Young heifer

[cswilson]

Good point WillowCreek short tight calving seasons are great-but not if the costs outweigh the benefits. I've seen guys literally spend thousands of dollars trying to raise their conception rate 5%. There is a widow lady up here runs about 120 cows on her own and only pulls her ONE bull so she misses the real cold weather. She just sorts up her calves at home and every month or two sells a nice package of 20 clves usually hitr the ring together. Maybe that is an extreme case. Ourselves we finish everything-we just get vet to repreg any heifette type cattle before they go to lot-no troubles as of yet.

[rusty1]

ya said it softly GrnAsMoss. It's more that a pain in the you know what. There is huge dollar costs to the feedlot industry for having to give every heifer a shot to abort anything that's possibly there. This past year has been far worse than normal. Therefore the feedlot opperaters pencil in those costs and filter it down to the cow calf producer to pay.
Therefore it is in you're best interest to pull the bulls promptly.
There are some very sucessful and progressive ranchers that have been breeding for a 45 day period for years now.
IT works and don't let anyone else tell you differently.
I know that there are alot of herds out there that would have a lot of open cows the first few years. But thats because they have bred infertility into their cows.
Now I'm talking generally. There is always the exception to a quick breeding that one has to weigh in the balance.
However with the low value of cows today there is no reason to keep freeloaders around just because they look good.

[cowman]

A wise old man once told me it doesn't matter when the calf was born, but when you sell him! And quite frankly who wants to try to keep a seperate pasture for a bunch of darned old bulls? Maybe easier to pull the cows with big early heifers and keep them seperate?
Occasionally I've had those "baby mommas" in the past and it can be a real wreck or a very positive experience! Now mommas with big hfr. babes get the hook fairly early...at least the ones I might want to keep! I'm sure not into babying a bunch of darned bulls for 320 days of the year!(I've often wondered if leasing bulls for sixty days might be the way to go?)
Don't feel too sorry for that feedlot buyer...if he knows his stuff he'll be right there with a very healthy discount! I would never sell that kind...rather take my chances than let some dog steal her!

[kato]

We start calving in January. If all our cows calved in 45 days we wouldn't survive it! LOL

Heifers getting bred doesn't happen that often, but we watch for heat, and check out anything that doesn't cycle.

We don't sell anything straight off the cow, so don't worry about sticking anyone with the problem. I guess if they went straight from the pasture to the auction we would never know, but that's not an issue with us. We don't usually sell them until they are about 800 pounds, so if they haven't cycled by then, we'd know it and check her.

A strung out calving period is better than open cows this year, anyway. When cull cows go for less than three hundred dollars, you can lose a lot of equity pretty quick balanced against weaning 50 pounds less calf.

[GrnAsMoss]

Yes, when you're selling pounds this fall you'll want to breed even the cows who were bred three or four times with bell shaped teats, no udders, and poor feet, because the law of supply and demand and cyclic highs and lows are obsolete this year.
But if you have the privelige of having the buyers admire your calves in the lot when they're finished, if their death loses are low and they've gone onto feed easily and gained substantially in the lot over a short feeding period, those few groups of calves do get a premium $ and go directly to the feedlot from the pasture. Some commercial cattlemen do have a great set of uniform calves who feed out well and who don't have pregnant babies. Wouldn't you rather be the person with the reputation of raising beautiful uniform crossbred calves rather than the one who raises crappy misfits who may abort come February?
The packer knows who to go to find great calves. These fancy new bar coded tags tell him so. Are you on his list? If you can't beat him join him

[GrnAsMoss]

That's like giving your life savings for your banker to manage.

I was driving to town last week and noticed a Charlois bull with footrot on a lease all by himself. The cows were no where in sight. If you can't have much control over your pasture, at least put in a healthy bull with some libeto.

[cswilson]

Hmmm Mosss I just got all warm and fuzzy thinking bout the feedlot guy sharing the wealth-thats why I retain ownership myself-I repped cattle on satellite for years and you want to know what really makes feedlot buyers smile an extra point of shrink-forget genetics etc. If you really want to recoup your investment for good management you have to keep them yourself.