Good]

All I can say is, I've got 25 or so that look just about like her. Mine average around 1200#'s. B&G

 

[ALACOWMAN]

A lot of articles have been written lately encouraging producers to start selecting for females with a mature weight in the 900-1100 pound range. That more, smaller calves is more profitable than fewer, bigger calves. The logic is that a big cow eats a LOT more, you can't have as many of them, and she has to wean a really big calf to be pulling her weight. For a 1700# cow that's an 850 pound calf to just make it to 50% of her body weight. That's about the size of a good F1. We put scales under our chute last year, and it has probably been the best investment we've made to date. Now that we are getting closer to our ideal stocking rate, the inefficient, tiny, and huge cows are the next to go.

I took this picture while we were checking cows a few days ago, and I thought that she was a perfect example of what they mean. She weighs about 1000 pounds medium bred at a BCS 6. She has a calving interval of 339 days after 5 calves. The steer in the picture is 4 months old. Granted she is one of our outliers as far as fertility, but if you could have a whole herd of cows this productive and this size, why not? And we are focusing on NUMBERS here, not looks. Thoughts?

when it come to looks, i focus on the function of those looks, not what looks good in the show ring...looks like she's doing it right

 

[KNERSIE]

Excellent posts! If you mate those smaller framed cows right, they will raise you high quality calves. It doesn't take a big cow to weigh 1200# if she has some meat and captivity to her. I am 54 years old and have been working with cows continuously all my life. I look at most of today's "contemporary" beef cattle and I see way too much dairy and dual purpose breeding in them and they don't fare we'll without a reliable grain/grain byproduct diet. Jim Lents once wrote 'they've turned beef cattle into grain fed pigs'. Too much showing and too much performance testing to select the calves that take the longest to get fat on grain.

I need to know what captivity refers to in that sentence....

 

[M.Magis]

If my my Baldies turn out that small I'll be a happy rancher. I was in a supply house the other day that showed an " award winning" Hereford Bull from 1952 compared to another from the 80's and the 52 model looked like a dwarf! Not to hijack your thread but if the Bulls 50% where are bulls heading? I've poked around for some pics of award winning Hereford from the 50'-60's and I'm sure someone can explain how frame size changed ( and will change?" ) due to I suppose market and range conditions.

Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe if you go on back further in history you’ll see the opposite, like frame score 10 bulls. Everyone I know talks how “cattle used to be smaller in my day”, but it seems there have been quite a few dramatic changes in cattle size in the last 100 years. It’s just that not many, or none of us are old enough to remember. Someone here posted a link to a website that showed grand champion bulls over the last 100 years or so of some major stock show. The size variation was amazing. I’ve looked and looked for that post, but haven’t been able to find it again. It was very interesting.

 

[ANAZAZI]

Excellent posts! If you mate those smaller framed cows right, they will raise you high quality calves. It doesn't take a big cow to weigh 1200# if she has some meat and captivity to her. I am 54 years old and have been working with cows continuously all my life. I look at most of today's "contemporary" beef cattle and I see way too much dairy and dual purpose breeding in them and they don't fare we'll without a reliable grain/grain byproduct diet. Jim Lents once wrote 'they've turned beef cattle into grain fed pigs'. Too much showing and too much performance testing to select the calves that take the longest to get fat on grain.

I need to know what captivity refers to in that sentence....

:lol2: :lol2: :clap:

He would not mean "capacity", would he? :2cents:

 

[skeeter swatter]

If my my Baldies turn out that small I'll be a happy rancher. I was in a supply house the other day that showed an " award winning" Hereford Bull from 1952 compared to another from the 80's and the 52 model looked like a dwarf! Not to hijack your thread but if the Bulls 50% where are bulls heading? I've poked around for some pics of award winning Hereford from the 50'-60's and I'm sure someone can explain how frame size changed ( and will change?" ) due to I suppose market and range conditions.

This has been a problem in the beef industry: swinging from one extreme to the other. The answer to your question is moderation. Maintain a practical efficient beef cow herd.

Bingo. And what fits YOUR enviroment.

 

[Taurus]

If my my Baldies turn out that small I'll be a happy rancher. I was in a supply house the other day that showed an " award winning" Hereford Bull from 1952 compared to another from the 80's and the 52 model looked like a dwarf! Not to hijack your thread but if the Bulls 50% where are bulls heading? I've poked around for some pics of award winning Hereford from the 50'-60's and I'm sure someone can explain how frame size changed ( and will change?" ) due to I suppose market and range conditions.

This has been a problem in the beef industry: swinging from one extreme to the other. The answer to your question is moderation. Maintain a practical efficient beef cow herd.

Bingo. And what fits YOUR enviroment.

Good genetics need to match to your environment too.

 

[tdarden3k]

rbrancher-

The conclusions to which you have arrived are absolutely - RIGHT ON! (One might even say - SPOT ON - as is the current British "fad" commentary lately!). The 'uninformed' beef producers who argue against the fact that smaller cows are more profitable than larger ones because - as they continue to incorrectly blather "They still pay by the pound, don't they?" - neglect to take into consideration many factors which will absolutely create more profit on the bottom line at the end of the year! I would suggest that before one opens their mouth and crams both boots into it, they think pragmatically about their overall COSTS in the producing of those ". . . pounds of pushing down the scales which bring in the dollars!".

