This episode was recorded in Fort Wayne, Indiana, during the 2025 Tri-State Dairy Conference. Dr. Carpenter gives an overview of her presentation. She summarizes an Extension risk management project regarding heifer development, assisting dairies in benchmarking their heifer growth and development. Key focus points include reducing morbidity and mortality and timely breeding to achieve goals for age at first calving. Dr. Carpenter also emphasized heat detection and conception, as well as recordkeeping as important considerations for success. (4:10)
This episode was recorded in Fort Wayne, Indiana, during the 2025 Tri-State Dairy Conference.
Dr. Carpenter gives an overview of her presentation. She summarizes an Extension risk management project regarding heifer development, assisting dairies in benchmarking their heifer growth and development. Key focus points include reducing morbidity and mortality and timely breeding to achieve goals for age at first calving. Dr. Carpenter also emphasized heat detection and conception, as well as recordkeeping as important considerations for success. (4:10)
Dr. Carpenter shares findings from a beef-on-dairy feeding experiment where any calf that had two or more lifetime respiratory events had lower carcass weight and lower return on investment. The panel discusses industry uptake of using lung ultrasounds to evaluate respiratory events. (11:53)
Guests talk about different feeding concepts in heifer development and trends in age at first calving over time. (14:31)
The panel dives into home-raising versus custom-developing heifers. Dr. Carpenter notes Penn State has great resources regarding custom rearing of dairy heifers. Pros and cons of both systems are discussed, and the panel also touches on rearing of beef-on-dairy calves as well. (19:17)
The group returns to the topic of age at first calving. Reducing variation at age at breeding is important, and producers should consult with their nutritionists and veterinarians for a team approach to success. (24:44)
Dr. Carpenter and Dr. Tebbe talk about how producers are dealing with replacement heifer shortages. (27:24)
Panelists share their take-home thoughts. (31:48)
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Scott (00:08):
Good evening everyone, and welcome to the Real Science Exchange, the pubcast where leading scientists and industry professionals, meet or a few drinks to discuss the latest ideas and trends in animal nutrition. We've got an interesting, uh, one teed up for you guys here. It's called Feeding Management of Heifers, and that's with Dr. Gail Carpenter from Iowa State University. Gail, welcome. This is the first time to your pub. Always like to see new faces here. Happy to be here. Yeah. Super. What I'd like you to do is just kind of give everybody a, some background on on who Gail is.
Dr. Gail Carpenter (00:38):
That's a, that's a very broad question. It is a broad question.
Scott (01:03):
So, oh, sounds like a lot of fun. I think I've seen it to Dairy challenge before name,
Dr. Gail Carpenter (01:06):
Probably.
Scott (01:06):
Yep. The gentleman here to your left is, uh, Dr. Barry Bradford, Michigan State University. Got a Spartan in the house. Go. Great. Yep. Go wide.
Dr. Barry Bradford (01:21):
Yeah, so I've been back at Michigan State for about five years now after spending 13 years at Kansas State where I got to ride the coattails of Gail Carpenter while she did a whole bunch of work that I slapped my name on. So, uh, yeah, uh, half research, half extension position at MSU
Scott (01:37):
Now. Yeah. Super great to have you here and here to my right. Got a couple buck guys. Oh,
Dr. Bill Weiss (01:50):
I was a professor at OSU or the OSU for about 35 years in dairy nutrition, retired a few years ago and learning how to be more retired than I am
Scott (02:01):
Now.
Dr. Bill Weiss (02:26):
Still appreciate that very much though.
Scott (02:28):
Anyway, Alex, tell us a little bit about yourself. What are you doing these days? Yeah,
Dr. Alex Tebbe (02:33):
So I, uh, work for Purina Animal Nutrition. I do technical services and consulting on, on dairies throughout Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky.
Scott (02:42):
Wow. That's a big territory. Yeah. Yeah. Good, good for you. Yeah.
Dr. Alex Tebbe (02:45):
I'm former grad student of, uh, Dr. Wise himself. His last one that finally kicked him over the edge. Yeah.
