What is your percentage of keepers?

[Aaron]

1) We raise registered shorthorns and have a commercial cow herd as well

2) We calve out between 100 and 120 registered cows each year. We only sell 2 year old bulls at our sale each year, in which we sell about 20 bulls per year. We will not sell yearling bulls of the yard, that way everyone that attends know that the bulls have not been picked over. We cull bull calves at birth, at weaning, as yearlings (before we turn them out on grass) and before the sale when they are 2 years old. Every bull we sell must be of high enough quality that we would use him ourselves in our commercial herd, which we do with numerous bulls.
We also keep some bulls ourselves for our purebred herd if we feel that they will improve our herd.

3) We usually keep about 30 -35 yearling heifers to breed. At any time in their lifetime if we feel that they are not of high enough quality to raise a registered calf we then decide to use them to raise a commercial calf. As long as they can raise a good commercial calf they can stay. If not, they go down the road. Some heifers are designated as commercial cows after their first calf, some will be after 2 or more calves.
I purposely didn't say that these females were "moved to the commercial herd" because other than breeding season, our cows all run together in the same herd. You can't make genetic progress by treating your registered cows special.

If I ever take my liking for Shorthorns to the next level and actually bring some back on the place, I know where I am getting my bulls and heifers from. :cowboy: :tiphat:

 

[showing71]

For those of you who keep stock or sell cattle as breeding stock rather than selling everything at the auction for beef, what percentage of a seasons calves are keepers each year? I guess I really have 3 questions:

1) What do your raise?
2) What percentage of bull calves would you keep as a herd sire for yourself, sell as a herd sire to someone else, and sell as beef only?
3) What percentage of heiffers would you keep as breeding stock for yourself, sell as breeding stock to someone else, and sell as beef only?

1. Red Angus, Angus, Tarentaise, and crosses of the three.

2. All the cross bred bull calves are banded at birth, so they are all sent to the feedlot or are sold as beef privately. All purebreds are left intact (unless they have too high of BWs) until weaning. At weaning, we band the bulls who aren't looking the best and they go to the feedlot with the steers after a couple of weeks of backgrounding. The bulls then get weeded out further a couple months later, and some more are banded. By the time they are ready for sale, we have approx. 30% of the bulls that were born that make the cut to be sold or kept for breeding (30-40 head usually). The number of bulls for each breed depends the individual bulls, (we don't keep 10 angus just because they're angus) they have to be the best of the best to keep their parts. The bulls that don't get placed as yearlings are kept for herd bulls for a year, and then usually sold as 2 yr. olds. We have kept bulls throughout the years that we just can't let go because they would work well with our breeding program.

3. The percentage of heifers kept varies from year to year based on the number of cows going to town or being sold. After weaning, about 30% go to the feedlot or are fed out by us and sold privately. Then, like the bulls, after being on feed for a couple of months, we walk through them and pick the heifers apart and decide on who stays and who goes. But we usually end up keeping about 50% of the heifers (about 40 head is the goal). There's no bias against one breed or cross breed over the other when choosing who stays, it is just based on the heifer individually. What the moms have done in the past also come into play on deciding who gets kept. As far as selling, we will sell some heifers of any breed, but not the best of the best. We also won't sell if several cows hit the road.

 

[ArmyDoc]

1) We raise registered shorthorns and have a commercial cow herd as well

2) We calve out between 100 and 120 registered cows each year. We only sell 2 year old bulls at our sale each year, in which we sell about 20 bulls per year. We will not sell yearling bulls of the yard, that way everyone that attends know that the bulls have not been picked over. We cull bull calves at birth, at weaning, as yearlings (before we turn them out on grass) and before the sale when they are 2 years old. Every bull we sell must be of high enough quality that we would use him ourselves in our commercial herd, which we do with numerous bulls.
We also keep some bulls ourselves for our purebred herd if we feel that they will improve our herd.

3) We usually keep about 30 -35 yearling heifers to breed. At any time in their lifetime if we feel that they are not of high enough quality to raise a registered calf we then decide to use them to raise a commercial calf. As long as they can raise a good commercial calf they can stay. If not, they go down the road. Some heifers are designated as commercial cows after their first calf, some will be after 2 or more calves.
I purposely didn't say that these females were "moved to the commercial herd" because other than breeding season, our cows all run together in the same herd. You can't make genetic progress by treating your registered cows special.

It sounds like your finding that between 25-30% of your bull calves are suitable for breeding, and between 60-65% of your heiffers - is that about right? That's encouraging. I was under the impression that less than 10% of bulls would be "keepers", but if you are using good genetics, this seemed low to me.

