Making a cull list and checking it twice

As we near the end of the year, cattle raisers are looking at their records to see whether or not they may end up making a profit on their operation. As they review their records, one of the items they should be considering is their “cull list.”

A farm or ranch can only support so many cows and those cows which do not contribute to the support of the farm or ranch have to be culled, if the operation is to stay in business.

One of the best ways for assisting in making that cull list is pregnancy checking. This is a quick way to identify those freeloader cows – they eat the feed, but don’t contribute to the income by producing a calf. But, a 2007 USDA survey which considered both palpation and ultrasound, found that fewer than 11% of those operations with less than 50 head did any type of pregnancy checking. But, more than 72% of those with 200 or more cows used either palpation or ultrasound for pregnancy checking.

About 67% of all operations in the U.S. calve in the spring, so fall is a great time for assessment and making that cull list. Calves have been weaned, weighed and, in most cases, sold. A good cattleman can see the “good” ones and the “dogies.” But, even good cattlemen miss the mark from time to time. “ Didn’t old #101 have a good calf last year, but this one this year doesn’t look so good?” Sometimes the old brain and/or the pencil and paper record keeping doesn’t work so well. With a good record keeping software, such as CattleMax, there’s no guess as to the production from your cows.

It’s all there in black and white – from palpation records to calving and weaning records. That makes developing the cull list and checking it twice much easier. For instance, you can determine old #101 calved early last year and raised that good calf. But, she didn’t breed back very quickly and this year’s calf was a later calf – and it really didn’t do as well.

Another consideration is the cow’s age. Without records, the memory can make that 14-year-old cow seem like she’s only 8 or 9 or so. Good records are essential in helping to make the culling decision and a cow’s age is a big factor in whether to cull or not.

You can even add notes and keep records as to body condition and disposition. A note in the cow’s record that she was hard to handle in the pens might help make the cull decision easier. Or, in this dry year, she just didn’t hustle the feed as well as others in the herd and her body condition went down.

To summarize, good records are the key to helping make that cull list and making it correctly.

How do you use your records to help cull cattle?