Herd Building Preference

Something I have always thought about and had a brief conversation with Gargan the other night about, but would like to hear some other thoughts. What is your preference for how to build your herd? Doesn't matter the breed or end goal, just curious to what you think is the most effective and practical.

1. One of most common, purchasing bred heifers. Good opportunity to get a young female, that won't have much lay over time before she calves and begins the process of paying for herself. Personally my biggest concern here, and maybe I am off, is that 99% of the time if the owner/seller of that heifer thought that she was going to be exceptional/outstanding they are going to probably retain her themselves. So there must be something they don't prefer about her and don't want her in the herd. Of course paying top dollar might cancel that thought out, but not everyone wants to top the sale every time they want add a female to the herd.

2. Retaining replacements from your current females. Takes a little bit of time to get them to the point of where they start paying for themselves, but should have the qualities/pedigrees your operation prefers. But hard for someone in the building stages of their herd to keep many heifers and still cash flow for the year.

3. Purchasing embryos. High risk, high reward. You will get the best genetics, but not always sure you will get a calf from it. Plus like above going to take time for them to return what you spent on them.

4. Purchasing older cows. Nobody is going to sell their best cows at 2-5 years old, but once in awhile you see the 5-10 year olds that are proven, or so they say. Do you take the chance on a 8 year old cow and hope she lasts till 12 years old and not 9? Shouldn't have glaring problems with most of these cows, as they were retained for that many years.

5. Purchasing heifer calves in the fall. Go to enough of the sales and there are some deals on maternal built females. These are the sales when people sell their best usually (to try to top the market), so the quality is there. However, once again you got the wait till they provide return. One would need a good eye, as they can change quite a bit from 8 months old to 24 months old when they are going to calve for you. But with a good eye I think this is the opportunity to get some bang for your buck, if you can out evaluate some other buyers.

Rant over, thoughts?

One of the better posts I have read on here in quite some time.

I totally agree with your stance on point number 1. At a bred heifer sale in the club calf avenue is usually where you find a lot of the possible TH Carrier females that weren't quite good enough to be show heifers. Occasionally you will find one with a killer maternal pedigree, but lacks the look or structure. They are also often over priced. Why pay 5,000 for a bred heifer that would likely never produce a calf that brings that much. We see it all the time though. There are exceptions to this. Griswold Cattle being one of them.

We always retain females out of our own herd. Out of 35 cows, only 2 were purchased away from the farm. Those 35 cows go back to just 9 cow families. That way we know the background and what might eventually click on that female instead of taking 3 or 4 tries to find the right combination. For example, we typically know whether the Monopoly line of genetics will work or if we should go another route. With the inconsistency of club calf genetics its a good way to make it slightly more predictable.

Good post.  I'm currently trying hard to build up a herd and have used a combination of avenues but the most effective would be purchasing older, proven cows.  Mostly I have sourced them via total herd dispersals where nothing is held back.  Then I have been keeping heifers off those cows to build up numbers of high quality, closely bred females.  I have purchased a couple heifer calves and some embryos but the return is a long time coming and it can be pretty hit and miss.

Both responses emphasized "consistency" of some matter in females, which I think is something sometimes people over look. You only get 1 calf a year, using conventional methods, so it is important to take advantage of that calf and not waste or at least minimize the opportunity cost of playing a guessing game.

Total herd dispersals are about the only sale (outside of a select few programs) where I truly believe nothing is held back, and those dispersals need to be taken advantage of when available. Good point.

Another thought on methods #3, #5, and even #2: Thinking about it more the most strain on a cash flow is going to be in year 1 and year 2, because after that you should have an influx of young heifers calving that were purchased in those two years. So while it would probably strain a cash flow in the beginning years, eventually it should be a cycle.

Example:
2016: Purchase heifer "A"
2017: Breed heifer "A", purchase heifer "B"
2018: Calve heifer "A", breed heifer "B", purchase heifer "C"
2019: Calve heifers "A/B", breed heifer "C", purchase heifer "D".

However, this even more emphasizes one's eye when buying these females. Because not only do you have to deal with buying an 8 month old female, but you also have to make that purchase in say 2016 when a vision/knowledge of trying to hit the market in 2018 and beyond. Markets change every year, even if not overly drastically.

Muddy Creek:
I am in year 5 and I can tell you, the strain on cash flow is improving but only slightly.  Only once you reach your desired number of females will it really ever improve because you need to keep sourcing a few every year (while culling outliers), essentially using every extra dollar you have to work with.  Especially true if you are purchasing heifer calves because they take so long to turn a profit (never mind the "bust rate" on heifer calves.) I bred almost as many heifer calves this spring as I calved cows this spring so hopefully I am about to turn the corner on this slow build...

Started in the fall of 2008 with 2 bred registered angus cows and a bull calf (we already had a small commercial herd) with the idea of replacing the commercial cows with registered females.  It has been a long slow process purchasing a female or two every year.  We have not had many culls of registered females, but they seemed to have nothing but bull calves when we were trying to retain heifers.  We sold the ones that made bulls and used the proceeds to buy bred cows at dispersal sales.  Did our best when we purchased 5-7 year old cows at dispersal sales that had the phenotype we wanted with EXT a generation or two back to sift the bad attitudes out.  I used EPDs only as the final consideration to weed out unacceptable performance issues.  Finally rounding the corner a bit on numbers and can start increasing the selection pressure into the next quality tier of cows.  Wish I would have had the money to start with a dozen registered cows in 2008 and the program would likely be a lot further along, but I like where our cows are and seem to be heading at this point.

