Breeding Beef Cattle
Raising your own calves is interesting and rewarding. You’ll get to pick the parents according to color, build, temperament, and growth rate. You’ll have the pleasure of seeing calves born, watching them grow up, and assessing how well you’ve done in achieving your goals. Then you get to do it all over again the next year!
Choosing Cows and Heifers
A beef cow’s primary job is to raise a big, healthy calf every year. So, the first thing you need to find out about a cow is whether she calves easily and is a good mother.
Easy calving depends as much on the genetics of the bull as it does on those of the cow, so look for this trait when you are evaluating either parent. A heifer’s mother should have a record of easy calvings, and reputable bull producers will have records going back several generations that can be correlated with performance records in breed directories. (Ideally, the previous owner will have kept good records.)
If you’re looking at a heifer to buy, find out what kind of mother her mother is. A good mother is protective of her calves and diligent about cleaning them up and nursing them quickly after birth. A good mother always knows where her calf is located and produces plenty of milk. By weaning time, the calf is chubby, frisky, and a good grazer.
A cow also needs to be easy for you to deal with. A good mother is no good for you if she goes berserk in the chute or is in the habit of jumping fences. Look for cows or heifers that are calm, can be herded quietly, and don’t take off for the next county when a stranger enters their pasture.
Get a cow or heifer that can physically handle the job of carrying and birthing calves. Look for wide-set pinbones as well as an udder that is well attached front and back and won’t eventually sag so low that the calf will have to kneel to suckle. The cow should have reached puberty early for its breed, a sign of fertility, and be cycling regularly.
Finally, a cow or heifer should look nice, with that beefy boxcar body, a clean-cut head and neck, a wide muzzle, and calm eyes, and she should not be so fat that she waddles or so thin that her ribs show. Strong, straight legs and tidy hooves are signs that the cows will hold up for years of grazing and wandering around after calves.
Prioritize your wants. My primary concern is to get a heifer that’s going to be easy to live with and won’t have calving or milk problems. I’d also rather compromise on body type than on disposition. You’ll have to decide for yourself what is most important to you.
Breeding Cows and Heifers
Breed your cows nine to nine and a half months before you want calves. A cow should start cycling, or going into heat, within three weeks to sixty days of having a calf and will cycle about every three weeks after that until being bred again. Many cows will breed back (conceive) on their first cycle, while some will take two cycles; those that take three or more or don’t get bred at all should be considered for culling.
A heifer is usually bred for the first time in the summer after her first birthday, at about fifteen months of age. If a heifer is small for her age, you should give her a little longer or cull her. Slow growth is not a desirable trait in beef-cattle production.
Artificial Insemination
Artificial insemination (AI) allows you to pick from the very best bulls available nationwide, based on detailed statistical information provided by the AI company. In addition to the physical characteristics and growth records of bulls, the company’s catalog will list the expected progeny differences (EPD) numbers. This is the statistical chance that a bull’s progeny will be above or below the breed average for that characteristic. EPDs are given for such factors as low birth weights (a low birth weight is a strong indicator of easy calving) and weaning weights. Use EPDs to select for characteristics you want to see in your herd, such as better milk production.
Making sense of all of the numbers does take some education and practice, so it’s a good idea to start by asking advice from your AI technician. If your budget is a little tight, ask about young sires, whose semen is generally cheaper because they aren’t yet old enough to have produced enough progeny for a statistically credible EPD record.
The advantages of artificial insemination are that you get a wide choice of excellent bulls, and you don’t have to worry about keeping a live bull on your farm. If you have just a few cows, it’s probably also cheaper than a live bull.
The disadvantage of AI is that you have to spot the cows or heifers when they’re in heat, which isn’t always easy to do. Heats can be tough to catch on some cows, or you may have an off-farm job and not be around to check cows as often as you need to. To make things easier, buy a heat-detecting strip. This is a strip with small dye capsule that is glued onto a cow’s rump. When the cow goes into heat and other cows start trying to mount her, the pressure of mounting bursts the capsule and mixes the dye with another fluid so that it changes color. This works pretty well, except when you don’t get it positioned right or it falls off, so take care when applying the strip. Attaching the strip to the cow also involves an extra trip through the chute.
A cow cycles every seventeen to twenty-four days, and heat lasts about thirty-six hours. For best results, a cow should be bred during the twelve hours she’s in a standing heat, which starts about six to twelve hours after the heat cycle begins. A standing heat is so called because, during that time, a cow or heifer will let another mount her. When a cow is in heat but not in standing heat, the others will smell her and try to mount, but the cow won’t stand still. But don’t worry about the timing of AI breeding too much. As one friend who’s bred a lot of cows puts it, if you see a cow in heat, breed her. If you’re a little late, it’s OK.
To spot cows in heat, you should be out in the pasture at least twice a day. In hot weather, your best chance of catching a heat will be before sunrise, at the coolest time of the day. Once you know that a cow is ready to be bred, call your AI technician and then get the cow into the chute. Seventeen days later, start watching the cow carefully to see whether she goes into heat again. If she does, she has to be bred again.
Using a Live Bull
The advantage of using a live bull is that the bull and the cows will take care of the breeding without your involvement. For cattle owners with other jobs or erratic schedules, live breeding saves the headache of scheduling with the AI technician. Cows generally conceive more quickly and at a higher overall rate with a live bull than with AI. If you have enough cows to breed, it will also be cheaper than AI, even if you pay for a high-quality bull.
The disadvantages of using a live bull begin with having to keep a dangerous animal on the farm. On the whole, beef bulls don’t have the bad reputation for maiming and killing their owners that dairy bulls do, but you still need to be careful and cautious and to warn visitors.
If you keep the bull for a couple of years, you’ll need a separate pasture for the heifers not yet old enough to be bred and the cows for which it’s too early in the year to breed. The fences between the pastures must be effective enough to discourage a lovesick bull because a bull can smell a heifer in heat from up to 5 miles away and will come running if he can.
Another disadvantage of live breeding is that you’ll have fewer choices in bull traits than you would with AI because you’ll be limited to whichever bulls are available in your area. That said, there are many excellent bull producers, and a bull from your area will be adapted to your climate. Finally, a good bull is expensive and can only be used for two years because, after that, he would be breeding its daughters.
Choosing a live bull is much the same as choosing cows and heifers, except that your selection has a much greater effect on your herd. A cow has only one calf at