Dr. Gail Carpenter (02:52):
You gotta end on a high note. Yeah,
Scott (02:54):
Well, welcome. Glad to have you back, Alex. Thanks. Um, so Gail, tell us a little bit about the presentation.
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Dr. Gail Carpenter (04:10):
Yeah. So I'm gonna be talking about, um, some, basically distilling some of the work we've been doing, educating our dairy producers about raising heifers. So we got some funding a couple years ago from extension risk management to talk about heifer development and do some work with our producers on heifer development around the state. And that involved going out to dairies and helping them benchmark, um, their heifer growth and development, uh, as well as, uh, doing some, doing some, uh, live sessions and doing some, some outreach and education too. So, um, taking some of that messaging that we did as part of that project and distilling it down into some of the, uh, into some of the key key points that we've been trying to lead our dairy producers to. Um, looking at, uh, optimizing heifer development, uh, starting with, uh, reducing morbidity and mortality, uh, and then, um, uh, getting them bred in a timely way so that we are keeping a, a tight agent first calving, regardless of what, uh, we think an optimum age of first calving is. So, uh, I don't think we're gonna see anything particularly earth shattering in my presentation, but, uh, the fact that we kinda keep having to have some of these conversations shows that, um, they're still important. Okay.
Scott (05:24):
Tell me about the research and what did you find out?
Dr. Gail Carpenter (05:27):
So we didn't, this was not actually a research project. Okay. It was an extension project. Okay, got it. Uh, so we didn't, we mostly worked with pretty small herds, uh, and I at one point had thought maybe we'll get a critical mass and we'll be able to do some cool,
Scott (05:38):
Define small,
Dr. Gail Carpenter (05:39):
Pretty. Okay. I think our smallest farm was probably 50 cows. Got it. Um, but we had a couple, like a couple, a couple hundred cow dairies, right? Yeah. Um, and, uh, so they tended to be on the smaller, smaller side. And, uh, uh, so, um, I think one of the things that we found a lot of, a lot of what I'm gonna talk about is mostly anecdotal, right. In, in, in conversations that we had to, to have with producers. And, uh, one of the messages that we kinda kept coming back to was making sure that you're prioritizing, uh, heat detection and conception in these heifers. Uh, heifers tend to be, you know, they're, they're down the road. Uh, you know, they're, they're around the corner may not necessarily be, you know, you're milking your cows twice a day. You probably have maybe activity monitors, even if you don't, uh, you're at least having those multiple touch points with your lactating cows throughout the day, and they're the ones that are actually paying the bills right now.
Dr. Gail Carpenter (06:31):
Right. Whereas heifers are gonna pay the bills in a few years, uh, or in a couple years. And so those lactating cows really tend to be top of mind. And especially if you're a small farm that maybe you're, uh, working a lot as a family producer might not have all the employees' heifers make their way to the bottom of the list. And so getting semen into those heifers in a timely way, making sure that we're investing, uh, in heat detection, whether that's using, uh, cedar sink protocol or whether that's actually, you know, monitoring heifers for heat, sticking to the protocols that we have, really helps to, uh, bring down that variation in age at first. So,
Scott (07:06):
So what are the gaps besides breeding? That was like a big one. You Yeah. You, you pointed to Yeah.
Dr. Gail Carpenter (07:11):
That's a, that's I think a low hanging fruit Yeah. On several of the farms that we worked with. Uh, also, uh, things that we can talk about is just general record keeping. Um, that tends to be another thing that, you know, maybe doesn't make its way to the top of the list. And, uh, one of the things we talk about, uh, when, when I'm presenting this to producers is, you know, when I have a New Year's resolution, I love used to, I try not to do this anymore, but New Year, you set a New Year's resolution and once you set one, you're gonna set, like, I'm gonna be a completely changed different person by the end of the year. I'm gonna be so much like, 'cause I'm gonna run three miles every day and I'm gonna, uh, read a book every week and all these things that are gonna, you know, make me, make me better.
