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Pregnancy rates on heifers

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gcreekrch

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Pregged heifers yesterday. 80 head, 35 days breeding, 8 open. We're happy with this but are wondering what others are getting as open percentage. We worked these heifers at our new place in a falling down set of corrals. I went to climb over a fence and the top log fell off with me on top. My right shin is about twice it's normal size this morning and is a rainbow of colours. Left the camera in the truck and forgot to take pictures. :(
 
That is not bad Gcreek. We have experimented with 25-35 days and I am happy with 80% pregnant. This year was a wreck. 21 days and 60% pregnant. The bright side is the open ones have good value as fat off grass or short keep feeders and feed is not plentiful here this year. It certainly sorts out the fertile ones.

Be careful with that body of yours. Old and rickety are not that far away and you don't need to be expediting it. By the way, how has Mrs. Gcreek healed up from the spring?
 
We breed heifers for 42 days - the same as the cows, and normally run 5% open. The worst we ever get is 10% and we get that about one year in 3 or 4.
I never understood the extension folks advice to breed 40% more than you need to allow for opens and late breds - that just has never been our experience.
 
I would be nailed to a cross if my customers had 10% or more opens. Preg checking has created more repeat LOOMIX customers than any salesmen ever did.
 
I usually breed all of them-let their first calf preg rate sort them out. Pregnancy rate is a function of money spent on feed in alot of cases-hay,grass and licking snow tends to sort them pretty hard.
 
That's very impressive Gcreek :) . We had 5/75 open, with a 55 day breeding season (had cows in with them so my bull numbers worked, but did lengthen breeding season). The vet called 19 head at 3 months, 1 head at 2 months, and the remaining 50 head at 4 months along. I've had good luck with my later calvers catching back up the next year.

These heifers have had the least amount of care I've ever given to heifer calves, and wintered mostly with their mothers once they were weaned on hay and pasture. They were caked about 1 pound/day for about a month to keep them located away from the bull's fenceline, but that was the only extra feed they received. This summer has been the best grass year in the past decade, with cool temperatures and plenty of rain... they've really lived in luxury this summer :D .

The five opens weighed 925# last week and brought .83. I'm anxious to see how the cows bred-up :) . I'm thinking I could do the same exact thing next year, and get a completely different result... :lol: . This is the best we've ever done, so I'm going to enjoy it while I can! :D
 
Been lurking around this site for awhile. Finally found time to figure out the member thing so I can post.

Was wondering how many bulls you're running with your heifers/cows to get those kind of preg rates? Especially Gcreek, Wyoming rancher, and grassfarmer, how many bulls are ya running with that many cows/heifers? Just curious what everyone else is doing?

This is what we did this year. Will see if it worked or not in a couple weeks.
We are bringing our heifers/cows in from the lease ground in a couple of weeks and will be running them through the chute to get a preg test done on each one. We had 27 pairs out there with one bull. Kind of curious to see what kind of a preg rate we get. Kind of second guessing ourselves wondering if we should have had another bull out there or not.
 
Welcome L\3 :D . To answer your question, I Lutalysed the 75 heifers and put 4 bulls out with them initially. Just prior to the end of the first cycle, I added 15 cows, and took one bull out to take to the forest with the other cattle. I normally figure 1 bull/25 cows. Since I Lutalysed the heifers, I needed more bull power for the first part of breeding.

I'd personally be a little nervous using only one bull, but know of others who've gotten by fine. Have you looked into AI'ing, and using your bull for clean-up? That's a tough spot with 27 head... justifying the cost of another bull, and keeping them both "busy" enough so they don't fight, cause injuries, or get into trouble :roll: .

I'd think if you were having troubles, you'd be seeing cows cycling by now. Good luck, and let us know how it goes :D .
 
L\3 Ranch said:
Been lurking around this site for awhile. Finally found time to figure out the member thing so I can post.

Was wondering how many bulls you're running with your heifers/cows to get those kind of preg rates? Especially Gcreek, Wyoming rancher, and grassfarmer, how many bulls are ya running with that many cows/heifers? Just curious what everyone else is doing?

This is what we did this year. Will see if it worked or not in a couple weeks.
We are bringing our heifers/cows in from the lease ground in a couple of weeks and will be running them through the chute to get a preg test done on each one. We had 27 pairs out there with one bull. Kind of curious to see what kind of a preg rate we get. Kind of second guessing ourselves wondering if we should have had another bull out there or not.
Click to expand...

