Why 25 Heifers are Better Than 10 as Replacement Options
Keeping more heifer candidates allows for multiple culling opportunities. Instead of guessing which heifers will perform at weaning, evaluate them through breeding success, conception rates and calving performance.
What do you want the future of your cow herd to look like?
Beef cow slaughter fell by 19% in 2024, and another 17% in 2025, as producers held on to cows past their prime to get “just one more calf” out of them. So far this year, cow slaughter is falling even faster, and it is on track to drop below levels we’ve not seen in a very long time.
Meanwhile, producers continue sacrificing their younger, better-genetic heifers as market prices are just too good to pass up. Keeping older genetics in less productive cows while selling young heifers will eventually bite us in the backside and lower the productivity of our herds.
As you begin planning for the future of your herd, I’d like to suggest a different retention mindset than we’ve used in the past: If you are going to retain heifers, let’s put enough selection pressure on them to make sure we are only keeping the good ones.
Common replacement strategy
If a producer needs 10 heifer replacements to go back into their herd, the most common strategy is, at weaning, to select 10 or 11 nice-looking heifers they think will make good cows.
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Then they plan a supplemental nutrition program to make sure they reach the desired weight for breeding to get good conception rates. The 11th heifer is a hedge just in case one doesn’t get bred.
It’s a strategy that usually works well, but often by sinking significant expense into developing the heifers to ensure they breed on time.
But how do you know if you’ve picked the “best” replacements? Did they simply look good at weaning? How do you really know they were the best ones for your herd?
New retention strategy
In a recent heifer retention workshop, I asked producers what conception rate they desired for their heifer group. Most responded 90% or better, and one said 100%.
I asked if they thought I was crazy for being happy with only 50%.
Why would anyone be content if only 50% of the heifers you invested in were bred? Well, as any good economist always says, it depends. But if my heifer development enterprise has kept my costs low, and Mother Nature has taken the guesswork out of the selection process for me, 50% could be a tremendous success.
How many heifers to keep
I’d like to suggest that if a producer needs 10 heifer replacements, rather than keeping 10 or 11, consider keeping 25. It sounds like a lot.
My good friend Jordan Thomas, beef reproductive physiologist at the University of Missouri, likes to call those 25 “heifer candidates.”
Heifer development should be viewed as an enterprise with multiple off-ramps where candidates are continually scrutinized and culled. Rather than picking only once (at weaning), heifer candidates should be evaluated at weaning, prebreeding tract scores, bull turn in, pregnancy check and before calving. At each phase, selection pressure should be applied.
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In addition, rather than using the normal 60- to 90-day breeding season, heifers should be given a very short window to become bred, such as 30 days or even less. This way, Mother Nature can select the heifers most suited to your environment and most likely to stay in the herd the longest.
Value of gain vs. cost of gain
Right about now, most of you are thinking, “How could that possibly be an efficient system if so many heifers are unsuccessful?” It depends on what you label as success.
A heifer candidate that is culled for being open or any other reason along the way can still be a success if she is profitable because her cost of gain is less than the value of gain.
A spring-born calf weaned in the fall is normally at a lower value during the heavy fall calf runs. Later marketing period off-ramps often show improved prices and substantial value of gain achieved.
For instance, an 845-pound open heifer being sold the following August is often at the yearly high for heavyweight feeders.
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Bottom line
A heifer development enterprise should be viewed as multiple marketing opportunities to create flexibility in your system and help you identify the replacements that will take your herd to the next level for years to come.
-Wesley Tucker is a University of Missouri Extension ag business specialist, succession planner and national conference speaker. He can be reached at tuckerw@missouri.edu or 417-326-4916.