Dr. Gail Carpenter (07:51):
Uh, and then you get two weeks in and you're like, well, I'm not doing any of that. And then you kind of give up. Right. So, so if we think of record keeping as kinda like that New Year's resolution, starting small, starting with something that's manageable for you, uh, and starting with something that is, you know, specific enough and detailed enough that you or your consultant can take advantage of some of that data collection, but not so detailed or so broad or so involved that you're just not gonna do it. It's better to do something at a manageable level, uh, and actually accomplish it than to, than to go way overboard and, and, and not be able to keep up with it.
Scott (08:26):
Yeah. Do you see some of these gaps a little more prevalent on some of these smaller dairies as opposed to larger dairies?
Dr. Gail Carpenter (08:31):
I think that, well, I don't know if anybody's exempt from this. Right? Yeah. Got it. Um, and, uh, I, you know, have dealt with a couple dairies. It's like, oh yeah, we write that down and it's an adjust dust drawer somewhere. Right? And so I always encourage those, those producers to like, Hey, like, why don't we talk to some of your consultants or your extension specialists and see if we can help you get that put in. And, and I always say, you know, your nutritionist would really love this information, right? You're collecting it and, and let's just make sure that it can get into the hands of somebody who can use it. So, yeah.
Scott (09:01):
Yeah. Good point. Yeah.
Dr. Gail Carpenter (09:02):
Yeah.
Dr. Bill Weiss (09:03):
So what, what's the most imp if you can only do one record, what, what's the most important for heifers,
Dr. Gail Carpenter (09:08):
Dr. Gail Carpenter (09:45):
Um, but in addition to all of the dates, I think the things that are really important is that that initial birth weight, that weaning weight, if we can get it, um, and, and any treatment records that we have. So, and there's ways that we can do that to kind of incorporate it into, um, into our existing routines. Um, and that whole idea, especially with individually housed calves, if you have, especially if they're indoors too little clipboard that goes on the front of that Cal's pen is, can be just a really helpful, easy way to accomplish that.
Scott (10:14):
Yeah. Alex, your belly to belly with a lot of dairymen out there, is any of this ringing true?
Dr. Alex Tebbe (10:20):
Yeah, I would agree completely, especially with the value of today's heifers and, uh, guys wanting to run lower coal rates and tighter heifer numbers. It's really important that we really hone in on the heifers that we're producing that are going to enter in the herd if we are putting such a value on, on our heifer population. So I think those are, are important things that we need to be looking at constantly. And it starts with, as Gail mentioned, good records.
Scott (10:46):
Yeah. And you find out a gap not having a lot of good records out there.
Dr. Alex Tebbe (10:50):
Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. It can be a challenge.
Dr. Gail Carpenter (10:53):
I think a lot of times we tend, when we're talking about heifer economics and reducing how much, or optimizing how much we spend on our heifers, we tend to focus on that age at first calving a lot of times, right? Like if we're, you know, if we can lower that age at first calving to 20 from 24 to 23, like how much we save per heifer, and we forget, first of all, you know, that's an investment potentially. Uh, but also
Scott (11:36):
Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about, um, measuring and tracking health events? 'cause I know that health events at a, uh, when there are calves will translate a lot of times into performance as an adult animal. Talk a little bit about that. That's
Dr. Gail Carpenter (11:49):
True. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Gail Carpenter (11:53):
Yeah. We, uh, we actually did a study, um, this isn't in, uh, replacement heifers. This was a study we did in beef on dairy calves, um, that we, I had a master student who graduated last summer. She did the pre-weaning phase, and we finally, um, have the finishing data on all of these steers that we ran through. Um, and we did some nutritional things, uh, pre calving, uh, we gave them two different levels of starch in their starter. And then post calving, they went on two different diets. So we had like a two by two there with different nutritional interventions. Um, and we found some, some, some neat stuff. But what we found was, um, health actually had a very large impact too. So any calf that had two or more, um, or any steer who had two or more respiratory events, uh, they had a lower carcass weight and a lower return on investment. So, um, yeah, we've seen, and there's, there's data out there on BRD, on, you know, these, these respiratory events or, you know, if they're starting off on the wrong foot, uh, that has a real economic impact.
