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.

How to Find Replacement Heifers for your Herd - Drought Recovery

Replacement Heifers and Bulls

We raise replacement heifers and bulls on request for farmers and ranchers wanting to either diversify their herd genetics or replace with smaller frame size to improve profitability.

These are being made available at this time as we know a lot of people have had to downsize their herds due to recent drought. 

We have recently just replaced all our older stock from our own saved-back heifers, so we now want to make our particular line available to others.

You can enjoy time-saving, low-maintenence farming and ranching with these healthy cattle.

The original stock was a combination of Black-Whiteface and Brangus/Angus-cross cows. These were and are bred to a registerd Galloway Bull from Sapp Farms in Columbia MO, named "Gene Autry".

Galloway bulls have no problem mounting full-size cows - our calves are proof of this.

These calves are composite, not registered or purebred. They can have more or less of Brangus or Hereford in their lineage. Right now, we can trace these back 3-4 generations and tell you general attibutes of any given calf. It's the hybrid vigor which we pay attention to - this gives us longer-lived and healthier cows and calves. More years producing more calves, with low cost in between. Less worries, more profit.

The offspring of this mix has a low birth weight, fast-gaining calf which tends to be a medium-frame size. The reason we did this is to import the qualities of a more tender beef and the Galloway ability to eat a wider variety of forage.  Galloways also put on an extra heavy coat in winter, so they do not add extra back fat. This makes for lean beef, but also gives a higher carcass weight with less loss on the cutting room floor. And that means more profit for everyone.

Our own observation of first and 2nd generation shows that this has been the outcome after some years of raising these.

Smaller breeds have been found to be more efficient in grazing than the heavier weights, as you can get  more pounds of beef produced per acre, since they have proportionately longer backs and shorter legs than conventional Angus.

As well, our beef are grazed intensively in paddocks, so they quickly learn to eat everything available. We've found that our "weed" problem after these cattle have been through a paddock is remarkably less or non-existant, depending how intensively we stock them.

That added benefit (not having to clip or "brush-hog"  pastures) is another time and money savings.

Galloways are also remarkably docile and easy to herd. There is none of this "wildness" or spook-prone aspect more common these days with dairy bulls and conventional Angus.  All our calves are worked with daily to get them used to humans.  As their dams have been hand-raised as well, they quickly become adjusted to being checked at close range without shying easily. Our bull calves have not become "onery" or aggressive.

Easy working means less upsets for you, more weight gain for your cattle.

Our beef are all grass fed, so we are missing comparatives for raising them up in a feedlot setting.

The varying patterns assist in the situation of missing ear tags (which can be problematic with all-black cows.) As well, they are very pretty to look at and give remarks by any who come to see them. We tag all our calves when they are weaned, and give a complete set of shots against the common illnesses (whatever our vet recommends).

They are not given growth hormones or feed additives. They are given plenty of grass, water, and sunshine (as well as shade). We keep salt and minerals available year-round, as well as protein tubs in winter to supplement hay.

Our heifers are kept to 14 months. Please contact us before the beginning of June, which is when I have to ship these. Unless specified and contracted for, they will not be bred. Obviously, the typical care with any first-time heifer must be taken.

Bulls will need special arrangements, as I generally make them into steers on weaning. However, this is under consideration if there is a demand for such.

(Last year, I had a particularly good bull calf which is making a remarkable steer, but would have been choice genetics otherwise. And this particular year, I have a set of twin bull calves I am saving back just for that line of genes. If contacted soon enough, I might be able to match with heifers who have twins in their history.)

There's a joy and satisfaction to raising quality beef you can be proud of - and fatten your bottom line as they fatten on grass.

Again, we want to make this available to the industry and plan to keep our prices competitive with the state auction average so that herd restocking can be made affordable.

Contact us for more information.

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