With the smallest cattle herd since 1951, producers may finally be thinking about rebuilding.
Zoetis Beef Technical Services shares more about this big decision.
“There are a lot of things we need to take in consideration. I’m glad to see that rebuilding of the herd because that’s a good thing because we’re in a state where we probably need to be. The considerations we need to make is there’s a lot dependence on these heifers because they make up the history of the herd moving forward. They set the pace of the herd moving forward. So, we want to select heifers more towards the beginning of that calving season because we know they’re starting to herd longer. We know their offspring outperform reproductively and on the steer end production-wise too, so we made that commitment to do so,” said Dr. Dan Tracy.
That rebuilding starts with selecting the right heifers.
“We know there’s also a value of money that we have spent on these heifers until we get him into the pre-breeding phase as far as feed, vaccines, veterinary care as far as doing some reproductive scores or pelvic measures, and we know there’s a cost on a per-calf to pay that back.”
Dr. Tracy says Zoetis has also taken advantage of new genomic technology to identify replacements earlier.
