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Show Build your cattle herd through good selection works. You weigh the animals an-imals in the fall at weaning. Uing a formula, you adjust for weaning weights of 205 days of age in order to compare com-pare the animals. You then feed them through the winter, however you ordinarily feed them. In the spring you weigh them again and obtain a yearly year-ly adjusted weight. You index them with 100 being the average in the herd for both the weaning weight and gaining weight. Note that animals with index of 110 would be 20 percent better than those indexing 90. A comparison between herds can : be obtained by placing bylls in the testing placing bulls in the testing all animals are fed and cared car-ed for alike under supervision supervi-sion of Extension Service. To have the kind of cattle herd you want within several . generations, Grant Esplin, Utah State University Extension Exten-sion area livestock specialist special-ist at Beaver, give these suggestions. sug-gestions. First go in an "eyeball' the animal selecting the best looking ones and more than you need. For example if you want : 30 replacements heifers. Dick at least 40. Weigh them and feed them through the winter, just the way you would normally winter win-ter your heifers. In the spring, cull out 10 of the animals an-imals including low gainers . and anything that doesn't look quite right to you. Then breed the other 30. Most of them will breed. If any don't, sell those. Also sell any animal that doesn't raise a good calf the first year. After several years of doing do-ing that, you will have some real good cattle, especially if you use good production tested bulls. Esplin said, "It pays to buy bulls that have a high index the very top ones in a herd. Unfortunately, a lot of the people dealing with purebred breeders don't even ask for a production testing index." Esplin noted that a lot of cattle breeders say, "We can't compare our bulls against those of this other guy because he feeds a lot better than we do." But, he pointed out, "You don't compare them against another person's animals, you just compare them within with-in his own herd. You select his top ones out of his own herd under his conditions." According to Esplin, here's how the herd index |
