You might think the first few months of a new year might be a bit slower around the ranch than the rest of the year. Well, that all depends. If you have dual breeding/calving seasons in the Spring and Fall… not so much.
A very important benefit to this management decision is the shared utilization of bulls. That said – speaking from experience – this benefit doesn’t come without proactive planning and interventive management, especially this time of year as bulls come off Fall-calving cows.
The reason is twofold:
- bulls breeding during the winter usually don’t hold up as well
- the length of time before they must go back out is two months shorter.
For these reasons, over the last month, we’ve spent quite a lot of time sorting and staging bulls to prepare for turn-out in April and May. The first round of Breeding Soundness Exams have already been conducted (with good results!) and replacement heifer bulls have been identified.
They’re just biding their time… ready and waiting for the ladies…
Speaking of “the ladies,” we’ve discussed our replacement program a couple of times in this newsletter, and – primarily due to the implementation of an artificial insemination program along with more robust selection/culling criteria and a greater emphasis on bull selection (especially for our clean-up bulls) – I can safely say we have continued the advancement of our maternal genetics.
We tried things a little differently this year: first, we selected our potential replacements earlier… by almost three months. This allowed us to get these females sorted by weight, calf-hood vaccinated and left alone until the onset of our synchronization program. However, on the flipside, it prevented us from tracking their progress to monitor their progress towards their targeted weight (60-65% of mature weight.)
Well, although it wasn’t easy, it worked out. Less than 1% fell out for being “too light.” These heifers are currently awaiting their breeding date in early April. So – the hard work is done!
All we can do now is wait and see what happens.