Beef: Choosing suckler heifers
Heifers are costly to get to first calving, so make every effort to get it right.
It is common practice to breed heifers at 15 months, or even younger. The current approach to heifer development is based around “target weights”; heifers are fed to a target percentage of mature body weight, before breeding.
Producers who subscribe to this method are advised to grow heifers to 65-70% of their estimated mature weight before breeding.
Breeding heifers younger and lighter yields a calf and return on investment earlier, but may require more careful management at calving.
Many factors influence fertility and age of puberty in beef heifers, including genetics, nutrition, environment and body weight. Certain management practices can reduce the average age of puberty.
Heifer selection using genetic evaluation is important for improving herd fertility. By selecting for certain physical, performance, and genetic traits, producers can select the heifers most likely to be reproductively efficient.
Good management decisions and measured female selection can significantly improve the overall profitability of the suckler herd.
The most obvious factors that should be considered when selecting replacements are body size, strength, conformation and type. Though requirements may vary slightly between herds, most will look for structurally sound females with adequate muscling, sufficient volume, and depth of body.
Many suckler producers sell calves shortly after weaning, so calf growth rate and weaning weights are of significant economic importance. Faster growing heifers should ultimately produce calves heavier at weaning than calves whose dams were slow growing.
Calmer animals are obviously much easier to handle. Cows with a poor temperament can be very dangerous, particularly just after calving. This is a major problem, when you need to handle the calf.
If you are keeping your own replacements, take the dam’s temperament into consideration when selecting heifers.
Genetics play a major role in heifer fertility, and it is possible to select for early maturing females. Breeds such as Angus and Hereford generally reach puberty earlier than females of Continental breeds.
Obviously, using easy calving sires on heifers is ideal, as a difficult calving for a heifer should be avoided, in order to get her back in calf and keep her in the herd long term.
Many suckler farmers try to source replacement heifers from dairy herds, to improve milk volumes. This can be an excellent strategy and will deliver good maternal traits. Limousin, Simmental, Hereford and Angus heifers from dairy herds tend to make good suckler cows.
Take care to avoid extreme dairy type dams, which will have an adverse effect on the carcass confirmation of the progeny. As an industry, we must look at getting milk from the dam and beef from the sire.
