Thoughts for more profit??? Your Call!!!
Let the Cow Save You Money and the Bull Make You Money We’ve reprinted a portion of Kris’ article, Let the cow save you money and bull make you money, below. Read Kris’ full article and others at: www.ag.ndsu.edu/dickinsonrec/beeftalk-articles-1 Second, recognize the importance of monitoring cow size. The mainte - nance of excessively large cows has proven difficult to offset with increased weaning weights. The center has targeted mature cow size at 1,100 to 1,300 pounds. Although individual calf weights will be lighter, total calf weight based on calves producer per acre will be greater, resulting in more total pounds of calf. Third, recognize the importance of good bull selection using technological advancements that improve accuracy. Generally, keep expected progeny differences (EPDs) above the 50th percentile within the desired traits and breed. As matter of practicality, become comfortable with bulls that are above the 50th percentile but may not exceed the upper 30th percentile for commercial production. Fourth, recognize the value of breeding systems, maximizing the traits of interest in the terminal sire program while balancing appropriate traits on the maternal side. Let the cow save you money and the bull make you money. - Dr. Kris Ringwall - Pioneer performance breeder George Chiga used to say that Mother Nature has little use for extremes, or freaks, as he call them, and will generally kick back when traits are taken to far. The road to profitability lies in optimums with cattle that are genetically custom fit for a producer’s operation’s unique matrix of environment, feed resources, management and market. As former president, general and Angus breeder Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, “The middle of the road is all of the usable surface, while the extremes right and left are in the gutters”. - Dr. Bob Hough - Ask your seedstock provider how they can help you balance breed com - plementarity and heterosis to add female longevity in your environment and feeder calf value to your family’s business. If your seedstock provider ignores these facts or denies the benefits of crossbreeding to your com - mercial program, then ask them to defend their position. If they can’t suitably do that, then why are they your seedstock provider? - Chip Kemp- I f whole body scanning gets implemented that will much more accurately assess fed cattle composition compared to our current USDA yield grad - ing system, we can look for packers to put more discounts on these ex - cessively fat cattle, which will put more focus back on red meat yield. - Dr. Bob Hough -
The great maternal hers are characterized by cows that get pregnant as yearlings and again as 2-year olds. They are good mothers raising good calves to an acceptable weaning weight. They maintain good body condi - tion, using mostly grazed feed with minimal supplementation. Because of their self-sufficiency, they enable a significant reduction in the need for overheads such as calving facility and tools, and haymaking and feeding equipment along with labor and fuel. Such herds produce increased turnover resulting from their innate fertility and survivability. - Burke Teichert - Crossbreeding - Can you afford not to? The benefits of crossbreeding have been documented and reported time and time again. The advantages of breed complementarity and heterosis are real dollars in the pocket of commercial cattlemen. Breed complemen - tarity is necessary to allow producers to take advantage of the differing strengths and weaknesses of each breed, since no one breed can excel at all economically important traits. Heterosis is the advantage of crossbred calves over the average of their parents. Heterosis is the closest thing cattlemen have to a “free lunch”. The best aspect of heterosis is that it has the greatest effect on traits that are lowly heritable and difficult to improve through selection. Traits like percent calf crop weaned, pounds weaned per cow exposed, cow longevity, and cow lifetime productivity are vital to a commercial producer’s bottom line. These are also the traits that are improved most by heterosis. A commercial producer running a straight-bred cow herd, of any breed, is forfeiting real dollars through lower weaning weights, decreased fertility and decrease cow longevity. Not to mention the fact that they are missing out on the advantages of breed complementarity. Iowa State University research has stressed that reproductive efficiency is 10 times more important to financial viability than carcass traits. - Ron Bolze, PhD - Selecting the right seedstock provider? Commercial cattle producers have paid so much money for the wrong kind - high growth, high carcass, for so long that seedstock providers are incentivized to do the wrong thing for commercial maternal herds. You need to find someone who will help you find bulls to producer functional and efficient females with moderate size, milk, physical soundness, high fertility on low inputs, calving ease, survivability and good longevity. The seedstock provider should help you include heterosis for better fertility and survivability in your cows. - Burke Teichert - Whatever the genetic answer is for a particular operation, the genetics for production traits must be in sync with resources which allow for those genetics to be expressed and the cow to breed back. Reproduction and getting a live, healthy calf on the ground is overwhelmingly the most im- portant trait. Heterosis and breed complementarity are also powerful but underutilized tools. In addition, the use of terminal sires allows producers to run more moderate cows and still produce calves with high carcass weight potential. - Dr. Bob Hough -
“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got!” This Henry Ford quote was shared by Dallas Mount, owner of Ranch Management Consultants (RMC). “We’ve got to forget about production or even profit per cow. Almost ev - erything you see written focuses on profit per cow or production per cow. That can be misleading in terms of whole ranch profitability.” - Burke Teichert - (Retired vice-president and general manager at Deseret Ranches.)
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