This week some local beef producers have joined their heifers to the bull.
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We would normally expect joining to start in the last week in October. Why so early? What were they thinking?
Spring calving herds in the lower country like to calve in August and September. That means putting the bull out in about two weeks from now.
But driving around, I have seen bulls already enjoying the company of young heifers.
Some producers join their heifers up to three weeks earlier than their mature cows. They join them for a total of six weeks.
When beef heifers are joined they should have been managed to just ‘fall into calf’ on seeing the bull.
This means they should be of a critical joining body weight (300 to 330 kg) and in fat score 3 (fat around the tail).
Later maturing breeds and crosses such as the Europeans should be on the heavier side of this weight range.
If this is the case, these heifers join up very easily. In a six week joining close to three-quarters of them should conceive in that first three weeks.
So why join early?
There was a lot of work done back in the seventies and eighties suggesting this management plan.
The idea was that by joining early, the following year producers could spend their time concentrating of their heifers calving before the rest of the cows start to calve.
Calving heifers is the time for honing skills in assisting and pulling calves, so this strategy allowed more time to concentrate on just that.
The other reason is that heifers with their first calf at foot take longer to start cycling again. They are still growing as well as now lactating, and their energy intake is partitioned into these areas. They take longer (up to an average of fourty days’ more than mature cows) to start cycling again.
This means they have that extra time the following year and so stay in line with the cow mob calving period.
Six weeks is an ideal joining length for heifers.
Most will join up in this period. A handful will ‘preg-test empty’ but if well managed this will be no more than fifteen to twenty percent.
The argument is that there is variation in inherent fertility and this strategy identifies those more highly fertile heifers. These are definitely the ones to keep as herd replacements.
Research has also shown that heifers calving early in the calving period experience less dystocia than heifers calving later, because of their shorter gestation periods and probably smaller calf size.
Joining heifers early is a strategy worth considering. It does require the heifers to reach that target weight and body condition.
The excellent season we have had over winter has meant that most heifers are just right for joining.
Join as many as you can this year – excess ones could be sold into a market reflecting a shortage of beef breeders.