Scott (12:50):
Yeah. Especially damages the lungs that would you say respiratory is more important than, uh, maybe gastrointestinal, uh, issues?
Dr. Gail Carpenter (12:58):
Well, di dehydration is obviously gonna be a big problem for calves, right? If we have dehydrated calves, we're not gonna have, that's gonna be a big killer of calves too. Um, so if we're looking at gastrointestinal, you have that risk of dehydration, right? Um, and so we wanna make sure that we're, that we're monitoring that. But a lot of the data on the long-term impacts does come from that respiratory pneumonia.
Scott (13:20):
I wanna get, Barry, you got an opportunity to get in here. I'm curious,
Dr. Barry Bradford (13:24):
Gale, have you seen people implementing the lung ultrasounding in, in the process? Obviously you have to make more heifers if you want to give yourself room to, to remove some, but do you see people implementing that?
Dr. Gail Carpenter (13:34):
We don't have a, um hmm. That's a great question. Uh, we don't have a ton of producers that are doing that. I'm curious if Alex, if you're seeing any of, a lot of that. It does tend to be some of our, our larger farms. That do kind of lean onto the lung ultrasound thing. I think there's a ton of potential to it. Um, for some of those subclinical, uh, events that we don't even know that we're having. Right. Um, but are you seeing a lot of farms that are,
Dr. Alex Tebbe (13:57):
Um, it really varies. I think it's been used as a tool, as like a benchmarking system. Okay. That different farms have had, um, versus a trouble suiting thing, kind of like, uh, benchmarking your growth throughout the different stages that we'll go in and, and check some lung scores and see how we're doing. Um, and monitoring that throughout the year, uh, isn't as, as popular as, okay, here's where we're at, here's how we compare to some other farms. Do we have a problem?
Scott (14:25):
Title is feeding management. Talk to me about that. What kind of things you're gonna share during the presentation.
Dr. Gail Carpenter (14:31):
Yeah,
Dr. Bill Weiss (15:47):
How common is precision feeding now to heifers?
Dr. Gail Carpenter (15:50):
I'm not seeing it very much. At least not where we are.
Dr. Alex Tebbe (15:54):
Yeah. Yeah. I see it very rarely. Yeah. Anymore. I mean, the management side of it is so much more difficult It is, than it is in a conventional and, and things coming around more so like double cropping where we have an abundance amount of, of forage that we can feed those animals, you just don't see it as much anymore, at least in the Midwest. Yeah.
Dr. Gail Carpenter (16:13):
And that's, we talk, I'm gonna talk a little bit about using alternative forages too. And sometimes when you're doing, like you said, double cropping cover crops, like a lot of times we'll get a lot of biomass on forages that aren't super high quality. Uh, and so potentially, you know, that might be an opportunity to feed it to heifers, assuming that we're not, you know, loading 'em up with mycotoxins that could potentially hurt reproduction. Um, kind of getting some of those bulky forages into heifer diets can be a, a really good solution.
Dr. Bill Weiss (16:41):
Is the goal still 24 or 22 to 24 months, or has that changed?
Dr. Gail Carpenter (16:45):
It really depends on who you talk to. Uh, I think Okay. Talk to you
Dr. Barry Bradford (16:50):
Dr. Gail Carpenter (16:51):
It's, it depends, right? We're an extension. We say it depends, um,
Dr. Bill Weiss (17:22):
For, for someone who doesn't know much about heifers, what's the percent of mature
Dr. Gail Carpenter (17:26):
Weight that Oh, thank you. Uh, 75 to 80%. Okay. Uh, would be the, the one that's typically, typically thrown around there. Yep, yep.
