By Kevin Laurent
There are many events or moments throughout the year that we as beef producers look forward to with great anticipation, excitement and frankly some degree of worry. It could be the daily checks during calving season or finding out your pay weight and price for a load of yearlings you delivered to the sale barn. I think most of us would agree that the annual preg checking of the cow herd is right there towards the top of the list of management activities that can have us on pins and needles. Open cows and open heifers are part of the business. What we choose to do with open females can affect our bottom line. For the sake of brevity, I would like to limit this discussion to replacement heifers and what options we have when the vet finds her empty.
Give her another chance or cull her? It may be tempting to give open heifers another chance especially if you have both a fall and spring calving season. The problem with this option is research shows that there may be upwards of 20% reduction in conception rates on heifers that failed to conceive in the first breeding season. Ask yourself, if she was a slow breeder as a yearling, what will her chances be of breeding back as a 2 year old? If we choose to cull her, what is the best way to market a 900-1100 lb open heifer?
Option 1: Sell at the sale barn. Obviously, the easiest option, but be prepared for a pretty severe discount mainly because there are simply not that many heifers of that weight class at the sale barn on any given day. Remember, the cattle market moves in load lots of 48-50,000 pounds. It may take order buyers several weeks to assemble 45-50 open heifers of that weight class to make a load.