ANGUS BEEF BULLETIN EXTRA

June 20, 2019 | Vol. 12 : No. 6

management

Getting First-calf Heifers Rebred

A strategy offered to enhance longevity in first-calf heifers.

The 2-year-old year is the toughest time of a cow’s life. She’s raising her first calf, still growing, and needs enough nutrition and body condition to cycle on schedule after calving. Otherwise, she may end up open or calving late next year. It can be a challenge to get heifers rebred without losing ground in their calving schedule.

She is generally the most valuable and expensive animal in the herd. She has not yet generated any income because her first calf has not yet been sold, but a lot of money has been invested in her — to raise or purchase her. If she fails to stay in the herd, this is a significant financial loss. It pays to invest more management to get her rebred than to start over with another heifer.

Mark and Della Ehlke raise purebred Angus and Herefords on their ranch near Townsend, Mont., and have an advantage with two calving seasons.

“Keeping heifers another half year before they calve doesn’t help performance-based data, but helps on cow longevity.”

“With our spring group, we sort those heifers off and put them in a separate pasture so they don’t have to compete with the older cows. That way we can feed them a little extra,” says Mark Ehlke.

“We pamper them a little, and they pay it back in a longer life of production. It never pays to shortchange them,” he continues. “One old-timer told me years ago that for every dollar you take from a cow, she will reach out and take two dollars out of your wallet!”

The young cows are kept in their own pasture groups until they wean that first calf and into their second gestation. This makes sure they have adequate mineral or any other supplement, he says. The 2-year-olds are still growing and need a little different nutrition than older cows.

These heifers are well-grown already because they were selected out of a group that was born from the first calving cycle. Their mothers settled quickly.

“Our fall-calving group is a little different situation. We can take our later-born spring heifers and hold those to breed later, to be in the fall-calving group the next year. By doing that we don’t have to worry about keeping them separate from the other cows as first-calvers, because they are calving on grass and have adequate nutrition,” Ehlke says.

Being a little older also helps these heifers recover faster from calving and rebreed.

“With the fall-calving [first-calf] heifers, their calves weigh right up with those from the older cows. That extra bit of age makes a big difference. We now take the fall-born heifers and carry them through to be bred for the spring group,” says Ehlke.

Thus, these females will be half a year older when they calve.

Keeping heifers another half year before they calve doesn’t help performance-based data, but helps on cow longevity, he says. Fewer fall out of the program, because they are mature enough to recover quickly from calving and rebreed quickly.

The heifers held that extra time period will probably have two or three more calves, on average, than the heifers conventionally bred as 2-year-olds. As a group, they have better longevity.

Genetic selection for fertility and early puberty enables producers to readily breed heifers as yearlings, but the downside — if a producer leaves bulls in the herd too long — is that some young heifers that are still on the cows will get bred.

“We try to have a short breeding season,” he admits. “Our fall group is 45 days, and we’re almost down to that on the spring group, but sometimes we’re a few days late because we were out in the hay field and very busy!”

Editor’s note: Heather Smith Thomas is a cattlewoman and freelance writer from Salmon, Idaho.