Dr. Barry Bradford (17:32):
I've seen herds that were averaging under 21 months. Yes. And that bothered me. Like they didn't have any body weight data, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't optimal. Yeah. Do
Dr. Gail Carpenter (17:42):
You agree? Probably. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think at least, and I haven't been around in, in the, this, uh, well, I haven't been around as long as
Dr. Gail Carpenter (18:28):
And usually that's not the solution. May, usually it's somewhere in the middle ground there. Um, and so I think that it does seem like for a while there was this push just younger, younger, younger. 'cause okay, every, every day you're not spending feeding that heifer and she's not milking, you're, you know, you're saving that money, but it is an investment, right? So that is the foundation of your herd. You wanna make sure she's, she's successful and it doesn't really make sense to breed her. And she calves in at 21 months, but then you call her for low milk production when she just didn't have the opportunity to be able to perform, right? So, um, it is finding that middle ground, and I think at a certain point you're just not gonna have like physiological maturity too, right? So Right.
Scott (19:09):
And she's gonna have to catch up anyway, so she, she's going to expend those or take those groceries in anyway. Right.
Dr. Gail Carpenter (19:14):
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Alex Tebbe (19:17):
Gil, I had a question for you. Um, you know, one of the questions I get oftentimes on some of these farms is, do we bring back the heifers home and homegrown heifers, or do we move to a custom razor? Any kind of questions that you feel would be important when you're deciding to do custom or, uh, a homegrown heifer and what resources are out there to make that decision?
Dr. Gail Carpenter (19:42):
Penn State actually has a lot of great resources on custom rearing dairy heifers. Um, I hate to, you know, kick it outside of our, uh, our, our own home court. But, uh, but they do that. But the Penn State extension website has a lot of great resources on that. And we actually, in our own, uh, extension programming, we, we rely on, rely on some of the work that they've done there quite a bit. Um, but I think, yeah, so one of the things to consider is do you have the space and the, and the resources and be reasonable and honest with yourself, right? Kinda like the goal setting and the New Year's resolutions. You wanna make sure that you're, you wanna make sure that you're being honest with yourself about what your capacity is, right? Um, and, and making sure that your facilities are appropriate size for the numbers of he, number of heifers that you have.
Dr. Gail Carpenter (20:27):
Um, grazing heifers can be a, can be a fantastic option. Grazing heifers can be a great way to get good growth out of heifers. Um, but grazing is not the same as throwing them out on the dry lot and expecting them to do okay. Right? Like, grazing done well is actually very intentional. Um, and so I, I bring that up as an example of thinking like, okay, maybe we can expand our facility, not expand our facility, but we can expand the number of heifers we have by grazing some of them and keeping them at home. But really, you need to be sure that you have the capacity to be able to graze, right? Uh, so, so a good starting question is gonna be looking at your own resources and your own capacity, whether that's facilities or labor, and looking at that imbalance with the number of heifers you have.
Dr. Gail Carpenter (21:09):
Um, but working with, uh, custom heifer growers, um, making sure those animals are getting, uh, they're getting, uh, bred at the right size, uh, size and age is important in breeding. Um, and, and keeping an eye on those numbers, those conception rates and, and looking at those heifers when they're coming back and making sure that you're still having, uh, that, that your grower is still meeting the expectations that you have. Um, and like so many things in this life, a lot of that comes back to good communication, uh, and making sure that we're having open and honest conversations.
Scott (21:41):
You know, I understand, you know, uh, taking a look at your own operation, but perfect world, do you think people ought to be raising their own heifers? And I kind of think back, never raised any heifers myself, but my kids, I'd rather raise my kids than somebody else raised their, my kids, right?
Dr. Gail Carpenter (22:00):
I know, and I hate to say should, because that would put some heifer growers out of business. They're doing a good job.
Scott (22:05):
Dr. Gail Carpenter (22:07):
Yep.
Dr. Barry Bradford (22:44):
I think some of it becomes, you end up with a, a bottleneck somewhere, right? Right. You have a land base or whatever. And, and I think this is what's driven a lot of ag is, well, we're gonna specialize in one thing and take the resources we have and be really, really good at milking cows, right? Yeah. Yeah. And multi-state operations, it's even like, oh, we're just gonna calve on one side for the same logic. Right? So there's downsides. Yeah. Yeah. But I think there's some logic to it too.
