Data / Record Keeping

A brief explanation of the records we keep and how they are helping us breed more profitable cattle and most importantly taking away some of the risk and guess work in the product you are buying.

Spring (The Harvest; the new genetics hit the ground and the most data is recorded.)

Calving

· Birth Weight. We weigh all our calves at tagging, which is usually at a day old. Our birth weights are generally heavier then other parts of the country due to our weather and how we have to feed cows. It is not uncommon for us to have mostly 90-100 lbs calves. If we get a spring blizzard or a bitter cold snap Mother Nature will add another 10 lbs to those calves. We have noticed that the bigger calves have a higher survival rate, although if we get them too big that there is an increased occurrence of dystocia.

· Calving ease is recorded on all cows and heifers. We don’t hesitate to assist if a cow is taking too long. We do this for 3 reasons: we don’t have time to wait around to watch her calve out, we cannot afford to lose a calf, and it will help us improve calving ease. We try and separate any genetics that might pose any problems if they were multiplied; Example would be a Bull, whose dam had minor difficultly calving, being used extensively through AI might have a certain percentage of daughters that had major difficultly during calving. How can you improve calving ease if you never pull calves? Don’t some cows calve quicker then others? I know what you’re thinking, if she has it on her own then it was born unassisted, but what if she took forever having it? We want our cattle to calve out quick! There should be no reason for it to take a couple of hours. This is why we are quick to assist during calving if we have to. We also write down anytime we do assist! This way you can be sure that if an animal comes from our operation and was born unassisted, then the dam layed down and had it that calf with absolutely no trouble.

· Calf vigor. We still collect a calf vigor score which tells us if the calf got up right away and nursed like Mother Nature indented. We haven’t had to assist calves to nurse other then weak twins in a very long time. Anything that takes extra time, such as showing calves how to nurse, is not tolerated.

· Maternal Ability. We score the cows on how much maternal instinct they exhibit at calving and tagging. Once again cows that don’t know how to be a mother are putting under the list of taking extra time. The “Taking extra time list” is not a good list. If a cow or heifer doesn’t show a maternal score of a 1 then she will be culled.

· Udder score. We score every cow and heifer at calving. We put cows in the 7-9 range as being problem free udders. 6-4 as udders that the calf can’t get a hold of all the teats. 3-1 as udders that need assistance in order to have the calf suck.

· Dam BCS. We collect body condition scores to see how the cow faired the winter. Cows that calve later to have better BCS.

· Pigment. We score the eye pigmentation on our Hereford calves in order to try and breed Herefords with full pigmentation around their eyes and have bulls with pigmented scrotums.

Yearling Data

· Yearling weights. We will get YW on our bulls, replacement heifers, and most of our feedlot cattle. Our bulls are on test and are weighted every month from December till a year of age to track rate of gain. With regard to our heifers we are trying to select for females that gain rapidly after weaning, get bred and then come Fall at preg check time we want them to have slowed down on their growth rate and to have put on condition for the winter.

· Yearling Hip Ht. We will collect hip heights on all bulls and heifers. We use frame scores to help us try and predict the genetics that will slow down after a year of age.

· Scrotal circumference. We provide scrotal measurements on all our bulls as well as semen testing and breeding soundness exams. We put a lot selection pressure on large testicles on our bulls and will cull bulls if they don’t have enough scrotal circumference.

· Ultrasound. We ultrasound all our registered calves and commercial replacement heifers. Coupled with the carcass data we get back on our steers we are able to look at the carcass genetics of an entire calf crop. With the use of ultrasound we have been able to improve the consistence of our genetics and find certain outliers.

· Disposition. Since we are handling our bulls and heifers at this time of year any animals with disposition problem tend come out.

Summer

· Spring turnout. We weigh all the cows when we deworm them in the spring. With the fall weights we can see how much our cows gained or lost from spring to fall and look at historical data from year to year.

· Breeding Season. We use mostly Bull power to breed our cows and we watch breeding pastures very closely. We observe our Herd bulls breeding to make sure that they are “good breeders”. We feel bulls that are clumsy are more likely to hurt themselves. We can’t afford to be selling sons of these bulls to commercial men that expect their cows to get bred. You can be sure that are bulls have plenty of libido and are athletic in the pasture.

· Carcass Data. Most of our feedlot cattle are killed in the summer months and we receive carcass information back. We have our cattle custom fed at Garlin Cattle Co. Penn Yan, NY (315-536-9565) and they are harvested at Moyer Packing in PA. We have been able to achieve a lot of carcass premiums for our cattle possessing higher quality grades and lower numerical yield grades. Our straight bred Herefords have graded over 90% choice with an average Yield grade of 2.1.

· Pasture Yields. We try and measure the yields of our pastures and since we know the number of head and the time they were out there we can apply consumption per head. We have used these records to compare the efficiencies of lbs of calf weaned between different groups of cows pastured at different farms. We use this data more to compare different pasture types and uses of different fertilizer then we do to compare genetics.

Fall

· Weaning weights. There is nothing like bringing in big calves in the fall. We put a lot of emphasis on lbs of calf weaned vs. lbs of cow. Since our main job is to produce lbs of beef, we have to have genetics that put on pounds as efficiently as possible. We usually wean our calves at 6-7 months of age and they are not given any creep.

· Cows Weights. We weight all our cows at weaning time and this gives us the ability to generate an lbs weaned/lbs of cow number. We have found that our most efficient cows are the 1250-1300lbs cows.

· Cow BCS. Probably one of the most important measurements in regard to efficiency we have. The better the body condition score a cow has the better she can handle the winter, the more likely she is bred, the better condition her calf is in at weaning, and there is a higher chance she is going to have a healthier calf in the spring. We cannot over look fleshing ability.

Winter

· Feeding records. We keep track of the amount of feed each group gets during the winter so that we can apply those cost to individual cows. We are continually trying to determine what each one of our cows cost us through the year. This way we hopefully can continue to select for genetics that produce more from less.