Please give evaluation of this heifer

[jimboz]

Newbie to this board and raising cattle. I bought a small herd of pregnant cows in Fall 2014 and this will be the first heifer born on this farm to calve. Please give me your opinion of her... she's 31 months and about 1300#, 100% grass fed. Appreciate all/any input especially comments on her build. She's due any day now and it wouldn't surprise me if it's twins.

Thanks,
Jim

 

[coachg]

Should be plenty big enough to calve ! What she bred to ?

 

[wacocowboy]

May I ask why you waited so long to breed her? As for the heifer she looks good from what I can see in the photo.

 

[A.J.]

:welcome: She looks good based off of the 1 photo. It's exciting to see the first one you raised have a calf. What's she bred to?

 

[jimboz]

She's bred to a registered Angus. She's been with bull every breeding season so delayed breeding was not intentional. My calves seem far behind my neighbors grainfed calves so I'm thinking she was just immature.

 

[dun]

The reason your calves are smaller is simple, grain fed vs grass fed. Basic husbandry is doing what needs to be done to make your animals profitable. Several things that can point to possibly problems is having heifers Repro Tract Scored as yearling, Breeding Soundness Exam for bulls, insuring adequate nutrition for the animals to develop to their potential. Grass fed beef requires much more attention to nutrition then grain fed for the simple reason that grass doesn;t have the nutritional value that grain does. That doesn;t mean you have to feed grain or if you feed grain you don;t have to pound it to them. Grass farmer first! Proper grass/forage selection along with proper fertility and management can go a goodly way to decreasing the difference between grain and grass.

 

[jimboz]

The reason your calves are smaller is simple, grain fed vs grass fed.

When I say they're behind my grainfed neighbors, I mean I think they're just slower to get full size... is this right? I guess there's no way to determine if a cow achieves the size of her genetic potential is there? To my eye she looks good so I don't think she's undernourished... it just took awhile to get there.

Here's the steers, some are approx 24 mos and go 1000#... so again they seem to be getting there, just slower than grainfed. Am I thinking right? If so, I'm OK with the rate and will continue to improve the pastures... actually sowed some jap yesterday.

 

[dun]

Lower nutritional level and also genetics. Our heifers with out grain run 800-900 as yearlings. These are Red Angus and crosses of RA with some Hereford and a couple of them a bit of Fleckvieh or Gelbvieh

 

[jimboz]

Wow, that's impressive.

 

[Caustic Burno]

The reason your calves are smaller is simple, grain fed vs grass fed.

When I say they're behind my grainfed neighbors, I mean I think they're just slower to get full size... is this right? I guess there's no way to determine if a cow achieves the size of her genetic potential is there? To my eye she looks good so I don't think she's undernourished... it just took awhile to get there.

Here's the steers, some are approx 24 mos and go 1000#... so again they seem to be getting there, just slower than grainfed. Am I thinking right? If so, I'm OK with the rate and will continue to improve the pastures... actually sowed some jap yesterday.

You get out what you put in just because they have grass doesn't mean their nutritional needs are being met.
You need a good mineral program along with soil testing to put back the nutrients with fertilizer you are pulling from the grass.
No free rides when it comes to grass or cattle management.
I ran Herefords for years still have a few on a grass program if they hadn't bred by 14 months they grew wheels.
My biggest problem was keeping them separated so they didn't breed at 6 or 7 months.

 

[Son of Butch]

I evaluate this heifer class as a bred Hereford.

I place her as an easy top in this class of one as a well made heifer with good body depth, standing on good feet
and legs. I like her. Being heavy with calf I do not fault her top line. I would like to see more width between her
front feet and legs. However I severely fault her for not calving before 30 months of age and therefore also place her
at the bottom of this class for an overall placing of first in a class of one.

 

[dun]

Wow, that's impressive.

Not particularly. Management and genetics. It took a good number of years to get to that point

 

[wacocowboy]

I would be keeping an eye on how fast she breeds if she is a slow breeder may need to let her go.