I think you have to utilize all of the options listed. I tend to lean towards breeding age heifers as the seem to fall more in my price range. The type of cows I want tend to be well outside of my range. I don't do this as a full time job yet so I have some freedom as far as budget I guess.

I am currently 4 years into building my herd. I started with bred heifers, I bought a 6 mo. Old heifer calf from a split cow/calf pair, I bought a yearling breeding age heifer, I've retained a few heifers, and I've done embryo transfers.

At this point, I think retaining is the most affordable way to improve your herd. It's not the fastest, but I've gone to a number of local sales and compared my retained heifer to what was sold, and it makes it very easy to walk away without buying anything. Some may be a bit flashier, or look to be more easy keeping, but I don't know how much feed it took to make them look that way. I also don't know  how their dams perform.

Embryos truly are hit or miss. I got 3/3 to stick on my first package, but of course all bull calves. If I'd used purebred cows to carry them I'd be kicking myself for it, but fortunately I've got some commercial cows on the side that I used instead.

One option I think you missed is buying cow/calf pairs. That way you get an animal ready to brees (possibly already bred) along with an idea of how the calf might turn out. Plus you get to look at 2 different crosses with the dam before you breed the calf, so you already have an idea of what may or may not work with her. My best investment was buying the calf from a cow/calf pair that was being sold choice of cow or calf. She was very affordable, and she's given me a heck of a replacement that I am really excited about.

As for bred heifers, I am going to be much more careful about buying them down the road, if I do gI've it another try. When I got started, I was excited to just get started. Someone suggested a pair at our State Sale, and they were in my budget so I brought them home. Then my parents bought a 3rd one at the same sale to give me as a gift for getting started. The gift heifer had a dead calf, prolapsed and died. The other two both were hard pulls--a bull calf and a heifer calf both over 100lbs. The heifer calf also grew a monster of a calf (when bred to a calving ease bull that otherwise hasn't broke 80 lbs on our place) that had to be induced for a C-section where she proceeded to wander off and die 2 days later. I've had other issues with that cow family, so I've sold the cow and all but 1 retained daughter that is developing personality issues of her own, and may grow wheels if she doesn't give us something really impressive next year.

As for the yearling breeding age heifer, she bred quickly last year, had a stillborn this year, and we will see how she rebreeds this spring. Jury is still out, but the price was right when I bought her so I'll give her a chance.

There's my 2 cents...

I think access to a couple good cows or buy a couple good older cows and flush them, along with selective embryo purchases are the quickest way to getting 5-10 females that are what you like. O0

I knew purchasing mature cows was a sneaky good option, but did not know the popularity behind it. Thanks for those responses, might be an avenue I look harder into in the future. With declining beef prices, I think we might see a few more of these.

In all honesty I think WinterSpringsFarm is right, you do have to take advantage of all three and be diligent and ready when an opportunity reveals itself.

Shortybreeder: I did miss the pair purchase, thanks for that perspective. Is a way to get a better look into the productivity of a female. However in most cases I wonder on those deals, if this calf is really that good why would they sell it now oppose to in 4 months for much more and why would they sell a cow that they have the "good/profitable mating" figured out on? And in some cases I am sure there are valid reasons, just my thoughts.

Muddy:
That is a valid point. I can think of a few cases where the cow/calf option is a good opportunity:
1st herd dispersals, depending on the timing they would sell the cow/calf pair if maybe it was too soon to wean the calf
2nd in the case where I bought mine, the cow had a blind eye, and it was at our State Sale so I think it was an attempt to salvage more value out of the cow.
3rd drought/adverse weather conditions when people can't afford to maintain their cower numbers without the grass. They may let some nice pairs go simply because they have to.

What it boils down to on all of the options discussed is timing, and spending the money to buy quality. If you can have the cash sitting around, you could get some really good opportunities with a little patience.

I have had the best luck with the 7- 10 year olds. I have found that you can find good solid cows at 7 or 8 years old that will give you the least trouble. (be really picky about their udders) If I was going to start over I would buy two really good cows that were exactly where I wanted to be with my herd and flush them. It would be alot quicker and probably wouldn't cost any more than other ways. It would just be all the exspense at once. And for recips I would definetly go with cows that are older and bred when you get them, or have a calf at side.

basically whatever you can get your hands on to. I have purchased bred cows, bred heifers, and even heifers. As mentioned earlier, a lot of times that animal is being sold for some reason and why? But in that case focus on genetics. I have seen many times a cow that looked like an average cow raise top sellers year after year but she was bred well. And yet some great looking cows that have raised some duds. That's part of the business I know but don't overlook genetic value for appearance of the animal.

Winter Springs kinda went the same avenue that I was thinking when I saw this post. In building a herd I think that its best to look at what you want your end point to be, in terms of your mature cow makeup and what you want them to ideally produce. Then stay disciplined in allocating resources, while  putting together the best pieces to get you there. Thinking this way might not be the fastest or the cheapest way to put your herd together, but I would rather sacrifice both to be happier with what I have in the long run.

With that being said I would go for the best possible option first looking for cows/pairs, breds, opens, followed by embryos.

In terms of retaining females I have more of a tendency to diversify the herd by selling for what I think it would cost me to put that animal back into my herd. If I can't do that then she stays. One might sacrifice consistency in doing this, but I guess I like to mix things up too much.