How to Select Replacement Heifers

This is "Sidesaddle" and her heifer calf from earlier this year. Note the good body condition just a week or so after birthing.

(Found this article by veteran rancher and herdquitter Kit Pharo. Thought you might be able to use it.)

Q and A –

By Kit Pharo

Kit@PharoCattle.com

Question: “Hi Kit, I was wondering how you select replacement heifers from your herd – or do you have some suggestions on how I should select my heifers?” 
Answer:

Enough articles have been written about the proper way to select and develop replacement heifers to fill a large barn.   Guess what?   It’s not really that complicated.   I don’t know why everyone is so determined to complicate simple matters, but they are.

Weaned heifer calves that have been saved for replacement females will not generate any income for two years.   Therefore, ranchers simply cannot afford to invest much money into their development.   Rather than place them in a high-input, artificial environment and haul expensive feed to them, we need to treat them like the cows we hope they will become.   They need to be out foraging for themselves, with minimum inputs.   If a heifer can’t do this, she probably won’t make an efficient and profitable momma cow.

We suggest you retain nearly all of your heifer calves, rough them through the winter and expose them to a bull for a very short period of time.   This system will allow only your most efficient and early maturing heifers to advance into the cowherd.   Why not let the environment sort out your best replacement heifers?   The remaining heifers can be treated as stockers and sold for a profit.

If you breed your heifers to calve when God intended them to calve, you will be amazed at the high number that will conceive during the first 21 days of the breeding season.   Even heifers that were cheated during the winter months are able to catch up with two to three months of good green grass prior to breeding.   If you end up with more bred heifers than you need, you can sell the extras for a profit.   I suggest you let the buyer select from the herd, because he won’t be able to pick out the best ones any better than you.

So what about selection?   You and I are NOT capable of doing as good a job of selecting replacement heifers as the environment can do.   Form will follow function if we stay out of the way.   However, there are a few things that deserve to be looked at.   Here is my list.

1.     Get rid of the outliers, dinks and freaks.   In many herds, this includes some of the tallest heifers.

2.     Watch disposition.   Cull those with flighty and/or nervous dispositions.

3.     Look at feet and leg structure.   Any problems you see now will only get worse.

4.     Select for heifers that shed the quickest.   Cull heifers with dull, dead looking hair.   This is an excellent indicator of health and adaptability.

5.     If you still think you need to do some more culling and/or selecting, you can look at conformation.   I prefer heifers that are shorter, thicker and easier fleshing.   The more pounds per inch of height, the better.   I cull heifers that look long, because that means they are gutless.   Contrary to what show ring judges tell us, body length is an optical illusion.   I also cull heifers that are coarse and/or masculine in appearance.

Keep the pressure on…   We run our replacement heifers with our mature cows.   They receive no special care.   We calve our heifers out on open range with the cowherd.   This continues to force the inefficient and unadapted females out of our program.   The sooner you identify the heifers that can’t make it, the better.   Every replacement female should have to earn a place in the cowherd.

The Cow and Her Grass - Andre Voisin

Classic: The Cow and Her Grass, a Manual of Grass Productivity - by Andre Voisin

This book by Messrs Voisin and Lecomte comes at the right moment. It is a synthesis of M. Voisin's important study, Grass Productivity. This manual presents the chief ideas of two specialists. Since they are also excellent practitioners, they have applied these ideas before recommending them.

Their evocative picture of 'the meeting of cow and grass' poses the true problem of the management of grazed grass.

For the farmer, the production of meat and milk is an act of industrial conversion. The 'machine' is the animal that converts raw vegetable matter into finished food products which are rich in calories and easy to assimilate. This 'machine' is complex because it is a living being; it can be improved--within limits. But its yield depends basically on the quality of the raw materials offered to it for conversion. 

Our farmers bring a jealously guarded care to the cultivation and harvesting of their cereals and commercial plants. Too often they rely on nature to develop their pastures and let their animals use their instinct to get the best harvest they can from them. 

