Although the breeding season is several months away, now is the time to start planning. Many seedstock producers are gearing up for production and private treaty sales. Therefore, producers need to evaluate their current bull battery and decide if any bulls or semen will need to be purchased. Sire selection could possibly be the most important management decision a cow-calf producer makes. Effective sire selection accounts for nearly eighty percent of improvement within a herd.
Selection is even more important if replacement females are to be kept.
Eighty-seven and one half percent of a cow's genetic makeup is from the last three bulls in her pedigree. Good selection practices help to ensure that producers' herds make genetic progress, and with high production costs and competition from other neat products, producers cannot afford to moke mistakes in their breeding programs. Producers should develop a breeding program. This involves deciding what goals or production targets the cattle are asked to meet, whether or not replacements will be raised or purchased, the end market or markets the cattle will need to make, and the environment in which the cattle must perform. Then a breed or combination of breeds must be chosen which will perform best under these expectations and conditions.