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What is your percentage of keepers?
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<blockquote data-quote="turning grass into beef" data-source="post: 667935" data-attributes="member: 5195"><p>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).</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>Sorry about the typing error. We don't sell any yearlings <strong>off </strong>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p><p></p><p>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.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="turning grass into beef, post: 667935, member: 5195"] 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 [b]off [/b]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. [/QUOTE]
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