M. Voisin, an experienced chemist and biologist, has applied foreign studies of grazing on his Norman farm for several years. He has removed the errors and, above all, has looked for a more specifically French application that could be adapted to our traditional farming practices.

M. Lecomte, a Veterinary Surgeon, has studied the complex of forage feeding and its influence on yield and animal health, from observation of grassland management, even that of his clients.

Messrs Voisin and Leconte have drawn on the fruits of their conversations and experience and, in this manual, have succeeded in producing a popular version of the fundamental ideas of their studies.

I hope that their words will be heard and followed.

[From the Introduction]

- - - -

Get Your Copy Today!

"The Cow and Her Grass" by Andre Voisin, A. Lecomte on Ganxy

eBook now available:

Trade paperback (6"x9", 66 pages) available on Lulu and soon on Amazon and all brick-and-mortar bookstores:

This book by Messrs Voisin and Lecomte comes at the right moment. It is a synthesis of M. Voisin's important study, Grass Productivity. This manual presents the chief ideas of two specialists. Since they are also excellent practitioners, they have applied these ideas before recommending them. Their evocative picture of 'the meeting of cow and grass' poses the true problem of the management of grazed grass. For the farmer, the production of meat and milk is an act of industrial conversion. The 'machine' is the animal that converts raw vegetable matter into finished food products which are rich in calories and easy to assimilate. This 'machine' is complex because it is a living being; it can be improved--within limits. But its yield depends basically on the quality of the raw materials offered to it for conversion. Our farmers bring a jealously guarded care to the cultivation and harvesting of their cereals and commercial plants. Too often they rely on nature to develop their pastures and let their animals use their instinct to get the best harvest they can from them. M. Voisin, an experienced chemist and biologist, has applied foreign studies of grazing on his Norman farm for several years. He has removed the errors and, above all, has looked for a more specifically French application that could be adapted to our traditional farming practices. M. Lecomte, a Veterinary Surgeon, has studied the complex of forage feeding and its influence on yield and animal health, from observation of grassland management, even that of his clients. Messrs Voisin and Leconte have drawn on the fruits of their conversations and experience and, in this manual, have succeeded in producing a popular version of the fundamental ideas of their studies. I hope that their words will be heard and followed. [From the Introduction] ....

Related articles

• Plenty of Income to Be Earned from Wholesale Grass Fed Beef Production
• How to Find Missouri Grass Fed and Pasture Finished Beef
• Can Wholesale Meat Prices Afford a Beef Ranch?
• How Does Natural Farming Affect You - and Mob Grazing Data Your Should Know
• A Rough Outline of How to Raise Grass Fed Beef
• Want to really live in a rural-suburban homestead? Now you can...

How does a Beef Ranch Stay in Business?

Simple answer: income greater than expenses and needed reserves. Makes running a beef ranch seem simple.

This was the problem I encountered when I took over farming. Most (and we still do, at this point) maintain a second job away from the farm. Because (as "everybody conventionally knows") you keep farming until the money runs out. It's that second job which pays the costs of farming when the crop doesn't.

It's the commoditized base of farming which is keeping dirt-poor farmers dirt-poor.

We studied this over and over and kept coming up to the same conclusion. Getting big doesn't make your farm more profitable. Studies show that about 300 acres is the max on cost breaks with the income/expenses leverage. More acres above that and you are doing longer hours with the same basic cost per acre. It's how many acres can you farm to replace your day job income. Not less hours or easier work.

Now you have to get smart about what you are doing. We really have nothing bad to say about corn-fed/lot-finished beef (other than it has no taste, really). But if you are selling a lot of bland burgers at a discount price, this is exactly what you want. And that is the commodity beef business. Why packers are vertically integrating to cut out middleman costs.

(For more information about running a Missouri beef ranch sustainably, see below PDF...)

How does a Beef Ranch Stay in Business?

View more documents from Robert Worstell