How would your herd be different?

Mike made what I thought was an interesting point regarding dead calves not making it to the replacement pen or the bull sale pen regardless of data. I collected piles of data over the years and all it did was collect.
I am not covinced that my herd would be a hill of beans different if I had never collected any data. I still collect BW and for the registered cattle ww and yw but other than BW I don't use any other growth data for selection.

What do you think? How different would your herd be, if at all, with out any data?

It may create difficulty in selling your stock; I see no effect on breeding effectiveness if the goal is consistency of type around a centerpoint...

I collect birth and wean weights every year and some years yearling weights and mature cow weights and heights. Bw weights have kept some likely bull candidates from becomeing bulls due to excessive birth weights. I will not keep a bull candidate that weighed over one hundred pounds at birth. Records have help when hard culling decisions need to be made to match herd numbers to winter feed resources. Records have help identify fertility issues in some bulls descendants and justify elimination of said genetics from the breeding herd.

patb wrote:

I collect birth and wean weights every year and some years yearling weights and mature cow weights and heights. Bw weights have kept some likely bull candidates from becomeing bulls due to excessive birth weights. I will not keep a bull candidate that weighed over one hundred pounds at birth. Records have help when hard culling decisions need to be made to match herd numbers to winter feed resources. Records have help identify fertility issues in some bulls descendants and justify elimination of said genetics from the breeding herd.

how many daughter numbers did you base your fertility analysis on?

I like low birth weights, acceptable growth, and hangs a good carcass. Problem is that when I have met those data collection criteria, it's too late to breed them.

Not collecting data and selecting for function makes life much more simple...and as pointed out, dead critters don't function well. Haven't put the cows through the chute in almost 10 years...maybe I need to take up fishing or golf.

RobertMac wrote:

I like low birth weights, acceptable growth, and hangs a good carcass. Problem is that when I have met those data collection criteria, it's too late to breed them.

Not collecting data and selecting for function makes life much more simple...and as pointed out, dead critters don't function well. Haven't put the cows through the chute in almost 10 years...maybe I need to take up fishing or golf.

What carcass specs work for you?

Once the carcass is hung it is probably to late to do much about the specs also.

MKeeney wrote:

It may create difficulty in selling your stock; I see no effect on breeding effectiveness if the goal is consistency of type around a centerpoint...

The close breeding, linebreeding, inbreeding, all seem to create difficuly in selling seedstock around here at any rate.

The other point you made which I agree with "Given a choice, far better someone speak ill of my cattle than speak too highly of them; raising too greatly the bar of expectation.". Heck I can barely meet my own expectations let alone someone elses.
Which is why I raise my own, sell virtually none, and add value to all the rest as meat. Then we get value with out having to worry about anyones expectations but mine and I can do what ever I want with my breeding program, and whether anyone else likes it is irrelavant.

MKeeney wrote:

patb wrote:

I collect birth and wean weights every year and some years yearling weights and mature cow weights and heights. Bw weights have kept some likely bull candidates from becomeing bulls due to excessive birth weights. I will not keep a bull candidate that weighed over one hundred pounds at birth. Records have help when hard culling decisions need to be made to match herd numbers to winter feed resources. Records have help identify fertility issues in some bulls descendants and justify elimination of said genetics from the breeding herd.

how many daughter numbers did you base your fertility analysis on?

There were not many daughters that made the 2nd calf one cow went on to have a number of calves and a bull. Dad told me that PS high Pocket daughters had a breeding challenge after I bred part of the herd to his grandson. Save several of the heifers of of good cows but the fertility issue still haunts us. The fertility issue is showing up in great grand daughters and great great grand daughters never very many in sample. The Solution to keep the 3 cows around until they fail to breed on time and turn all there offspring into feeders.

Dylan Biggs wrote:

MKeeney wrote:

It may create difficulty in selling your stock; I see no effect on breeding effectiveness if the goal is consistency of type around a centerpoint...

The close breeding, linebreeding, inbreeding, all seem to create difficuly in selling seedstock around here at any rate.

