By Olivia Amundson
One of the most-important traits in the beef herd is reproduction. Any female that ends up open at the end of the year is costing the operation additional money. This year, strategic management decisions should be made within the reproductive herd to help maximize revenue.
While most producers consider pregnancy detecting their herd after weaning, pregnancy detection at an earlier time might be beneficial, especially if grazing conditions are sub-par. Early pregnancy diagnosis allows open heifers to be identified sooner to either be sold on a stronger market or put on feed to increase gain. However, it’s also important to recognize the added value potential in early pregnancy detection of yearling heifers.
Whether heifers have been raised or bought, traditionally, heifers are bred to calve prior to the cow herd; this would indicate that many of these females are ready to pregnancy test in August. The minimum length of time to determine a positive pregnancy diagnosis would be 26 to 30 days following breeding using ultrasound or blood tests and a minimum of 35 to 45 days for rectal palpation.
Options With Yearling Heifers
Pregnancy testing yearling heifers is important to identify females that are open and/or short bred so alternative management strategies can take place. Each day a female is open, added expenses continue to pile up with no calf returns made the following year. Therefore, if producers can identify open or short bred females earlier, especially in a drier than average year, they can salvage some of the costs associated with maintaining that female.
Depending on the operation, heifers may be bull bred or bred using artificial insemination (AI). These two methods may pose two different management strategies when considering pregnancy testing. If synchronization and AI was incorporated in the breeding program, clean-up bulls were likely put out for a period of time. Depending on if a different breed was used for clean-up, or if bulls were not turned in immediately after AI, this would allow for detection of AI-bred versus bull-bred. Different management strategies can be taken here, but you should consider the worth of the bull-bred females in your herd. Most will calve later than the AI-bred females and may fail to breed back the following year.
If bulls are still out with heifers, early pregnancy testing may be a way to determine, not only open females, but also short-bred females. Take the opportunity to determine if short-bred females will fit your operation. Again, it’s important to remember that first-calf heifers are some of the hardest animals to rebreed the following year. Therefore, keeping a short-bred female will most likely have implications the following year. Short-bred females that do not fit in the herd of origin might be well-suited to sell to another ranch that prefers cattle to calve later.
AI-bred herds or bulls pulled earlier will likely exhibit fewer short-bred females and more opens. Typically, cycling females should result in approximately 90% of yearling heifers conceiving early in the breeding season. However, there will still be open heifers. Open females will be anywhere from 16–18 months old and around 900–1,000 pounds at the time of pregnancy testing. These heifers fit into a yearling finishing program extremely well. Performance is usually very good, and they are often market-ready during a seasonally favorable market. These heifers generally grade quite well also, in part because of the advantage in age compared to cattle placed on feed after a spring feeding period.
Takeaway
Therefore, consider your options with yearling heifers. Allow AI and bulls to make some of those harder culling decisions in regards to getting that female bred earlier in the breeding season. Females that are bred earlier in the breeding season are more likely to remain in the herd longer and become a profitable female. Consider selling short-bred females to a ranch that calves later, and finally, examine those females that fail to breed up; a finishing program may be the perfect way to maximize profit on those females.
Source : sdstate.edu