Kurt Kangas
Association Perspective
How do you track improvement?
For the commercial producer, the quickest way to make herd improvements is by purchasing a good bull, but without maintaining accurate records on the cow herd, how can improvement be tracked? Using the sale price of calves is a measure often used, but it is possible to collect other information on your calves to truly evaluate your cow herd.
Implementing a tagging system for the cow herd is a good first step to collect more information on the herd. Being able to accurately track and correlate calf information back to the dam can give the producer insights to how individual cows are performing within the herd. Collection of birth and weaning weights of calves, along with other phenotypic information, may add time to a day, but it could save money in the long run by identifying poorer-performing cows quicker.
It is invaluable to have a simple way of recording and retaining the information that has been collected on both the cows and calves. Constructing a basic spreadsheet where the information on the herd can be reviewed can be a powerful tool when it comes time to identify which cows are helping your bottom line and which are hurting.
When used in conjunction with carcass data and/or genomic tools like GeneMax®, the commercial producer can collect a powerful set of information on individual cows in the herd. Also, you have the ability to make changes to the herd quicker, and have more information when it comes time to purchase the bulls that will service the cow herd.
Visit www.angus.org to see what programs are available to help assist commercial producers, or contact your regional manager.
Editor’s Note: Regional Manager Kurt Kangas covers Region 10, including the states of Alaska, Montana & Wyoming. Click here to find the regional manager for your state.
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