Replacements Should be Choose Carefully
DR. TERESA L. STECKLER
SIMPSON, ILLINOIS
The cattle markets and economy in general has created consternation among many livestock producers. Costs of commonly used inputs and repairs has made many producers take a hard look at their books and herds. The 2024 beef cow herd is the smallest since 1961 which has pushed cattle prices to record levels in 2023 and 2024. However, there are no indications of any beef herd rebuilding.
But if you are considering building up your herd numbers, be diligent in selecting those replacements. One key element to any cattle operation is selecting the best heifers to replace older cows that just do not earn their keep. The last couple of droughts and the current high prices allowed the culling of cows that were poor performers and retention of only the best cattle.
Choosing replacements, whether raising or purchasing, is a very important decision since it is a major investment for cow-calf producers. Replacement heifers (and cows) become the genetic building block for the cow herd. The primary goal is that the heifer will become a fertile cow that produces a calf annually for a long time.
Cow-calf producers should evaluate the replacement heifer enterprise separate from the rest of the cow-calf enterprise and identify its economic strengths and weaknesses. Raising replacements requires additional management, labor, facilities, feed and other resources. Therefore, the total cost of developing a replacement heifer can be quite high. Producers need to carefully weigh the advantages of home-raised heifers against their costs.
When evaluating the cost of home-raised heifers, consider the following:
- Costs of production (feed, veterinary cost, mineral supplementation, utilities, labor, bull or AI cost, etc.);
- Opportunity cost of operator labor and owned feed resources;
- Pregnancy rates from the first breeding;
- Death loss;
- Cull income (non-breeding culls, culled yearlings, etc.);
- Initial weight and growth rate; and
- Heifer value at weaning.
There is another important consideration for replacements (either cow or heifer): determine your production goals. Are you producing pounds of beef for the packer (a terminal cross) or are you producing quality breeding stock? Thus depending on your production goals, replacement females and the bulls used to breed those replacements should reflect those goals. While there are many fine bulls available, the bull used for a terminal cross to produce pounds of beef will not be the best for producing breeding stock and vice versa.
Choosing the right bull can make an immense difference and when selecting specific sires, or sons of sires within a given breed for producing replacements, producers are encouraged to utilize EPDs for traits related to calving ease, early growth, optimum milk production, early puberty (scrotal circumference) and high heifer pregnancy, calm docility, sensible mature size and high stayability. Additionally, genetic information is available as to the quality of teats and udders as well as other soundness traits of daughters.
Additionally, each replacement should be evaluated for structural soundness to make sure heifers (and bulls) have adequate soundness for optimum longevity in the herd. If poorly-structured replacements are retained, then these genetics are propagated within the herd. Foot scoring is one way to evaluate structural soundness in females. Foot angle and claw set are the measurements evaluated during foot scoring. These measurements are evaluated on a 1 to 9 scale, with an ideal range of 3 to 7.
When you decide to replace cows in your herd, choose those replacements carefully based on your production goals. Those replacements should stay in the herd for years and work for you by producing a calf each year. ∆
DR. TERESA L. STECKLER: University of Illinois