Use pregnancy diagnosis to cull replacement heifers early

Many ranchers choose to breed the replacement heifers about a month ahead of the mature cows in the herd. In addition, they like to use a shortened 45 to 60-day breeding season for the replacement heifers. The next logical step is to determine which of these heifers failed to conceive early in their first breeding season. This is more important today than ever before.

As the bulls are being removed from the replacement heifers, this would be an ideal time to call and make arrangements with your local veterinarian to have those heifers evaluated for pregnancy in about 60 days. In two months, experienced technicians should have no difficulty identifying which heifers are pregnant and which heifers are not pregnant (open). Those heifers that are determined to be "open" after this breeding season should be strong candidates for culling. Culling these heifers immediately after pregnancy checking serves three very economically valuable purposes.

1) Identifying and culling open heifers early will remove sub-fertile females from the herd. Lifetime cow studies from Montana indicated that properly developed heifers that were exposed to fertile bulls, but DID NOT become pregnant were often sub-fertile compared to the heifers that did conceive. In fact, when the heifers that failed to breed in the first breeding season were followed throughout their lifetimes, they averaged a 55% yearly calf crop. Despite the fact that reproduction is not a highly heritable trait, it also makes sense to remove this genetic material from the herd so as to not proliferate females that are difficult to get bred.

2) Culling open heifers early will reduce summer forage and winter costs. If the rancher waits until next spring to find out which heifers do not calve, the pasture use and winter feed expense will still be lost and there will be no calf to help eventually help pay the bills. This is money that can better be spent in properly feeding cows that are pregnant and will be producing a salable product the following fall.

3) Identifying the open heifers shortly after (60 days) the breeding season is over will allow for marketing the heifers while still young enough to go to a feedlot and be fed for the choice beef market. The grading change of several years ago has a great impact on the merchandising of culled replacement heifers. "B" maturity carcasses (those estimated to be 30 months of age or older) are very unlikely to be graded Choice and cannot be graded Select. As a result, the heifers that are close to two years of age will suffer a price discount. Currently non-pregnant, yearling 875 pound heifers (shortly after a breeding season) are selling for about $110 per cwt. Therefore an 875 pound, culled replacement heifer is worth about $962.50. Non-pregnant two-year old cows are selling for about $70 per cwt and if they weigh 1000 pounds they are worth about $700 next spring.

1. Workshop to discuss nutrient application, management, stewardship
2. Help for flood affected farmers
3. Representative Lucas discusses new Farm Bill
4. U.S. May consumer sentiment highest in nearly 6 years
5. Cattle producers turn to MSU for reproduction class
6. NCBA Op-Ed: EPA’s data sharing incident a debacle

1. New school lunch beef recipes win approval from kids, foodservice
2. Drier weather to give big boost to U.S. corn plantings
3. Prices for corn and soybeans, five years from now
4. Agriculture is expected to remain strong in the coming decade
5. What sick day? Farmers take just three a year
6. Senate Agriculture Committee completes Farm Bill markup

1. Insects. They’re what’s for dinner!
2. Tyson selects panel to monitor animal welfare program
3. World food supply depends on character, virtuous leadership
4. Commentary: Slanting the statistics
5. Buffet concerned about soil and starvation
6. Cold spring stunts upper Midwest hay crop