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Forty years ago when I started milking cows, every heifer calf born was a valued resource to the future of the herd. So much so that I remember one heifer calf born early outside in the cold and snow that I brought into the house basement by the furnace to warm it up. Deb was not so impressed, but she knew it was necessary. Even 12 years ago when we had two tiestall barns full with Registered Holsteins, a good heifer calf was something to be proud of.
Fast forward to 2013, we still value good herd replacements, just not too many of them. As one semen salesman so aptly put it, "Feeding too many replacements in today's world is like putting a noose around your neck." With the high feed costs of recent years, it can cost $1,800- $2,000 to raise a replacement cow that is only worth $1,500. Granted, most of us would still rather raise our own replacements rather than buy them mainly for reasons such as bio-security, genetics, and quality control.
How did we get to this dilemma? During our constant expansion over the past 10 years, we took advantage of sexed semen to breed our virgin heifers to on first service. We also use many new tools to make sure most cows get pregnant when they are supposed to, resulting in more calves. The problem now is our expansion is complete for the near term anyway, and we will have too many replacements to feed if we don't change something.
The obvious change to make is stop using sexed semen on virgin heifers, but obvious isn't always right. Having heifers calving with calving ease heifer calves saves a lot of heifers over a years time. Other dairies have started breeding a portion of their herd to beef bulls to beef up the bottom line so we think we are at that point where we should try it too.
We started in July breeding 2nd service adult cows in one half our pens to Angus bulls. Conception rates have not been as good as we would like, so we changed Angus bulls last week. The semen company we are working with claims there is not much conception data available on Angus bulls like there is on Holstein bulls. Or maybe our cows feel insulted getting bred to an Angus.
The bottom line in all this is that we can sell a baby Holstein bull calf for $125, or sell an Angus-Holstein cross calf for $250. In addition, we can feed and raise only the replacements we need and want. The Dairy business is a tight margin business. Think back over the last two years how much the doubling of cull cow income has helped pay the bills. Maybe with a little tweaking we can improve our replacement costs and beef calf income too.
Now the dairy is a mile away from our house, too far to carry a newborn calf, so when we sat down with the contractor to design the newborn calf area, I insisted on in floor heat in the concrete, with dry clean straw used for bedding. Calves are still very important.[[In-content Ad]]

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