Selecting for cow maternal performance: Making your breeding and selection systems pay

The dramatic changes and volatility of cow-calf production system input costs and calf values have many producers seeking options to improve cow herd production efficiency and profitability.

- By Robert L Weaber, PhD, professor and head, Eastern Kansas Research and Extension Centres, Kansas State University

Profitability may be enhanced by increasing the volume of production (i.e. the pounds of calves you market) and/or the value of products you sell (improving quality). The reduction of production costs, and thus breakeven prices, can also improve profitability. Better yet, improving the input:output ratio should enhance profit.

For commercial beef producers, the implementation of technologies and breeding systems that increase the quality and volume of production and reduce input costs is essential to maintain or improve the competitive position of the operation. Central to the success of the commercial cattle operation is the maternal performance of the cow herd.

It is becoming progressively more difficult to find bulls for use in commercial production that meet all the goals of being a suitable sire for terminal calves and desirable replacement females due to the growing antagonisms in the value chain between traits in the terminal and maternal objectives. The desire to produce environmentally adapted replacement females that are appropriate for mature weight and lactation potential in a given forage environment and management system, while simultaneously producing high-value, market-targeted feeder cattle, has challenged the thinking of many producers.

A number of traits contribute to the maternal capability of the herd. Several of the traits, like mature size and lactation potential, interact with environmental constraints (weather, forage production, parasite load) to affect the reproductive efficiency of the cow herd. Cattle producers through the selection for appropriate genetic potentials for growth and lactation and sustained fertility, coupled with hybrid vigour from crossbreeding, can build highly 'maternal' cow herds. Leveraging both additive (think EPDs and selection indexes) and non-additive (hybrid vigour or heterosis) genetic effects empowers producers to design excellent breeding cows.