What do you mean by "yearling bulls of the yard"? and how does this let everyone know they haven't been picked over? Also, I'm assuming since you keep the bulls till they are two, I'm assuming you run them in their own herd. Do you have trouble with fighting?

 

[ArmyDoc]

Cow calf, until 3 years ago we were 100% AI, now we use an outside bull for cleanup. Our strong point (if we have one) is the quality of our females. They just seem to generate better heifers then bulls. Since We don;t want to mess with developing bulls it works out very well for us. We generally have a waiting list for both our commercial and registered heifers.

What caused you to transition from AI to cleanup bull, or is this temporary? I'm starting small (less than a dozen) and going to build slowly as my experience grows. I was planning oto use AI, as for that number it doesn't seem to make economic sense to keep a bull. If you agree, at what size do you feel it makes more sense to keep a bull rather than to go 100% AI?

 

[dun]

Cow calf, until 3 years ago we were 100% AI, now we use an outside bull for cleanup. Our strong point (if we have one) is the quality of our females. They just seem to generate better heifers then bulls. Since We don;t want to mess with developing bulls it works out very well for us. We generally have a waiting list for both our commercial and registered heifers.

What caused you to transition from AI to cleanup bull, or is this temporary?

Arthritis, can;t manipulate the cervix as quickly or easily as I used to.

 

[ArmyDoc]

I am looking at about 200 to 250 cows, up from the current 60 within 5 to 7 years, and my culling standards get more intense each year....so while some would just not cull at all, I cull less, but still cull.

Commercial and purebred cow/calf with a little bit of a backgrounding operation. Sometimes I can pencil backgrounding calves to yearling, but its a much sharper pencil than what's needed in the cow/calf side of things.

I only rely of natural bulls now. A.I. tank went dry 5 years ago and caused a shift in thinking. A.I. is a lot of work and if your not interested in the show ring game, you don't need big name cattle to have good cattle. Also the cost involved. At an average of $50 a unit and $200 for liquid nitrogen for a year, I can buy a high(er) seller at a bull sale and still be money ahead. :cowboy:

What caused you to transition to AI - was it te increasing size of your operation? I'm hoping to get started in the next year or two (would be sooner, but a land purchase fell through). I was planning on starting off with under a dozen cows. For that number, I felt AI would make more economic sense than keeping a bull.

If you agree, at what size / number of cows do you feel it makes more sense to keep a bull than to go 100% AI?

 

[ArmyDoc]

Cow calf, until 3 years ago we were 100% AI, now we use an outside bull for cleanup. Our strong point (if we have one) is the quality of our females. They just seem to generate better heifers then bulls. Since We don;t want to mess with developing bulls it works out very well for us. We generally have a waiting list for both our commercial and registered heifers.

What caused you to transition from AI to cleanup bull, or is this temporary?

Arthritis, can;t manipulate the cervix as quickly or easily as I used to.

I don't know - you seem to be pretty quick to me - you replied before I could edit my post! Lol. So, is there a point / number of cows at which you feel it makes more sense to keep a bull and / or selectively AI? It would be just me running things, with maybe my son helping on weekends when he's home.

 

[dun]

is there a point / number of cows at which you feel it makes more sense to keep a bull and / or selectively AI? It would be just me running things, with maybe my son helping on weekends when he's home.

Depending on the time you have to heat detect and if you are doing the AIing yourself, a dozen cows may mean you need a bull. We used to 100% AI 100+ cows with just my wife and myself. The partner cows ran with bulls.
There is one neighbor that;s runing around 350-400 head and AI's everything, but he heat synchs them and time breeds those he doesn;t observe in heat. He staggers it so he only has about 100 a week to breed that we clean up AI isn;t too bad.

 

[Brandonm22]

It sounds like your finding that between 25-30% of your bull calves are suitable for breeding, and between 60-65% of your heiffers - is that about right? That's encouraging. I was under the impression that less than 10% of bulls would be "keepers", but if you are using good genetics, this seemed low to me.

In Leachman's catalog, they say that they keep the top 50% of the bulls for marketing. They have competitors who keep a higher percentage. I think the keeper percentage has as much or more to do with how many boy bulls you really want to grow out and market than it does with the quality of the genetics in the cow herd.

 

[turning grass into beef]

The number of bulls that we keep is based both on the number of bulls that we can market and the quality of the individual bulls. We market around 20 bulls each year to customers and we replace a bull or 2 each year for use on our own commercial cows (we use about 10-12 bulls each year for our own commercial cows, this includes shorthorns and horned hereford bulls).