Scott (23:06):
Yeah. We were kind of having the same conversation in the last, uh, uh, podcast. We were talking about beef on dairy and should you raise your, your beef calves, right? And, and so I guess the same is true here is, you know, what's your core competency? Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, yeah, I guess the next question, I think I know the answer, we'll ask it anyway. So do you raise your heifers if you got, if you got some facilities, you raise your heifers, you raise your, your, uh, your beef calves?
Dr. Gail Carpenter (23:32):
We actually have a lot of, uh, producers that are doing that. We just did a survey of our dairy producers in Iowa. Um, and we found the most, the two most common, uh, options were selling 'em at birth or finishing 'em out. There's not a whole lot of people doing the in-between. Um, and, uh, and, and mostly it was like almost 60% of 'em said they're just selling 'em at birth. Um, at least of the people who responded to our survey. But, uh, if you have the, again, facilities and knowledge finishing out steers and raising, milking cows or not the same, uh, and, uh, if you can utilize your, your knowledge and your resources. I know if I'm using Iowa as an example, we have a really great, a lot of, a lot of great resources about, um, uh, beef development and, and the beef industry. And so if you have those resources available to you, and, and again, going back to this whole idea of core competencies, what you can, what you know you can do well, um, it can make a lot of sense. So, but it's also hard to, you know, if you can get 800 bucks or a thousand bucks a pop for a wet calf, it's hard to turn that down too. It really
Scott (24:35):
Is. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I'm kind of kind of wondering, um, I'm formulating a question here and now I I got one bill. Yeah, go for it.
Dr. Bill Weiss (24:44):
Um, you talk a bit about age, uh, more than a bit, but age at first calving is a good mean, better than, you know, you can have a good mean with huge variation.
Dr. Gail Carpenter (24:55):
That is a, that is something I'm gonna talk about. Yeah.
Dr. Bill Weiss (24:58):
Can you give us a preload preload?
Dr. Gail Carpenter (25:00):
Uh, you need both. Yeah, you need both. Uh, good mean and good variation. It's like you watched my talk already. Uh, you need good, like I did read
Dr. Bill Weiss (25:07):
Your papers,
Dr. Gail Carpenter (25:07):
Yeah, that's fair.
Dr. Gail Carpenter (25:55):
So if you're making a decision, you have heifers in front of you today that you're deciding whether or not to breed, they have to have met, you know, the age, but they also have need to have met the size. If you're finding that you have consistently a lot of variation and not all heifers are reaching the size that you want at the right age, then it's time to have that conversation with your nutritionist and maybe even your veterinarian too, um, to, to go back and say, okay, what is causing this variation? Um, is it health issues pre calving? Are we getting a lot of those like poor doers because they're not thrifty? Um, is it a nutrition issue? Is it an overstocking issue? Is it a, you know, there's a whole bunch of things that could lead into that, but, um, but yeah, in the short term, uh, when you're, when you have the heifers in front of you that you're trying to make that decision today, uh, it's age and size,
Dr. Bill Weiss (26:41):
What kind of, is there a, uh, the best, say the best producers? What kind of variation would they see in age at first calving?
Dr. Gail Carpenter (26:49):
Ooh, I don't know if I have a good answer to that question. Uh, you know what, it's not when you see it
Scott (27:11):
Gotta have our shortage going on right now. Do you see people changing their practices to try to rush these heifers into, into production? And, and, and then is there anything that we should do differently? Because we're gonna upper shortage,
Dr. Gail Carpenter (27:24):
We see a lot of people, uh, wondering what to do as a result of their upper shortage
Dr. Alex Tebbe (28:40):
Yeah, so I mean, it's been a, uh, breeding changes for sure on farms, you know, utilizing more sex semen versus beef if you're growing herd or you don't have enough heifers. Um, I have seen a lot of guys that, uh, are overproducing heifers start to cabbage on to the potential profits of selling some of those extra heifers. But eventually that's going to end at some point too, I think. Um, but I haven't seen a whole lot of guys start to jump on the bandwagon of purposely producing heifers to make a profit out of it. And I think that's going on, not happening for two reasons. Um, number one, uh, that's a long-term gamble, right? We're talking two years versus the beef side, 13 to 14 months if you would go that route. Um, the other aspect is because of how feed prices change the ebbs and flows in the market, um, not really having a really good projection of how much it's gonna cost you to raise that heifer, um, to term, I think has, has held back some of those, those, uh, producers trying to find that as like a niche market. Mm-hmm
Scott (29:49):
Yeah. You know, a related topic I I've heard tell that there's some people out there thinking about milking some of those beef cross, uh, heifers. Have, have you guys heard of that or seen that happening?
