Russ In Idaho - 1/19/2025 21:00

Without look looking at your cattle, sounds like your on top of things. I would trich test with BSE exams. It's just a standard here to do it. One thing I would look at body condition, I'm wondering if your cows are too good of condition. I struggled with my father on this concept. My father kept his cattle in great shape, fat! He fed pently of hay in winter. If a cow bellered in fall he started feeding.

Dad's herd always ran 10% open. He checked for BVD you name it, he did it. All open cows got checked for BVD. I never found a problem other than open cows. So when I bought him out. I moved those cows into a desert environment on winter, graze out. Then I even kept those cows on desert to breed up on May 20th. Then trucked back to high country in middle of June. It solved the 10% open deal. Those cows where just too fat. I then worked on bringing those cows down from 1,600 lb. Cows to 200-300lbs lighter. It made a difference in conception.

I then took his all red herd of Red Angus/Gelbvieh that he never could get over a 600 lbs. avg wean weight heifers and steers calve date March 1 to wean date of Oct. 20. Put Black Angus bulls on them, broke over the wean weight by 50 Lbs. that year. Only constraint changed, it continued after that. However in taking cow size down took a little off wean weights. The offset was better conception.

Edited to add, my open/old rate runs at 5-7% actual cull rate. Opens would be close to 4% only. However my cows burn out 10-12 years mainly with teeth wearing out.