It is early fall, just around the corner many cattlemen will be gathering and preparing to wean the calves born about seven months ago. Calving is an important event when this fall’s crop were born and we could begin to see our product, new beautiful young calves showing up daily. Calving season has a bit of magic about it and can bring smiles across pretty much anyone’s face. Within each calf is a secret code, with time this code will continue to reveal more and more of itself. The code of nucleic acids are made of four simple chemical compounds. Adenine, Thymine, Guanine, and Cytosine create the entire genetic makeup or traits of that calf. What color it is, its gender, the breed characteristics, and even much of its behavior. We would call it the genetic makeup, traits of the calf, or it’s DNA. The traits of a herd are a makeup or combination of traits from each animal with in the herd, and even some of the management that goes into the herd. We can alter the traits through management and cattle selection. So what are these traits? What are the most important traits in an economic stand point? The answer becomes quite obvious by simply answering a few straightforward questions.

First, what are you getting paid for when you sell your calf crop? When you receive your check were you paid for the number of calves sold? Was it for carcass traits? The color of their hide? The vaccines given? No, this may have a small impact and may even be considered important but when you receive your check you are paid X dollars times the total number of pounds you produced. Does that mean the goal is to always produce as many pounds as possible with big calves? The size of the calves can have an impact and determining the economics of cattle size and growth can vary based on your resources. The final income that you get to put in your pocket is the pounds of beef produced minus what it costs you to produce each pound. I have seen all kinds of ways producers attempt at minimizing their costs. Some are good but some actually cost more in production than the savings were worth. What we are after is one single word, efficiency. It is the driver of all economic enterprises. The more efficient you can be the better your chances of success and beyond to a little wealth. The efficient traits for your herd therefore become the most important and where your focus needs to be.

The last time you went to a bull sale or looked over all of the variables to choose the best bull for your herd what did you look for? What questions did you ask? What traits were your number one focus? Hopefully it was on creating a more efficient herd, but what traits help you to do that? Carcass traits may get a little more money, usually for the packer. Let’s not ignore it but let’s also not have that as our most important. Then we can look at growth. Once again it is important but environmental consideration need to be taken into account. The last one is reproductive efficacy. A cow cost about the same to keep for a year no matter if it raises a calf or not, and no matter when the calf is born during the calving season. How much time and effort have you spent on understanding reproductive efficiency? Reproductive efficiency will pay you five to ten times the amount as growth or carcass merits.

Next time you go to buy a bull concentrate on reproduction, ask to see the bull breeding soundness exam (fertility exam) results and understand them! Learn about things like sperm morphology, it is the most important indicator to detect subfertility in bulls. EPDs such as scrotal circumference, calving ease and stayability and heifer pregnancy (where available) are also part of the puzzle.

Young yearly bulls are often not yet mature enough to pass a breeding soundness exam. If you are purchasing a yearling bull retest it before turning it out. Be sure the veterinarian is knowledgeable about sperm morphology and is counting at least 100 cells using a high quality microscope and on the highest power while counting morphology. Be sure you have a written guarantee from the seller with no questions asked if it does not pass. Studies have shown that up to thirty percent of yearling bulls will not pass due to too low normal morphology. Traits surrounding reproductive efficiency needs to become the area you spend five to ten times more effort than any other trait or efforts. These concentrated effort will have its rewards.

Concentrate on reproductive efficiency as your most important trait of your cattle operation. You can do this by culling late and open cows. Have a complete bull breeding soundness exam done on all of your bulls yearly. Choose your replacement bulls and heifers carefully with reproduction in mind and test all purchased bulls just before turn out no matter what you are told when purchased. With consistent selection you can determine what the secret DNA code will produce. The magical time of year around calving will have a little more sparkle and when you sell you will have a lot more green.