What age and/criteria do you cull your cows and bulls.

[Ranchero]

Just currius. What age and/criteria do you cull your cows and bulls. I'm located in some very mountainous area, very broken country and we need catlle that are strong and healthy and can travel well on the difficult terrain. Do you fertility test your bulls? I'm sure most cull cows are based on production. At what age do you change out your range bulls and cows?
Any feedback appreciated.

 

[per]

Hi Ranchero. We don't use age as a factor in our culling process. Feet, bags, disposition, in calf in a 45 day breeding period, calve on their own a live calf and aim for a 50% of the cows body weight calf in 205 days. As the cow gets too old she probably will get culled on the last one eventually. We usually have several 12 to 15 year old cows in production.

On the bull side they first have to meet all our selection criteria and then are semen tested every year. If they need their feet trimmed they are on the hit list, same with disposition.

 

[randiliana]

Same here. Age is not a factor, in as much as I won't cull a cow just because she is 10, 12 or older. Production, temprament, udders and conformational problems are what we cull on. As long as she is having a calf every year, that grows at least with the average of the herd, and she is not having any other problems (have to milk her, trim feet) then she will stay. They don't have to be perfect, but whatever problems they have cannot be production limiting.

Bulls get a BSE every spring before turn out. As long as they pass that, we are happy with their calves, and they are managable we keep them around. Generally it is the managability that gets a bull culled around here. The odd one will go because his calves are not what we expected. So far we haven't had many fail the BSE.

 

[Ranchero]

Thank you for you reply. We also cull according to the factors you'all listed. Thank you for your input. Many ranchers I've been talking to lately were telling me they were changing out their bulls at 8 years old, Regardless of his overall health. I was reading about aranch the other dayu that cull their cows at 6 year old. On my ranch, just do to the rough terrain they must travel in. I run 7-8 cows per bull here in my area. I know that's a lot compared to most operations ,but we are primarily a mountain ranch were the animals must climb and decend to find each other. we've found it t be cost effective to maintain a higher bull to cow ratio here in this environment.

 

[CattleArmy]

Temperment plays a roll in the process of trips to town for us. If she runs off and leaves her calf, no milk, flighty, these are other reasons for a one way trip to town. We also cull based on calving data and the quality of her calf. I think it's important to factor in birth date not just looking at the calves in the fall. Sometimes the littlest calf has nice conformation just hasn't had the time to grow like his peers. We also cull based on the amount of teeth still in her head or lack of.

As just a part of the way smaller herd on this place on our personal cows we've been doing some culling based on calving date. Finding a cut off date for the late calvers and what haven't calved get a one way trip to town also. (Or sometimes involving the ranch operation and they go into the fall calving herd.) Just trying to tighten up calving dates and watching the cows and noticing that many (not all) that are late calvers one year end up and are late again next year.