Herd Management
Focus Your Herd Management Plan
By Bruce Derksen
One hundred percent of cattle
producers large or small, no
matter the different colors
and breeds of cattle in their
pens and pastures, use a herd
management plan whether they
realize it or not. Now, not all use
it well, but if you are a part of
that hundred percent- you may
as well try to use one properly.
Herd management really is a
massive canvas enveloping
everything from owning,
leasing equipment and land to
grow and harvest quality feed
grains and grasses, building
infrastructure and facilities that
work and don’t fall apart daily,
to pin- pointing and producing
a single sellable product to the
world-wide marketplace. But
it hurts my brain to ponder
something so vast, so let’s
try to bring it into focus. picture become blurry, cloudy
corners that don’t fit the frame.
To manage anything, there
has to be a clear goal. Raising
rodeo cattle requires a different
herd management plan than
building a commercial or
purebred cow calf herd. Good
words to remember when
developing a solid goal for
your operation are “focus” and
“Limousin.” Decide what it is
that you are aiming for- good
mothering Limousin cross-bred
replacements, well- muscled
Limousin cross calves that
feedlots demand for their feed
efficiency yielding high quality
carcasses or other variants of
the goal. Try to focus the plan.
Don’t let the edges of your A focused plan including any
or all of the above begins with
a tight breeding and calving
season. Use pregnancy
checking and cull hard for open,
late or poorly doing cows and
heifers. If your calving time is
stretching beyond the actual
seasons of the calendar year,
the edges of your picture are
too fuzzy and inefficient. Select
solid replacements for structure,
age, confirmation, disposition
and anything else positive you
can think of. Don’t settle for old
Molly’s stunted, short eared
heifer calf just because she
was the kid’s pet earlier in life.
Educate yourself about all
things cow-calf including
genetics. Don’t skimp on the
bull power. If your focused
24 | MAY 2018