What cattle producers should know before buying their next herd bull

Although some of you may be in the middle of calving or still waiting to start the calving season, this also is the time of year when you may be looking to purchase your next herd bull.

As you know, this is not a decision to take lightly. You can even say your bull selection purchase is one of the most important decisions you will make.

If you look at the genetics of your current calf crop, 87.7% of their genetics comes from your last three bull purchases. If you nailed each of those buying decisions, you just hit a home run. If you missed on one of those, you could be dealing with the results for the next decade.

Purchasing a new bull carries a lot of risk. You want to buy the best bull you can within a price range you can afford, but how can you reduce some of the risk in your selection process? The answer to this would be to select a bull that provides you with the most information.

You want to begin by purchasing a bull with reported Expected Progeny Differences. This lets you know the owner has been collecting herd production data and submitting it to a breed association. This provides a starting point for the performance potential of that bull. However, the initial EPDs for a yearling bull are mere averages of his parents’ EPDs.

What you really want to know is the traits he inherited from his parents that he will be able to pass on to his calves. This can be accomplished by looking at bulls that have genomically enhanced EPDs. Genetic testing can improve the accuracy of a young bull’s EPDs by more than 30%. So instead of being 10% confident a bull’s birth weight EPD is zero, you can be 30% confident his birth weight EPD is 0.1.

While genomically enhanced EPDs will help you estimate the genetic merit of a bull and increase the accuracy of his EPDs, they will not predict exactly how that bull will perform.

Although we have these tools to have confidence in what a new bull can bring to your operation, the more difficult task is sorting through all those numbers to find a bull that has the best combination to improve your herd. One way is to focus on those traits that relate to how you market your cattle.

If you sell weaned calves, you will want to emphasize weaning weight. If you feed out your cattle, you would put more importance on superior yearling weight and carcass traits. All of these numbers can start running together, and fortunately, this is where breeding indexes can help.

The different breed associations have combined related individual trait EPDs into index values. If you are interested in retaining heifers, you would value bulls that have higher maternal index values, or if you are feeding cattle, you would look at those that have higher carcass index values.

We still have several programs happening before producers get back into the fields this spring. There is one more private pesticide and fertilizer recertification opportunity left March 3 at the Secrest Arboretum Welcome Center. Registration will begin at 8:30 a.m. Pesticide recertification is from 9 a.m. to noon, and the fertilizer recertification is from 1-2 p.m.

The recertification fee is $35 for pesticide, $15 for fertilizer or $50 if you need both. As a reminder, this recertification fee is separate from the license fee to be paid with your license renewal to the Ohio Department of Agriculture.

On Feb. 27 we will have our annual agronomy program. It also will be held at the Secrest Arboretum Welcome Center. The program will feature presentations on field crop pests, crop response to phosphorus and potassium fertilization, vomitoxin and tar spot management, and an update on the cover crop program for the Wayne County area. The program is free, and lunch will be provided at the end of the program. Registration is at 8:30 a.m., and the program will run from 9 a.m. to noon.

There are two webinar series that will continue into March. The OSU Extension beef team will have the next session of its webinar series Feb. 19 when Dr. Haley Linder discusses Minerals for Beef Cows. The last two sessions are March 5 and March 19. You can register for the free webinar at go.osu.edu/beefschool26.

We also are continuing our All About Sheep webinar series. The next session will be at 7 p.m. Feb. 17, when we will discuss sheep nutrition. You can register for this program at go.osu.edu/allaboutsheep26.

If you have questions about any of these programs or would like to register, call me at the OSU Extension in Wayne County at 330-264-8722. You also can access individual program flyers on our website at wayne.osu.edu and click the Events tab.

John Yost is an ANR educator with Wayne County OSU Extension.