Dr. Alex Tebbe (30:00):
No, not on my farms. No, not really. No.
Dr. Gail Carpenter (30:02):
I've heard of some accidental beef crosses that we don't, they end up in the, in the milking stream, but, uh, I don't think there's a lot of intentionality around
Scott (30:11):
That. Yeah. Just rumors, I guess. Then
Dr. Barry Bradford (30:13):
Alex is like, I wouldn't admit it if I saw
Dr. Alex Tebbe (30:14):
That. Yeah. I don't, I don't want those, you know, those cow would bring down my averages
Dr. Gail Carpenter (30:20):
On the ground. It's hard to tell the difference between a beef cross and a ho and a jersey cross. Yeah. So, uh, yeah, I think sometimes they, they might accidentally find their way up there and, but yeah, I, we've had some people question maybe going the other way and saying, should we start, uh, should we start producing beef calves from, from dairy crosses, like for the beef stream? But I'm not seeing a whole lot of uptake on, it's mostly just questions, right? Yeah. Questions and rumors and not seeing a whole lot of actual like, uptake on any of that. So, yeah.
Scott (30:50):
Alright. Interesting. Any other key points from your presentation that we need to cover?
Dr. Gail Carpenter (30:57):
I don't think so. Just I think the main point that I wanna drive home is that we wanna pay attention to our heifers. We really put a lot of emphasis on that pre-weaning phase when it comes to calves and we put a lot of emphasis on what we do with them once they calve back in. Um, but we have to make sure that we're raising heifers well in between, weaning in and that calving too. Yep.
Scott (31:15):
Well, that's a nice wrap up. I think I'll ask the other three gentlemen as well to, to provide their, uh, uh, final comments. Uh, Barry, do you got any things you wanna wrap up here?
Speaker 6 (31:25):
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Dr. Barry Bradford (31:48):
Well, I think just focusing on, um, age of first calving and then sort of back calculating from there, how do we need to manage this whole process, including, I think one of the, the biggest things that I've been surprised how many farms lack is just do you have good enough records to at least know the death rate annually on your calfs? 'cause if you don't know that, you don't know how many heifers need to produce and yeah. For another thing, you should just be keeping records that you can go back and analyze to try to solve that problem. Right? Yeah. So that's a good starting point for a lot of farms.
Scott (32:15):
Perfect. Alex, do you have any, uh, practical advice for us?
Dr. Alex Tebbe (32:19):
Yeah, I would, uh, echo those comments, but also the push to have better heifer record numbers that, uh, you know, as you, our team approach on these dairies and you're trying to make decisions, you have things that you're collecting to make decisions in. 'cause as we know, you can't manage what we don't measure. So I think that's, that's critical. And as we continue to ride, you know, more lean heifer numbers, that becomes even more critical that every single heifer that we're having enter the herd is the right size and bred at the right time to optimize her milk production for the next several years. Yeah.
Scott (32:56):
Excellent. Bill, any words of wisdom?
Dr. Bill Weiss (32:58):
No, but I'll say something.
Dr. Bill Weiss (33:03):
I think what you kept saying is this is an investment now, and that to me, it's, we always looked at it as a cost. Yep. And it's, it's, you kept emphasizing investment, which means sometimes spending money is, is worth it. And I think that's a very important concept to keep bringing on these. Yeah. Non-product, what I call non-productive, non income earning units. Yep. Yep.
Scott (33:25):
Yep. Bill, you sell yourself short. That was an excellent summary,
Speaker 6 (33:42):
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