The other point you made which I agree with "Given a choice, far better someone speak ill of my cattle than speak too highly of them; raising too greatly the bar of expectation.". Heck I can barely meet my own expectations let alone someone elses.
Which is why I raise my own, sell virtually none, and add value to all the rest as meat. Then we get value with out having to worry about anyones expectations but mine and I can do what ever I want with my breeding program, and whether anyone else likes it is irrelavant.

ditto

I normally keep 40 heifers per year except years when cattle are cheap and my bills are high. We breed all of them and the opens hit the road. Normally sort by eye and not pedigree I figure out what they are pedigree wise after they are home. Other than a few select heifers that I make sure I keep, the others better look the part.The hard part here is all the farmers wanting cows that wean 1000# calves like Schaffs. I've got mature cows that barely weigh that so in selling bulls you need to seek out the guys fed up with the Bigger,Better faster type cattle.We had our sale last wekend and sold 21 of 26 bulls which I expected, some to repeat customers other's to new. We are getting them spread out a little further as 5 are going to North Dakota I was hopeing for a $1700 average and did a bit better than that on the ones sold. The left overs will be for sale private treaty and I normally get a mad rush about June 1st for those.Our bulls weighed between 800 and 1100#s some of those 800# bulls bought $3 a pound which works for me. Funny thing the smallest mature cow we have son was top seller at $2500 pretty good return on a 1000# cow.

double d wrote:

I normally keep 40 heifers per year except years when cattle are cheap and my bills are high. We breed all of them and the opens hit the road. Normally sort by eye and not pedigree I figure out what they are pedigree wise after they are home. Other than a few select heifers that I make sure I keep, the others better look the part.The hard part here is all the farmers wanting cows that wean 1000# calves like Schaffs. I've got mature cows that barely weigh that so in selling bulls you need to seek out the guys fed up with the Bigger,Better faster type cattle.We had our sale last wekend and sold 21 of 26 bulls which I expected, some to repeat customers other's to new. We are getting them spread out a little further as 5 are going to North Dakota I was hopeing for a $1700 average and did a bit better than that on the ones sold. The left overs will be for sale private treaty and I normally get a mad rush about June 1st for those.Our bulls weighed between 800 and 1100#s some of those 800# bulls bought $3 a pound which works for me. Funny thing the smallest mature cow we have son was top seller at $2500 pretty good return on a 1000# cow.

Where are you located? Are there specific bloodlines that work well under your management?

df wrote:

double d wrote:

I normally keep 40 heifers per year except years when cattle are cheap and my bills are high. We breed all of them and the opens hit the road. Normally sort by eye and not pedigree I figure out what they are pedigree wise after they are home. Other than a few select heifers that I make sure I keep, the others better look the part.The hard part here is all the farmers wanting cows that wean 1000# calves like Schaffs. I've got mature cows that barely weigh that so in selling bulls you need to seek out the guys fed up with the Bigger,Better faster type cattle.We had our sale last wekend and sold 21 of 26 bulls which I expected, some to repeat customers other's to new. We are getting them spread out a little further as 5 are going to North Dakota I was hopeing for a $1700 average and did a bit better than that on the ones sold. The left overs will be for sale private treaty and I normally get a mad rush about June 1st for those.Our bulls weighed between 800 and 1100#s some of those 800# bulls bought $3 a pound which works for me. Funny thing the smallest mature cow we have son was top seller at $2500 pretty good return on a 1000# cow.

Where are you located? Are there specific bloodlines that work well under your management?

Were located in North central Minnesota. I'd say a specific TYPE works well under my management the bloodlines don't seams to be much more than hype. We've used some of the major AI stud bulls. Sitz Alliance 6595 and LT Bando 9074 mesh good here our best cows are from a bull we bought at the NWSS he's a 4 frame bull next bull is our Shoshone Viking GD60 grandson another 4 frame bull. Seams if we get bulls over 4 frame we end up with some pencil gutted houndy type cows of type I don't prefer.We normally don't spread fertilizer and this year looks no different. I also try not to buy supplement for the cows we feed native hay and corn silage. The corn has'nt had any commercial fertilizer in the last 5 years just cow spread manure.I keep bulls for my own use from my own cows we've got one boughten bull right now and most likely our last. I buy semen and breed my next bull from that selection process on certain cows that are the type I prefer.