Productive life can be like a New Year’s resolution. It sounds like a good idea, but often it doesn’t come true. Increasing the productive life of dairy herds needs to be a priority for the dairy industry.

Every cow you create might not be right for your market. To withstand market ebbs and flows, you need to create cows that meet the needs of your operation.

For those who see the opportunity to expand, if they use their data and invest where they get the biggest return, they stand the highest chance of success. Will the beef cow herd continue to shrink, or will we see some expansion? Only time will tell.

Few times in history has the cattle industry offered more opportunity for profit to conscientious producers than right now. That was the primary message of CattleFax CEO Randy Blach’s executive summary at CattleFax’s Industry Outlook Seminar on Feb. 2. 

Learn how to manage forage inventories after harvest, improve average daily gain of calves and capitalize during times of tight farm margins.

If you were in need of replacements, would you be excited to buy your heifers?

If we go back 10-plus years, most dairy farms bred all their cows and heifers for dairy calves and raised all heifer calves as dairy herd replacements.