Menu
Forums
New posts
Search forums
What's new
New posts
New media
New media comments
New profile posts
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Members
Current visitors
New profile posts
Search profile posts
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles and first posts only
Search titles only
By:
New posts
Search forums
Menu
Log in
Register
Forums
Cattle Boards
Got Milk?
Sex selected semen
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Help Support CattleToday:
Message
<blockquote data-quote="farmerjan" data-source="post: 1762302" data-attributes="member: 25884"><p>That is so true... and now there is a SHORTAGE of replacement dairy heifers due to soo many animals being bred to beef bulls. Plus the smaller dairies selling out has hurt. Used to be the smaller farms, back before there was sexed semen even, would have approx 50% heifers and bulls born each year... and smaller farms often did not turn over their cows as fast as bigger farms... so a small dairy farm would have a few "extra" heifers to sell each year... It was actually considered a "sideline" for some of the farms to have a half a dozen springing heifers to sell each year and add to the bottom income line.... with so many of the farms breeding so much to beef, there aren't even the extra heifers from average cows available for sale. Big farms usually turn over their herd faster... cows that have little quirks are not tolerated when it is important that they are very "uniform"; slow milkers are not tolerated, ones that have less than ideal udders are sold off faster even if they are good milkers, bad feet are not tolerated for any length of time....there are more breeding problems in larger herds, the concentrated confinement on concrete is harder on their legs and feet... </p><p>The prices of replacement dairy heifers around here has gone up... there just aren't that many and farms that are expanding cannot find animals as easily or cheaply.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="farmerjan, post: 1762302, member: 25884"] That is so true... and now there is a SHORTAGE of replacement dairy heifers due to soo many animals being bred to beef bulls. Plus the smaller dairies selling out has hurt. Used to be the smaller farms, back before there was sexed semen even, would have approx 50% heifers and bulls born each year... and smaller farms often did not turn over their cows as fast as bigger farms... so a small dairy farm would have a few "extra" heifers to sell each year... It was actually considered a "sideline" for some of the farms to have a half a dozen springing heifers to sell each year and add to the bottom income line.... with so many of the farms breeding so much to beef, there aren't even the extra heifers from average cows available for sale. Big farms usually turn over their herd faster... cows that have little quirks are not tolerated when it is important that they are very "uniform"; slow milkers are not tolerated, ones that have less than ideal udders are sold off faster even if they are good milkers, bad feet are not tolerated for any length of time....there are more breeding problems in larger herds, the concentrated confinement on concrete is harder on their legs and feet... The prices of replacement dairy heifers around here has gone up... there just aren't that many and farms that are expanding cannot find animals as easily or cheaply. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Forums
Cattle Boards
Got Milk?
Sex selected semen
Top