Management
Break Down the Mystery of Choosing Quality Replacement
Heifers
By Bruce Derksen
At this time of year, many producers
are considering the need to add
replacement heifers to their cow herd.
This is a routine process that often
yields mediocre and mixed results, so
the question might be, what can be
done to take some of the guess work
out of choosing the proper females
to become a part of productive
purebred and commercial cow herds?
First, especially in the commercial
markets, these heifers need to reach
puberty as far in advance of the
breeding season as possible, with
the generally accepted weight of this
taking place being 60- 65% of their
likely mature weight. These specifics
will offer them the best chance to
successfully breed in the first 21 days
of bull exposure, allowing the greatest
likelihood of calving unassisted at the
start of the calving season, which will in
turn deliver time to recover and re-breed
early in the second breeding season.
Key traits that impact reproductive
performance are fertility, calving ease,
milk production with sound udders
20 | OCTOBER 2017
2018
and teats, longevity, good feet and
legs, docility plus weaning and end-
product weights. For commercial
cattlemen, Limousin offers these
sought-after traits in spades.
It is easy to point out some obvious
characteristics to quickly reduce the
potential list of replacements, beginning
with overly aggressive or wild heifers.
Discard those with a history of heavy
calves or hard troublesome calving
on the mother’s side or females that
are too large or small framed. Cull any
that do not have sound feet and legs.
Examine EPD records if they are
available. For most commercial cattle
they will not be, but there are still
many things to look for to help deliver
a greater percentage of high quality
replacements. Assess confirmation,
age, weight, and docility. Watch for
depth of rib offering chest width and
volume for increased eating capacity of
poorer quality forages when necessary.
Picking older heifers from older cows
not only puts forth an early date of
puberty and higher weights at breeding
and calving times but perpetuates
fertility by accessing the offspring
of your most fertile cows. Longevity
of the dam will very likely produce
daughters that will also offer optimum
pregnancy rates over time. Reproductive
tract scores and measurements
can also be used to rule out those
calves with potential problems.
If using EPD records extensively
however, beware of over-selecting on a
single trait year after year. For example,
constantly choosing heifers for above
average milk production can over time
develop females that can’t meet their
own nutritional needs when resources
are limited or of poorer quality due to
forage growing conditions. This will
bring about the necessity of acquiring
more costly quality feeds or risk having
these cows fall behind in the breeding
season and possibly being open.
It is a good rule of thumb to begin with
a somewhat larger group of heifers
if forage and feed resources allow,
as those projected to calve in the
tighter window desired can be kept