ANGUS BEEF BULLETIN EXTRA

November 8, 2022 | Vol. 15 : No. 11

Tips on Selecting Replacement Heifers

Cows that can’t make a living on grass will cull themselves.

Most stockmen try to keep an adequate number of replacements, usually selecting heifers from their best cows, sired by bulls that pass good maternal traits to daughters. Producers can select from a variety of criteria and tools to assist selection, and most producers have certain goals they’d like to reach. Commercial cattlemen want heifers that will be fertile, productive, long-lived cows that stay in the herd a long time and produce good calves. Purebred breeders want heifers that will produce high-quality seedstock — bulls or females — for customers. Some breeders look first at performance records and then visually evaluate heifers, while others make their first sort in the corral/pasture and use records as a tie-breaker.


Brian Driscoll of Driscoll Cattle Co. in central South Dakota always looks at the cows first.

“We pay attention to udders and teat structure and also want females that are easy-keeping,” he explains. “If the mother of that heifer is an easy-keeper and doesn’t fall apart while raising a calf, typically her heifer calf will follow suit and be able to go out and make a living in range conditions.”

The hard-keeping cows tend to cull themselves. Driscoll says it is easier to choose good heifers out of your own herd because the mothers of those heifers give a lot of information.

“If you go to a sale to buy replacements, it’s a guessing game,” says Driscoll. “Sometimes you get a bad one in the bunch when you pick out of your own cows, but not as often.”

“Ideally, you would pick all of your replacements out of the 10-year-old cows, because they’ve been in your herd long enough to prove themselves, and you know what they can do.” — Brian Driscoll

Bulls need to sire good daughters, he adds. The bull’s mother is very important, probably more important than his sire. A cow herd is built on the cows, not the bulls. Driscoll says he always tries to look at the maternal side of the pedigree as much as the paternal side. His tip: It generally boils down to if you like the cows, you are probably going to like their calves.

A good cow that holds together and remains in the herd a long time, raising good calves without problems, will probably have a daughter with good longevity, Driscoll says. “Ideally, you would pick all of your replacements out of the 10-year-old cows, because they’ve been in your herd long enough to prove themselves, and you know what they can do.”

You also know what their udders are like, he adds. On the other hand, a 2-year-old or 3-year-old cow’s udder may look OK but break down by the time she’s a 5-year-old. The older cow has stood the test of time, and her daughter will probably do the same.

“Some guys put more emphasis on performance and select the biggest heifers, but the biggest calf in the bunch might not have the best mother,” Driscoll says. “That calf might have had the best year of her life, but as she matures and gets older, she might have problems like poor udder and bad teats, etc.”

There are many important things (udder, conformation and leg structure, disposition, etc.) that are more important than size. Selecting the biggest heifers has gotten many people in trouble, gradually increasing frame size of their cattle; their cows have gotten bigger and less efficient.

“Thirty years ago there were many 1,200-pound cows, and now there are a lot of 1,500-pound cows and even bigger, and they may not maintain themselves as well. Here in the Western states, cows have to be able to make a living on grass. Their feet and legs must be good, so they can travel in big country. They must be able to feed their calf and stay in adequate condition to breed back,” says Driscoll, noting the current drought put a lot of cows to the test.

“The cows that aren’t making a living will cull themselves because they will be open,” he concludes.

It’s wise to keep heifers from good cows that were able to stay in the herd.

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