Nesikep
Well-known member
One of the Gelbveih breeders I went and visited said the mother of one of his cows (he didn't own the mother) lived to have 24 calves in 28 years... I like that kind of "sticking power" and don't see much done in any livestock industry to reward that... The way I look at it, if your average cull has 7 calves, and you compare that to a herd that has 14 calves on average, you'd only have to keep half the replacement heifers, and that's money in your wallet. I'm nowhere near that in my herd, but I have done a LOT of fiddling around in my Excel herd database to see which cow lines have the best lifespans, as well as looking at the reasons for culling. It's not perfect, as in the case of Rosie's mother's line (Josie) because I have kept 7 calves from that line in 4 years, and so far those 7 replacements have only given me 3 calves, which really skews the averages because I have so many young animals... Meanwhile I have a couple other lines that look good (if that's all you look at) because I only have one animal left, and they're 10 years old... While writing this I may have found a way I can correct this to an extent... I'm going to go try it!
