Four breeders, four approaches: when they mate heifers and the reasons why

Four Theodore cattle breeders participated in a panel discussion at the Gyranda open day on a topic that can spark debate in any cattle yard - when to mate heifers.

Three out of the four producers also presented at least a pen of females, allowing visitors to see the breeding philosophies in practice.

Taking part were Rodger Jefferis of Elrose Brahmans, Peter Mahony of Gyranda Santa Gertudis, Fiona Skinner of NK Brahmans, and Brad Hanson of Bullakeana Brangus and Ultrablacks.

Their answers revealed both contrasting approaches and shared priorities.

Rodger Jefferis

For Mr Jefferis, the answer had been shaped by the land itself.

"For many years, we were up at Cloncurry and that's where we founded the Elrose stud, but then five years ago we moved down here [to Theodore]," he said.

"We did try yearling mating for a couple of years up there, but gave it away because we found we could only get about 25 per cent of them back in calf the second time out in that sort of country.

"Out there, if you get a storm by Christmas, you've had a Christmas present.

"So we joined as two-year-olds."

That change had paid off for the Elrose prefix.

"Now we've got a very tight calving interval... we're getting 85-86pc of our calves dropping in the first 60 days," Mr Jefferis said.

He doesn't overcomplicate the decision of which heifers go in with the bulls.

"I take absolutely no notice of weight... I presume that they're all fairly close in age and then the culling process comes later on," he said.

"I learnt many years ago that phenotype has very little relationship to fertility."

Fiona Skinner

Fiona Skinner from NK Brahmans had a similar approach to Mr Jefferis and said that for her, fertility is the key to every beast.

Running both stud and commercial Brahman herds, she also joined heifers at two years.

"Our breeding is probably a lot like Rodger's... we don't worry about weight and we join them at 24 months," she said.

"We will do inoculations about five months before we join, then join in October."

The reason for holding them back until 24 months, even though Ms Skinner is on scrub country near Theodore, was to allow the females to grow out and reduce the risk of them not conceiving on the second joining.

"We also spread our heifers out into other paddocks with cows, and since we've been doing that, we're actually getting a lot better pregnancy rates," she said.

"I think it just settled them, being in the herd with the other cows.

Ms Skinner has also adjusted her thinking on joining lengths to improve conception rates.

"My dad used to leave the bulls in longer... I'm now shortening that down to a four-month period," she said.

Peter Mahony

Peter Mahony, who hosted the open day at Gyranda's new sale yards near Cracow, had applied a weight-based exception to joining heifers as yearlings.

"We've found a sweet spot to be 350 kilogram females," he said.

"Anything above 280kg as yearlings, we now join, and anything under we tend to hold back until they're two-year-olds or make weight," he said.

Mr Mahony drew the crowd's attention to two pens of four Santa Gertudis cows, with one cow an obvious standout for a higher frame score among the pens.

"Looking at the females in the pens, you can probably guess which one didn't get in calf as a second-calver," he said.

Mr Mahony also explained that he's noticed his yearling-joined heifers struggle to reach mature cow weight at the same time as a female that has calved for the first time as a three-year-old.

The Gyranda program leaned heavily on numbers.

"We use a lot of data and genomics in our cattle," he said.

Mr Mahony said their conception rates hover around 90pc for first-calf heifers.

"The trick for us is getting them back in calf the following year," he said.

Brad Hanson

Brad Hanson of Bullakeana Brangus and Ultrablacks at Theodore took a different route and joined his heifers as yearlings regardless of weight.

"We're running high intensity on smaller acreage, so all our females are drafted to suit a bull for single sire mating," he said.

Mr Hanson also said he had a selection process to draft retained yearling heifers for joining.

"We start off with structure... feet, legs, walking angles, temperaments, teat placement, and we're trying to tidy up that underline," he said.

"We're breeding Brangus, so we're looking at reproductive soundness.

Mineral supplementation is a key part of how he achieves more than 93pc calving rate each year, regardless of whether they're a first or second-time calver.

"We hit them with a dry lick pretty much through winter to try and get the trace elements in their bodies right," he said.

Whether by weight threshold, country constraints, or strict calving windows, each breeder was looking for females that conceived early, rejoined easily, and remained productive for years.

Bella Hanson, the author of this story, is related to Brad Hanson, who is quoted in the story.