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Cattle Boards
Breeding / Calving Issues
Selecting which heifers to keep
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<blockquote data-quote="Aaron" data-source="post: 596312" data-attributes="member: 1682"><p>We keep all our calves to yearling, so picking out the better heifers is a lot easier. A lot is hidden by all that baby fat on a calf. The real performers show once mom isn't there for them anymore.</p><p></p><p>Usually we pick out the biggest (#'s, not weight) and best group of heifers that seem to complement each other. I can't remember the number of heifers we had to select from this spring, but we ended up with 5 or 6 heifers that seemed very close phenotypically. Shipped a couple this fall. So we end up with 4 real good heifers that we look forward to having in the herd.</p><p></p><p>We used to keep nearly all the heifers and give them a chance, but that can really work for you, or really hurt you as attrition rates in the first few years can be high, for lower cow prices. 2001 was a good year, a lot of those cows worked well for us and stayed around for a number of years.</p><p></p><p>I guess it depends if your expanding, decreasing or just maintaining your herd. We are in the maintenance phase right now. We would like to really improve the overall power and uniformity in our cowherd so our cull rates are high and replacements just enough to keep the numbers up.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Aaron, post: 596312, member: 1682"] We keep all our calves to yearling, so picking out the better heifers is a lot easier. A lot is hidden by all that baby fat on a calf. The real performers show once mom isn't there for them anymore. Usually we pick out the biggest (#'s, not weight) and best group of heifers that seem to complement each other. I can't remember the number of heifers we had to select from this spring, but we ended up with 5 or 6 heifers that seemed very close phenotypically. Shipped a couple this fall. So we end up with 4 real good heifers that we look forward to having in the herd. We used to keep nearly all the heifers and give them a chance, but that can really work for you, or really hurt you as attrition rates in the first few years can be high, for lower cow prices. 2001 was a good year, a lot of those cows worked well for us and stayed around for a number of years. I guess it depends if your expanding, decreasing or just maintaining your herd. We are in the maintenance phase right now. We would like to really improve the overall power and uniformity in our cowherd so our cull rates are high and replacements just enough to keep the numbers up. [/QUOTE]
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Selecting which heifers to keep
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