Do you keep too many heifers?

When feed costs soar, some experts say you should consider culling young heifers
by Jim Patrico

It's a hard-hearted dairy producer who doesn't get a little catch in his throat when looking at his newborn heifers. After all, a dairy producer sees in his heifers a promise for the future; every one is a great cow in the making.

But when feed costs are as high and cull-cow prices as low as they are today, maybe a dairy producer should look at those same baby heifers and see something else: Cull candidates whose quick trip down the road could save the farm big bucks. So says Marjorie Faust, an Iowa State University Extension dairy specialist, who is a vocal advocate of the concept of strategic culling. Part of that concept requires that producers take a hard look at week-old heifers.

"If I were going to make culling decisions to save feed costs quickly, culling young heifers-not cows-would be my first priority," Faust says. "I'm already getting something back from a cow in the form of milk. But I don't receive any income from a heifer for the first two years. All she does is raise my costs."

That may sound ruthless to a producer with a good-looking crop of heifers. But Faust trots out some impressive numbers to prove her point (see table). A producer with a 100-cow herd could save more than $2,600 in feed costs in the first year of a heifer-culling strategy, Faust says. By the second year, he will have saved about $7,500. And after three years, feed-cost savings could reach about $8,400. Add in labor and other costs, and total three-year savings could be about $11,000.

The first baby heifers Faust would sell are those with obvious health problems. After that, she would rely on PA (Parent Average) or PEBV (Pedigree Estimated Breeding Values) numbers found on many DHIA herd summary sheets. These numbers indicate which heifers have the best-or worst-genetic chances to become great cows. Based on Iowa DHIA data, heifers in the low 15% have a less than 1% chance of becoming one of the herd's top five cows.

"PA or PEBV are our best indicators of production potential," Faust says. "So all you have to do is look at the numbers and sell the bottom 20%-25% of the heifers." That sounds simple enough. Problem is, it's hard to find a dairy producer willing to part with any baby heifers.

Besides their natural affection for heifers, "Farmers are the ultimate gamblers," Faust says. "They think every heifer is going to be a super star once she calves."

And they are willing to bet two years' worth of feed and labor that they are right.

Producers do have some good reasons to keep all their heifers.

Obviously, herds with nonregistered animals don't have the genetic data necessary to make informed choices.

"We also have historical reasons for keeping all our heifers," Faust says. "Until the 1970s, we all had a lot of nasty calf barns that killed half the young ones. So we had to keep every heifer to make sure we had enough replacements. Calf hutches changed all that."

Then, too, there is the nightmare scenario in which a dairy producer sells a heifer with low genetic potential scores only to see her mature into a 30,000 lb. milker for somebody else.

"It can happen," Faust says. "PAs are not foolproof."

For these and other reasons, University and Extension personnel have long advised raising a full heifer crop.

"Traditionally, geneticists have recommended that dairy producers raise all the heifers born. . . . If we freshened all heifers, we could make much better decisions about which heifers would produce the most," according to Virginia Tech dairy science professor Ron Pearson.

But times change. In today's environment, yesterday's advice might be outdated. "With feed prices as high as they now are, things are different; geneticists lose out to economists. There are now some real advantages to culling baby heifers," Pearson says.

Counting only feed and other variable costs, 1996 ISU statistics indicated that an Iowa producer will spend about $1,000 to raise a calf to freshening. Throw in labor and fixed costs, and that same heifer will cost the producer about $1,600. Current Iowa prices for springing heifers are around $1,100. That ensures a $500 loss to the producer if he sells her as a springer.

Instead of selling a springer for a loss, Faust recommends selling those baby heifers (one-week old) with the least genetic potential. That will not only save rearing expenses, it will make room to keep a cow that is already producing milk.

"We tend to think that each generation of cows will be better than the last. That's true for the group as a whole, but not true of each individual. The key to this whole idea is understanding that the bottom end of your heifers is not going to be as good at maturity as your average cow," Faust says. "So why feed that heifer for two years?"

That's a question dairy producers should be asking themselves, says George Shook, chairman of the Dairy Science Department at the University of Wisconsin. "It makes all the sense in the world [to cull baby heifers based on genetic potential]. But nobody does it. Maybe they don't know what raising all those heifers costs them."

Or maybe, as one traditionally minded dairy producer says, "I just want to give my heifers a chance."

Editor's Note: Several states are conducting a study of culling: "TQM on the Dairy Farm." If you want to participate in this USDA-funded project, contact your state's Extension Dairy Specialist.

Sidebar: Developing a culling strategy

Selling young heifers is only one part of Marjorie Faust's approach to strategic culling. Cows must go, too. But in an orderly, planned fashion.

The Iowa State University Extension dairy specialist says that too often dairy producers let circumstances-not planning-dictate when an animal will leave the herd.

"People tend to think that culling just happens," Faust says. "But we need to take more control than that. We need to have a herd-culling strategy aimed at high long-term profitability. That means-in part-that we have to reduce our total cow-culling percentage."

As a possible goal for a herd seeking to maintain its current size, Faust suggests a culling rate for cows of 25%-28% per year. Of those, only 14% or fewer should be involuntary culls.

Most involuntary culls occur as a result of problems. Illness, breeding troubles, injury, bad temperament. They all send cows to the sale barn.

A producer's first goal should be to reduce these problems with management changes, Faust says. But he also should set culling goals to remove as quickly as possible animals that fall into certain at-risk groups. For instance, "Calving out with mastitis is a sign that a cow is not long for the herd. Based on statistics, she has a nine times greater chance of being culled early than other cows. So cull her now, not later," Faust says.

First-lactation cows that abort during early gestation also are likely cull candidates. So are cows with teat injuries during first lactation and cows with digestive disorders during the third or later lactations. Cows that have somatic cell counts of higher than 400,000 for three or more months are not likely to be long-term residents of the dairy farm. And low producers (those with production figures in the bottom 15% of the herd) and cows that don't fit a dairy's management practices also are likely culls.

"The bottom line is that we need to start thinking about which cows are worth spending your time on and which aren't," Faust says.

Citing research by Gary Rogers, a Penn State dairy scientist, Faust says, "Fine-tuning the culling process by culling one fewer cow for involuntary reasons may net an additional $750-$900 annually for a 100-cow herd."

Table: Savings from culling week-old heifers

Assumptions:

• 100-cow herd
• 400 day calving interval
• 91 calves born each year = 45 heifers born
• Annual removal rate for milking cows is 30% = needs 30 replacements per year
• Average age at first calving 26.5 months = feeding 99 heifers on farm at any one time
• SCENARIO: Raise only best 35 heifers (sell remaining 10 at 1 week of age)

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