HOW TO BREED BEEF CATTLE

Breeding beef cattle involves producing offspring that are primarily used for the beef market. Fundamentally, it's all about getting cows bred to produce calves to sell either for beef or replacements.

STEPS

1. Begin by starting up a beef cow-calf operation. Follow the steps provided in the article linked in this step.

2. Buy your cows and/or your herd bull. Buy the quality of cows that meet your standards, as far as having a good breeding herd is concerned.
Your herd bull should be selected to improve your herd, as he will be providing half of the genetic potential of your calf crop. Knowing [Judge Conformation in Cattle|conformation] at this point will really help in determining how good a herd bull is needed. Fertility and live calves are key to profitability. One live calf is worth more than 100 dead ones. A bull that sires calves that are larger than your cow can safely give live birth to is economic suicide.

3. Choose your breeding program. There are two types to choose from, and both can be integrated into the other, if you so choose. If your herd is too small to have a herd bull or you do not want to have to deal with bulls, use artificial insemination to breed your herd? If you have a herd of 10 or more cows and you do not want to go the extra mile of having to AI them, a good herd bull is the way to go. The rule of thumb is 1 bull per 25 cows. High fertility bulls with high libido can service 50 cows with no drop in conception rates. Bulls reach peak fertility by 20 months of age, after 20 months of age it can only drop, barring illness or injury, with proper nutrition most bulls fertility will not start to decline until after 6-7 years of age.

4. Breed your cattle. Know when your cows go into estrus, when they're ready to breed, and go from there.If you are using a herd bull, you will not need to worry about when your cows go into heat, only when they have been bred for record keeping.
Follow the steps outlined in the article "How to Artificially Inseminate Cows and Heifers" to know how and when to AI your bovine females.

5. Monitor your bulls and cows during breeding season. If you have one too many bulls for your herd, there may be more fighting than mating.
Running bull[s] under 4 years of age with older bull[s] may prevent cows from being serviced by the bull with the highest fertility. Other times you may end up with a bull that has a broken penis, a leg/foot injury, or that just doesn't seem to be getting the job done. Monitor the cows as well. If you see tails being held out or crooked tails when they're walking, that means they've been bred within the 24 to 48 hours you first noticed that physical sign.

6. Pull the bull[s] out 64 to 85 days after they've been put in. Unless you choose to do year-round breeding and calving where the bulls are in with the cows all the time, pulling the bulls out after 2 to 3 months both ensures that all your cows get 3-4 chances of being covered and is also not long enough for your less fertile females to get away from being culled.

TIPS

1. Cows should be bred 45 to 80 days after they have calved, depending on age and condition.

2. The optimum bull-to-cow ratio is 1 bull per 10 to 30 cows, depending on the size of the pasture, and the bull's age, promiscuity/libido and experience.
Some bulls, depending on the fertility rate of the cows and how many cows are in heat at one time, can breed over 50 cows in one season.

3. Body condition score your cows and heifers 30 days before breeding season. They need to be at around a Cdn BCS of 2.5 to 3 to be ready to breed. Heifers should be at a Cdn BCS of 3 to 3.5 to be ready to be bred. Anything lower or higher than that will decrease fertility in your herd.

4. Bulls should be at a Cdn BCS of 3 to 3.5 to be able to have the energy and strength to last during the breeding season. He will be paying more attention to his girls than he will eating.

5. For optimum performance, have your herd bull[s] semen tested before they are put out with the cows. This will ensure that he/they will be able to service your cows without any issues relating to fertility or possible injury.

6. It is often best to hire an AI technician to do the AI work for you. This is because if you have someone with way more experience AI'ing your cattle for you, the success rate should be higher and worth the added expense than if you were to do it yourself.

7. Use purebred bulls on crossbred cows to get a more uniform calf crop in commercial cow-calf operations.

8. You can also crossbreed one breed with another to get calves that display heterosis or hybrid vigor. For instance, crossing an Angus bull with Hereford cows will give you black baldy calves, calves that have both characteristics of their sire and their dams. If you are following an Angus Source program, this will definitely ensure a premium for these calves.

9. For a purebred or seedstock operation, you need purebred bulls to breed with purebred cows. It can be of any breed of your choosing, from Limousins to Angus to even Piedmontese. But you are breeding purebred cattle to get purebred stock not to sell to the beef market (though you will have to find some market to sell your culls), but to other producers. Raising good quality bulls and heifers is what a seedstock producer produces.

9. Maximum AI conception rates are achieved on virgin heifers. Selecting a bull for calving ease is an important consideration when breeding heifers. AI companies offer a wide selection of choices. By breeding heifers AI 3 weeks before turning bull[s] out with the herd the majority of your heifers will have additional time to recover from the stress of calving before being re-bred the next breeding season.

WARNINGS

1. If you have more than one bull in your herd, there's a risk that there may be more fighting than mating, and a risk that one or more of your bulls may be injured or even killed. This often occurs when there are too many bulls in a cow herd, or when you have two bulls that are the same age and size as each other.

2. Be super careful around bulls during this time of year. Hormone levels are raging like crazy, and you don't want to get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time!! Some bulls can be more dangerous than others, but no bull should be trusted.

3. If you are choosing AI, you have to remember that there is only a 60 to 70% success rate using this type of breeding method.

4. Using a clean-up bull is best to increase this success rate in your cowherd, and minimize the number of times your AI tech has to come out to re breed your cows.