Consider a few facts here: It is true that smaller cows wean a higher percentage of their body weight and you can run more of them on the same acreage. That is pretty straightforward, isn't it? But how small is small? An Arkansas Extension study found that 1100 pound cows weaned 47% of their body weight (517 lbs), while 1400 pound cows weaned only 40% (563 lbs). As "they" say - DO THE MATH! Plus you can run 116 1100 pound cows for every 100 pound 1400 pound cows. Smaller cows make $75 more per cow per year! You have to feed the dams whether it is pasture grass, hay , supplement, minerals, water, corn stalks, silage, haylage or whatever you have on hand. It still costs money. Less cost is less cost, and it shows up in your profit margin.

Size DOES count! . . . and I won't even go into the discussion of the costs of developing replacement heifers (smaller than larger). . . . or selecting for Feed Efficiency (by calculating smaller cows AND genetically influenced replacements) in your "thinking-ahead-protocols" for PROFIT MAKING three, six, even nine years down the road.

This argument about "Cow Size" is NOT an argument - it is an UNdeniable fact that Beef Producers make more PROFIT breeding and managing smaller cattle (NOT tiny cattle) than by breeding larger frame size cattle!

Are you interested in having your eyes OPENED? Get a scale, and find out what your cattle REALLY weigh, as opposed to what you think they weigh! :deadhorse:

DOC HARRIS

Doc
It does appear that most, if not all that have responded to this post are of the same brotherhood. I would like to offer a slightly different perspective. Doc you quoted a study by the Arkansas Extension Service regarding frame sizes and stocking rates and the like. I am an Arkansan and the Extension Service does great work there and has been invaluable to my family when we were producing row and cash crops. Howeverit should be noted that the averave heard size for an Arkansas farm is 29 head. Plus 67% of all herds in Arkansas have less than 50 animals. Most of us "supplement" our incomes with cattle, NOT rely on them totally for our daily living. Granted that should not be a mandate for us to mindlessly waste feed and resources on inefficient cattle, but 1 size does NOT fit all, just as one color or one breed doesn't fit all. It is all about choices. Not everyone wants to breed Black, Angus, Corriente- sized cattle and that doesn't make us idiots.

In Extreme South Arkansas where droughts are common place, where 100 degree days average 100 plus a year, I could not buy enough feed to keep a lactating 900 lb cow in March at 700 lbs in September. She may or may not rebreed, may possibly miscarry, and produce a very poor calf. That size doesn't fit for me.

Also consider that for a lotof the "small producers" capacity and efficiency are not the issue. We have no problem throwing 29 cows on 40, or 80, or 120 acres and that is all the numbers that we either want, have time for or can afford. We don't take our calculators out everytime we add a cow, or put 2 staples in a post that only needed 1 or buy a bag of feed. Yep we would probably go broke in a purely ccommercial enviromnent. but a lot of us are no where near there.

However , what we do is get up every morning , brush our 3 teeth, jump into our pickups and drive by our 40 acre pasture with 9 cows in that are about the size of 3000 pound Belgium Blue bulls, on the way to the Easter Grass factory where we work, and admire the 9 choices that we have made.....

 

[TexasBred]

Is she registered and if so how do you think she would do at a Brangus Production Sale with all those 1350-1400 pounders??

 

[Jessica06]

She is most definitely NOT registered.

The way I see it, in this business people should take everything with a grain of salt, experiment, and find out what works best for them. The cow in the picture is one heck of a calf-making machine, but she is not what we are shooting for. Like some people have said, you really have to breed them to the right type of bull. Meaning - a good looking 900-1000# cow will probably be on the small side of moderate, so you need to breed them to a bull with a little frame or the calves will really get docked at the sale barn. What I consider our best-producing type, according to many different criteria, is a 1200# cow at a BCS of 5.7-6 and a solid Medium frame size. 1100-1300 is our preferred range that we are shooting for. They are not so big that they are inefficient, and they are not small enough that they will take a hit at the sale barn due to a too-light carcass weight. Cull cow prices have been excellent the last couple of years, and it makes a big enough difference in your total profits to put a little thought into how you market them, and what type will be the most profitable through her entire productive life, which includes salvage value.

TexasBred - True, our best registered cows ARE in the 1400-1500# range...but they are for raising bulls to put weight on calves. Totally different deal. And a totally different type of competition! That cow would get commercial'd before weaning.

 

[Taurus]

We're talking about COMMERICIAL producers right? Not seedstock/registered producers?

 

[Jessica06]

We're talking about COMMERICIAL producers right? Not seedstock/registered producers?

Yes.

 

[redcowsrule33]

Relying strictly on cow size to determine profitability is a simple criterion, but it isn't that simple. Yes a small cow will consume less, but you need to provide her a higher quality forage than a larger cow. Larger cows are biologically more efficient, meaning they need to consume more pounds of protein compared to a smaller cow, but the feed they consume can be lower in protein to achieve this as they have the ability to consume more total pounds of forage. So if you have a large amount of low quality feed, your larger cows will use this feedstuff more efficiently than a small cow. So it really depends on what your available feedstuff is.