Building a cowherd by culling

coffelt wrote:

Jack McNamee wrote:

[quote="coffelt"
Culling 10% of the cows per year, will produce a beautiful, near problem free herd in 4 years. The fourth year you will have to be very picky to come up with 10%. Every problem leaves the farm

10% per year doesn't sound like very much to me. We easily cull 10% per year just on old cows, opens, and cows that lose a calf during calving. What do you consider a cull? It sounds to me like you are doing a lot better job selecting your sires than culling cows.

Jack

My calving window is 60 days, not 45. Any cow that is outside the 60 day window is culled after they wean their (late) calf, cows that lose their calves I breed back and sell.

I use calving ease bulls and have almost no calving problems, 1 out of 300 calves will need assistance

I calve the heifers in April when the whether is warmer, after the cows, which I believe saves some calves

I do not cull for age, I have the most respect for an old, producing cow, that stays in flesh. I want her daughters in my herd

I have a young herd, the average age is probably 5 or 6 years old, I have not culled a single cow for age/mouth for a couple years, this will add to my culling percentage as my herd ages. Using 15 as an age factor, culls for age/mouth would would be 6.6% with no other factor. My 10% does not account for age/mouth culls simply because I have'nt had any.

100% of the genetics are Pharo and Keeney, it is impossible to know the effect on performance genetics might have, but I am sure it is significant.

5-7% are open, late, or lose a calf.

The additional culls, 3-5%, are herd improvent culls, this is probably the point of our conversation, relative to herd improvement

Ohio is not nearly the harsh envirement that Montana or Alberta is, please always accept my comments as coming from the Midwest

10% is aggressive in our envirement, considering the age of this herd.

The right number in Montana with an older herd very well might be 20% or higher. A friend of mine is in the business of buying old, bred cows, getting a calf or 2, and salvaging the cow. He culls 50% per year

The answer to the proper culling percentage is: It depends on the age of the herd, harshness of the envirement, genetics , and calving window length

[/quote]



Cows that last till they are 15, only helping 1 in 300, 5-7% open, late or lose a calf, even on a 60 day calving window, 3-5% for herd improvement. With all due respect, I still think you are giving far too much credit to culling and too little credit to the job you are doing with your genetic selection. I agree with Mike, without proper genetic selection culling is like bailing water out of a boat with a hole in it.

Jack, I think the biggest difference is as Coffelt pointed out...the environment, particularly soil fertility.(and obviously doing a good job with management)

I also agree that genetic selection is very important(he is using Keeney cows ) I have seen the difference in my herd when I started using straight Lasater bred genetics. My goal here is to try to learn how to better select my bulls(genetics) to make my cows more predictable. At the moment I don't feel like a very good student and hope Larry and Mike are better teachers than I am a student.

RobertMac wrote:

Jack, I think the biggest difference is as Coffelt pointed out...the environment, particularly soil fertility.(and obviously doing a good job with management)

I also agree that genetic selection is very important(he is using Keeney cows ) I have seen the difference in my herd when I started using straight Lasater bred genetics. My goal here is to try to learn how to better select my bulls(genetics) to make my cows more predictable. At the moment I don't feel like a very good student and hope Larry and Mike are better teachers than I am a student.

Robert, Jack

I am in agreement that genetics play a vital role

I have had several conversations with friends and fellow Ohio ranchers today, and have some additional comments. One rancher has 1200 cows, one 500, and so on.

In the statistics on my herd with 5-7% open, I checked my math and it was 8%, 19% were first calf heifers, 1% was over 10 years old, 21% were second calvers. The age makeup of the herd is critical in this conversation

The Ohio ranchers who cull every open or late female were consistently under 10%, those that move them to fall or provide a second chance were consistently over 10%. This was interesting, because some suggest not culling opens and lates because of the low heritability of fertility. It clearly matters

One rancher had only 2% of the cows open at pregchecking, however 25% of his hiefers were open, with our very tough winter last year, this in a herd of 500

A rancher in Ohio, speaking with a rancher in Florida, speaking with a rancher in Montana, will have difficiculty even having this conversation, as they are worlds apart in envirerment and management

Imagine 2 Ohio herds:

The first herd uses +2 BW EPD bulls, feeds for 120 days which means the cows are banging each other around for 4 months, moves late spring calvers to fall/ and fall to spring, does not have a closed herd, and has a high percentage of old cows/or hiefers/or 2nd calvers, and does not cull every problem cow

The second herd uses -2 BW EPD calving ease bulls out of cows that have never missed, culls every late or open, culls every problem, feeds 60 days, has a closed herd, and has a herd with an average age of 7 years old

With identical genetics, I believe there would be a 7-10% difference between the open and late percentages between these two herds

If the first herd had poor genetics, the difference would be greater

My father-in-law had a group of mixed commercial cows that always preg checked +90%(most years +95%). He kept few heifers, but were always out of his most functional cows. I think you can cull/select your way to an efficient cow herd, but will come with a high rate of culling new animals. I think replication of a herd has to come from closed herd close breeding. Yet supplementing cattle to express 'full genetic potential' will skew results from what is obtainable under commercial conditions.