Justin said:
Northern Rancher said:
When you run yearlings on grass or finish your cattle individual weaning weight isn't all that relevant- by saletime in those situations most times the lights at weaning have caught up and the heavies have slowed down. A good herd of cattle doesn't have that much variation other than can be explained by age. The average weight of the group might have some but I'm pretty sure every cowboy on this site can figure out which ones are the dinks on a calf per calf basis. I guess if your working cattle anyway and you have a scale in your set up go ahead and take them. I used to be the biggest performance testing junkie in the history of man lol.
yeah,i get that...i just wasn't following what Liveoak was saying.
Justin, I was just thinking about RobertMac's original question:
"What is more important to the commercial cattleman...increased
percentage of weaned calves or increased weaning weights?"
What parameters influence when a calf is weaned? Left alone with the cow, weaning times could vary all over the board as opposed to pulling them from the cows all at the same time (assuming they were all born at about the same time). Then it's just a matter of evaluating their weights at that time and making some sort of decision as to cull the cow or not.
Another person might look at weaning as that time when the calf is sold.
To evaluate the issue of increased weaning weights don't you still have to consider weaning methods?
Re: weaning weights: Let's say that whatever method you use but you treat all calves by the same method, you could just go with a basic measurement: (Pounds of calves weaned) ÷ (number of calves weaned) = basic weaning weight. But this method doesn't account for heifer or bull calf, the cow itself, calves that may have died etc. Are there other methods?
By whichever methods you use, the answer will still be a reflection of your cow herd and be able to adjust by culling and then buying better stock.