Hard to believe fall is just around the corner, with winter not far behind! Around here, we sit down each year around late July to set our fall calendar. By the time the dust has settled, there are very few days left between late August and early December that are not already completely full.
We target calving-out between 300-350 heifers each year. The fall workings officially begin when we early-wean the calves in late August/early September, depending upon the weather. From that point, there’s no looking back. Between calving-out the fall cows to weaning the spring calves and pre-checking Spring cows… time sure does fly.
This year, a particular area of interest is the resulting heifer calf crop from some or our targeted genetic activities we’ve incorporated over the last few years. The bovine generational interval is long, to say the least, thus management decisions made today – especially in the field of maternal genetics – won’t be fully visible for another 3-4 years.
This year, utilizing sexed heifer semen, we’ll wean calves stacked from two complementary breeds to our base Angus herd. This three-breed (Angus, Hereford, Brahman) female composite, due to her “intentional” crossbreeding, will be more environmentally adapted and possess greater performance. We’ll assign these females ID tags to monitor their growth and performance as we develop replacements for next year.
To complement these targeted females, we will need to select the right bulls, which also begins in the fall. Typically, we start purchasing bulls in late September and conclude around early March. As I’ve mentioned in previous newsletters – outside of developing employees – there is nothing more important to a ranch’s success than selecting and purchasing bulls. Currently, the Choctaw Nation owns well over a hundred carefully selected sires, each based on their individual contributions to our resulting calf crop(s), which will greatly impact our potential marketing opportunities.
The right choices help ensure all that hard work we’ve put in to present desirable maternal genetics isn’t wasted simply by choosing the wrong sire.