We do keep aroud 60% (30-35 head) of the heifers but you can't make genetic progress without culling hard. These heifers are given a chance, but by the time that each years group of heifers are about 5 or 6 years old we find that only around 10-15 are still being bred in the registered herd. The others will be bred to a horned hereford bull.

Sorry about the typing error. We don't sell any yearlings off the yard. If you start selling bulls privately before your bull sale, word will get around and no one will want to come to your sale.

We do keep the bulls in their own group from the time that they are weaned until they are sold as two year olds. As calves for the winter they are in a pen about 5 acres in size. As coming 2 year olds it is about 12-15 acres. There is no doubt that 2 year olds are harder on fences and they do argue a bit, but for the most part the pecking order has been established and fights are not very long or very serious. Where we have more problems with fighting is after the sale. Some buyers don't want delivery immediately after the sale and so we take them home and feed them until the buyer wants them. After being at the sale yard for 3 or 4 days it seem like they forget their pecking order.

One other thing I forgot to mention. We used to sell a few of our top regeistered females (calves or yearling heifers) each year at shorthorn association consignment sales. We don't anymore. When we started our bull sale 6 years ago a hereford breeder gave us some good advice. Stop selling females. If you're going to have good quality bulls to sell you have to have good quality females to produce them.

 

[Aaron]

I am looking at about 200 to 250 cows, up from the current 60 within 5 to 7 years, and my culling standards get more intense each year....so while some would just not cull at all, I cull less, but still cull.

Commercial and purebred cow/calf with a little bit of a backgrounding operation. Sometimes I can pencil backgrounding calves to yearling, but its a much sharper pencil than what's needed in the cow/calf side of things.

I only rely of natural bulls now. A.I. tank went dry 5 years ago and caused a shift in thinking. A.I. is a lot of work and if your not interested in the show ring game, you don't need big name cattle to have good cattle. Also the cost involved. At an average of $50 a unit and $200 for liquid nitrogen for a year, I can buy a high(er) seller at a bull sale and still be money ahead. :cowboy:

What caused you to transition to AI - was it te increasing size of your operation? I'm hoping to get started in the next year or two (would be sooner, but a land purchase fell through). I was planning on starting off with under a dozen cows. For that number, I felt AI would make more economic sense than keeping a bull.

If you agree, at what size / number of cows do you feel it makes more sense to keep a bull than to go 100% AI?

We used A.I. for about 20 years. Used some really good bulls and a lot of complete duds, from many different breeds. Don't believe the hype that people say it is an easy way to improve your cowherd. If you don't have a lot, and I mean a lot of experience in the breed you looking to A.I. with, go with a natural bull. I could only name a handful of Polled Hereford bulls that made a difference in our herd through A.I. Many had one or multiple faults that were transmitted into the offspring.

I quit A.I. when my liquid N supplier forgot to fill the tank one trip and it went dry. Lost over $3000 in semen. I was not a happy camper that entire week, month and year. Now I spend more money on higher quality herd bulls and I am a whole lot happier. Unless your into the purebred 'game' and want to show some 'brand name' calves, I wouldn't bother with A.I. Heat detection takes time and you can accomplish a lot more in day rather than waiting for cows to cycle.

With twelve cows, I would buy a good yearling bull, best quality you can find and afford, and run him for 70 days. :cowboy:

 

[Keren]

Murray Grey

We keep about 5% of bulls intact, sometimes less, never more. We could sell more intact than that, we have more enquiries for bulls than we have bulls, but to keep your nuts around here you'd better be bl00dy good. We wont sell any bull that we wouldnt keep and use ourselves.

As for females, its a little different as it changes every year. We probably keep 10-15% of the heifers for ourselves. Another 10 - 15% go the terminal route with the steers. The rest are sold as breeders, generally speaking they are all registered heifer quality but tend to go to commercial guys as seedstock.

 

[BRG]

Red Angus

We sell around 170 bulls a year. But the number that we cull varies from year to year. We have been at it for 30 years now and we feel the cattle are pretty good. I say the number of culls vary, it all depends on the quality of each animal. We don't have a set percentage that has to be culled each year. Each animal is individually looked at and is either cut or fed with the bulls at weaning, then the same at about 10 months of age for the spring born bulls and when the summer born bulls gets turned to grass. Then again right before the sale, the all get looked at and weighed again. We cull hard on the cow herd and this in turn makes better bulls. The herdsires we use are not just used because they have a pretty picture or have good numbers, we actually chase down the bulls mother and see if we want her genetics in our herd. We see every bull and every bulls dam (if she is alive) and hopefully some sisters or daughters as well, before we make the plunge and use him.

 

[ArmyDoc]

Thanks for everyone's replies. It really helps to here what otherpeople's management practices are.