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<blockquote data-quote="randiliana" data-source="post: 512404" data-attributes="member: 2308"><p>OK, I'll try,</p><p></p><p>Must Haves</p><p>1. Good performance as a calf. She must grow better than the average heifer calf in the herd. I will keep heifers off of 2 year olds, if they grow as good as or better than the average cows' calves.</p><p></p><p>2. Servicable Conformation. She doesn't have to be "pretty" or have perfect conformation, but I want to see traits in her that I want passed on, thickness, length and depth. She can have faults in any one of those, but the other traits must make up for it. The rest of it, she must have good feet, and reasonably good leg structure, she will eventually have to cover ground, and if she can't do that she will either not breed back, or continually be in poor condition.</p><p></p><p>3. Good Temprament. She should be calm, not overly excitable, and definitely not aggressive towards humans. The agressiveness, can be hard to discern before they calve, but on some you can tell. If she is bouncing off the corral fences every time you work with her, I don't want her. She will either end up wrecking corrals, or hurting someone.</p><p></p><p>Must Not Haves.</p><p></p><p>1. Too much Frame. We try to keep our cows in the 5-6 frame range. This one is pretty much a deal breaker, right now we have a good, growthy heifer in the sale pen. She was one of the top performing heifers, she is quiet, and she has pretty good conformation, BUT, she is too big, she weighed in at 852 about a month ago, and she is far, far from fat. I expect, she would mature above 1500 lbs as a cow, and she is not short in stature. Just too big for our operation.</p><p></p><p>2. Poor quality Udder. Dun mentioned that this was another hard to tell trait. And he is right, but I try not to keep heifers off of cows with poor udders. For me, this means big teats, that the calf cannot suck on its own, or swing bags, the kind that hang so low that a calf has a hard time figuring out where to suck. </p><p></p><p>3. Poor feet and legs. Narrow based, cow hocked or sickle hocked, are the kind of traits I want to avoid. Sickle hocked usually leads to a cow that has poor hind feet, and that can have difficulty getting around. The other 2 generally indicate a cow that is not as wide as we like. Feet are kind of hard to tell about on a calf, but by yearling time you can usually start to see whether they may over grow.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="randiliana, post: 512404, member: 2308"] OK, I'll try, Must Haves 1. Good performance as a calf. She must grow better than the average heifer calf in the herd. I will keep heifers off of 2 year olds, if they grow as good as or better than the average cows' calves. 2. Servicable Conformation. She doesn't have to be "pretty" or have perfect conformation, but I want to see traits in her that I want passed on, thickness, length and depth. She can have faults in any one of those, but the other traits must make up for it. The rest of it, she must have good feet, and reasonably good leg structure, she will eventually have to cover ground, and if she can't do that she will either not breed back, or continually be in poor condition. 3. Good Temprament. She should be calm, not overly excitable, and definitely not aggressive towards humans. The agressiveness, can be hard to discern before they calve, but on some you can tell. If she is bouncing off the corral fences every time you work with her, I don't want her. She will either end up wrecking corrals, or hurting someone. Must Not Haves. 1. Too much Frame. We try to keep our cows in the 5-6 frame range. This one is pretty much a deal breaker, right now we have a good, growthy heifer in the sale pen. She was one of the top performing heifers, she is quiet, and she has pretty good conformation, BUT, she is too big, she weighed in at 852 about a month ago, and she is far, far from fat. I expect, she would mature above 1500 lbs as a cow, and she is not short in stature. Just too big for our operation. 2. Poor quality Udder. Dun mentioned that this was another hard to tell trait. And he is right, but I try not to keep heifers off of cows with poor udders. For me, this means big teats, that the calf cannot suck on its own, or swing bags, the kind that hang so low that a calf has a hard time figuring out where to suck. 3. Poor feet and legs. Narrow based, cow hocked or sickle hocked, are the kind of traits I want to avoid. Sickle hocked usually leads to a cow that has poor hind feet, and that can have difficulty getting around. The other 2 generally indicate a cow that is not as wide as we like. Feet are kind of hard to tell about on a calf, but by yearling time you can usually start to see whether they may over grow. [/QUOTE]
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