If your talking a two year old bull or older-- I wouldn't worry...I even got stuck with that many heifers with a yearling angus bull one year and came out OK- altho they were in about a 40 acre pasture during breeding time...I've talked to some angus breeders that have had 40-50-60 cows in one pasture with one older bull when they were trying to pasture breed a lot of cows to one herd sire- and that came out with good results.....
Last year a neighbor that has about 60 head ran one two year old bull with his cows- and all tho he was bred up pretty high- they were strung out longer than he wanted- so this year added a yearling bull to the herd..
I'm like Wyomingrancher- get nervous with only one bull in a bunch- but definitely can't see where its economically feasible for you to have two...
 
OT is right, in addition to bull age, pasture size, topography and number of water sources can affect bull number as well. I'd think a herd of 27 would stay fairly close together in your case. This ranch is mostly in the mountains, so a little extra bull power doesn't hurt. I think you could be a little less cautious in open country IMO :D .
 
We had 2 - 2yr olds and 2 yearlings with 80 heifers in a 200 acre pasture with 2 water sources. These heifers would have been in light to moderate condition and weighed 675-700 lbs when the bulls went out June 25th. They did not recieve any mineral over the summer. We try to have a ratio of 1 bull to 16 cows on our open range as it is pretty rough country. Normally, our cow herd tests about 10-12 % empty even with that many bulls. It is nearly impossible to keep a mineral source out for the cattle on range although I believe it would increase our pregnancy rates significantly.
 
L/3, In my opinion if a bull can't cover 27 head comfortably he's a bull in name only. We have purebreds so they are all bred in single sire groups - the way it's worked for numbers the last year or two we have had 40-45 per bull and that works fine under our conditions. The biggest areas they run on at breeding time would be about 2 acres per cow so that's quite a difference from some of you open range or mountain guys.

I personally wonder if some guys getting lower conception rates on heifers aren't paying the price for using "heifer bulls" ie creatures that are half way between bulls and steers in type (and likely fertility too) because of the unfounded fear of having difficult calvings with a bull that has a masculine front end on him?
I only use bulls that look like bulls - I believe they are the kind that produce the best steers, the best daughters and are able to breed more cows.

The most important thing to me about bull work rates is to use bulls that are fertile. The breeding soundness evaluation test the vets do up here gives a "pass" if the bulls hit 70% normal semen, 50% motility. We haven't tested our bulls extensively but we have never had a 2 year old test below 91% normal, motility is always rated in the 60-80% range. We tested a 7 year old this spring for the first time as he was starting to show his age and he was 89% normal. We tested two scrawny 1300lb 2 year olds at the same time - the leftovers from our bull raising program and they were 93 and 94% normal. Incidentally their scrotal measurements were 33 and 34cm which indicates to me the importance placed on scrotal measurement is probably overstated. It certainly doesn't seem to apply accurately to these younger bulls reared on a forage ration - they just take longer to mature and develop.

On the other hand I know one leading bull selling herd in Alberta that has 30% of their "top ten - destined for Calgary bull sale prospects" fail the semen test year in year out - that is to say they can't pass the 70% normal, 50% motility standard :shock:
I'm not sure whether that is purely overfeeding or the fact that the types they are selecting (usually boasting exceptional growth rates) are in fact sub-fertile freaks.
 
We have had some yearling Red Angus bulls over the years that have produced upwards of 70 calves. We run one bull on 50+ in our tight rotation, after we AI, but more like 1 to 30 in our more extensive situations.
The real advantage of 2 or three bulls is that if one gets injured (or worse just fevered with no sign of injury) you can miss a lot of cows in a hurry.
I think feed and type have a tremendous effect on semen quality.
Three or more bulls are nice, as two can fight while one is breeding cows. As the price on DNA parentage comes down, I think this will be a more viable option for purebred guys too.
 
We had 38 cows with one bull last year that ended up with 8 cows bred live and learn.
 
I usually need 75 or 80 bred heifers per year for replacements. This past summer I AI'ed 155 head of syncronized heifers and ended up with 89 bred heifers. I used to clean up with bulls but last year I sold opens in Sept for $100 more than I sold bred heifers for in Jan. so I didn't even put bulls in after AI. The 66 opens went right to the feedlot. Not sure if that was the right thing to do but the yearling market looks kind of weak to me. Time will tell. Hopefully this strategy will find the most fertile heifers.
 
Thanks for the welcome and the responses,

I always like to learn what works for everyone else, I can always pick up new ideas from other people, saves me from having to make as many mistakes myself :lol:

Our bull is 4-5 years old. And like you said the cows pretty much stayed in a group. They had two springs that fed a small creek the length of the valley they were in. They are runnning on 1200 acres, but pretty much have stayed in the bottom land next to the creek, where the food is the best. They did also have some mineral blocks thrown out to them also..

So by next week the restults should be in, and we will see how we've done.

Thanks again for all the responses
 

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