Throughout #beefmonth we’ve been following along with the life cycle of cattle. We have reached the final step as well close out the month.
Replacement Heifers
Replacement heifers are females that are kept to replace the cows that age out of the cow herd. In the calving blog, we talked about having calves about once per year. They don’t have their first baby until they’re about 2 years old or 30 months depending on the operation. A cows gestation period is about 283 days (~9 months). They get bred when they are 14-18 months old. They grow their first baby and themselves at the same time. That’s why it’s so important to get these girls really good nutrition.
You don’t get your first paycheck from these girls until their calf goes to market almost three years into feeding the heifer. That’s a long time to be putting expenses into something before getting anything out of it.
This is the reason it’s so important to be very cognizant of what your operation’s goal is. Keeping your own heifers ensure you know what you’re getting, know how she has been worked with and can manage the girls the way you want. Buying cattle later on, you don’t know the history or why they are in the sale barn. Herd managers need to know what traits they want to carry on, if they want to grow the herd bigger and do you have enough nutrients to meet the need of all the cattle and the heifers that you want to keep.
Feeder Calves:
The calves that don’t get selected for our replacement heifer programs, get put into our finishing operation. We have all our cattle from start to finish. We finish the cattle on a corn based ration. We grow the feed that we put in front of the cattle. Cattle naturally eat corn, it isn’t shoved or forced down their throats. We give the cattle the option of dry hay as well as the grain based ration.
We have a vet come and sonogram the cattle after they’ve been on feed to give us the best harvest date. We work really hard to provide a high quality product to put on our plate and yours. We want the eating experience to be a super positive one. By having our vet come sonogram, he can tell us when the optimal date it to have the best eating experience.
It is in our best interest to treat our cattle well. This winter was a super cold and hard winter. The cattle had their pens scraped almost daily and fresh straw put out to lay on. They had wind protection and fresh water all the time. We want them to be healthy and in order for them to be healthy, we have to do our part. It’s not cheap to do these things for our cattle and the cattle would probably make it if we didn’t, but we want to care for our animals to the absolute best of our ability. We think the extra cost of straw and scraping is well worth it to make them comfortable and content.
On the appointed date, we put the cattle carefully on a semi to get hauled to the harvest facility. Since we have the cattle from start to finish, we can handle the cattle calmly and smoothly. We want them to remain calm the whole way through. When that truck pulls out, we feel a huge sense of pride and accomplishment knowing we have done our absolute best to provide those cattle a good life and knowing we are providing the consumer with an amazing beef product.
To be completely honest, I cry every time a truck pulls out. It’s the worst part of the lifestyle. Here’s the thing though…I know I don’t want to be a vegetarian or any version of that and a lot of people agree with me. I know that if we are not producing beef in this country and we are having to source it from another country, they will not have the high quality inspection and processes we have and we lose all power of having a say in how the beef was produced and treated. I know that we work our butts off to provide a comfortable place for the cattle in our care. They get cared for first. They take priority over almost anything. I can feel pride in that. I know the beef that we are providing to consumers is a high quality product because of how we treat the animal. Animals take forage that we cannot utilize and transform it into something we can. It absolutely sucks sending the cattle to market, but I will take pride in our operation. We are raising beef to be proud of in a manner that demands excellence.
We get a lot of questions about this part of the operation. We would love to answer any and all questions you have!
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