I'm presently at a Saskatchewan Beef Conference, and this topic was discussed yesterday. Across all breeds the average time the average herd remains as a purebred breeder is 8 years. I have heard this fact before, and I have always been a little amazed by this fact, as our PB herd was established in 1917 by my grandfather. In reality, I do believe this fact is very correct. There are many reasons for this. Many people get discouraged and quit. In today's world, many breeders have off farm jobs and it becomes too hard to juggle both their job and their breeding herd at home. I can relate to this, even though I have not worked off the farm. For many years, we operated two or more purebred herds along with a large commerical herd and a feedlot. With more than one PB herd, it was hard to properly do as much as I felt I should be doing in either breed.My father and I finally decided to decide on one breed and concentrate on it, and I do believe it was the right decision... at least for us. Now that my father is 86, and limited in what he can do on the farm, I find it extremely hard to attend as many breed events or even take my cattle to the shows and sales as I feel should be attending. It is probably a sign of the times, and it probably not get any better. If I could just win the lottery, I might be able to hire enough additional people to allow me to do more of the things I think are important. When I was younger, my dad urged me to travel to as many shows and sales as I could, as he felt visibility was an important part of marketing our cattle. I think he was, at least, partly right, as we have sold many cattle over the years, to people I have met in person at some event. He also felt the same about advertising. When times got tough, he would tell me that we needed to increase our advertising, again because visibility was a key component to marketing. I also agree to this, and my advertising budget seems to increase every year.
In regards to finding herds that have more than 3 generations of their own breeding in their pedigrees, there are a few... but they are few and far between. Many breeders feel that the introduction of outside genetics is an important part to moving their herds forward.A breeder has to have some amazing genetics to only sell breeding stock and never buy any. I know of several herds that have not added outside females for many years, but have added some herd bulls. In my herd, I have always had to look for females that I thought could bring our herd forward, as we were holding production sales every year for many years.IMO, in order to hold annual production sales, you need to have a cow herd of over 150 cows in order to be able to retain your own herd replacements and keep the quality in your sale as high as possible. A few years ago, I was at a point where I had built our herd to where we had several animals with a few generations of our own breeding. I had a breeder come for a herd visit, and he asked me if I would sell some females. I told him I would price every female in the herd and he could pick from the list, and I priced them at prices I felt I needed for them. I thought he would possibly take a few head, but he came back for another look and I left him alone to walk through the herd and make his own decisions. When he came back, he had selected 72 breeding age females. I was again in a situation where I had to add some replacements and it has taken a long time to rebuild my herd numbers. I think it is important to add some outside genetics, especially in regards to herd bulls from time to time, however, with that said, I'm not afraid to use bulls I have raised. Four of my present herd sires were born here, and I may add a couple more this year. Over the years we have used many herd sires that were bred her... but I have alo purhcaed several as well.
