David J. Patterson, PhDa∗pattersond@missouri.edu and D. Scott Brown, PhDb,     aDivision of Animal Sciences, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA; bDepartment of Agricultural and Applied Economics, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA

∗Corresponding author.

Use of existing and emerging management technologies enable beef producers to improve breeding performance of heifers during the first breeding season and during subsequent calving and rebreeding periods as 2 year olds. These practices ensure that heifers that enter the herd as raised or purchased replacements contribute to the general performance and productivity of an entire cowherd immediately, and cumulatively long-term. Rebuilding the US cowherd requires careful consideration and use of these newer management technologies. Veterinarians will play a crucial role in influencing the technologies used during the rebuilding process.

Keywords

Beef heifer development • Cattle inventory • Reproductive management

Key points

Introduction

The US beef industry finds itself confronted with a significant long-term decline in cattle numbers driven in part by record input costs and severe drought conditions in many of the nation’s major cattle-producing states. These recent challenges only add to long-term issues the industry has faced, which include an aging producer population, increased global competition, weak domestic demand for beef and increased competition from other meat proteins, and a perceived lack of economic incentives to expand the cattle herd.

Coincident with the downturn in cattle numbers, however, there now exist an array of technologies currently online or emerging that offer the potential to expedite genetic progress, enhance efficiencies of production, and add value to beef cattle produced in the United States. Improvements in reproductive technologies have enabled beef producers to use artificial insemination without the need to detect estrus, existing and emerging genetic and genomic technologies enable beef producers to make more rapid strides toward improving the quality of beef they produce, and producers’ ability to access and target individual marketing grids enable them to be rewarded for specific quality end points. As cattle prices and input costs increase, traits of efficiency and quality will become bigger drivers of profitability than ever before, and the commodity model of US beef production in all likelihood will no longer be viable.1 Beef producers in the United States have the tools to maintain the country’s ranking as the leading global supplier of high-quality beef. As US beef producers look to the future, the challenge most will face centers on determining which if any of these tools will be adopted and used to the extent that enables current and future generations to compete in a global arena, and if so, how effectively.

In comparison with other domestic livestock species produced and marketed in the United States, tradition and segmentation within the US cattle industry has hindered the adoption of newer production and marketing strategies. Coordinating the various industry segments (cow-calf, stocker, feed yard, processor) with allied industry (artificial insemination companies, seed stock suppliers, feed and pharmaceutical industries) offers the potential to enhance technology adoption and contribute to increases in production efficiency. As the US cattle industry moves to rebuild its declining numbers, the focus of much of the industry will turn to heifer retention and appropriate practices related to beef heifer development. Veterinarians can and should contribute to this process.

Current situation

Fig. 1 illustrates the significant decline in number of US beef cows in production, a decline that began in the mid-1970s.2 The decline in cattle inventories during the 1980s and 1990s is equated by many in the industry to coincide with the period of extreme weakness in beef demand. The more recent acceleration in cattle inventory decline coincides with the difficult combination of drought and record feed prices. The weakness in beef demand provided the impetus for the industry to begin the Beef Quality Assurance program. Although the industry has experienced more consistency in beef products during the last three decades, there are major strides left to be made when today less than 5% of cattle grade prime.

Two factors are largely responsible for the lack of traction in increasing the industry trend of beef quality during the past three decades. First, market segmentation made it difficult for consumer signals asking for higher quality to reach cow-calf producers. The industry has provided better signal transmission to support the production of higher-quality beef through available marketing grids, yet these grids generally require cow-calf producers to maintain some ownership stake in their cattle through the feed yard.

Second, producers that invested in developing higher-quality cattle and beef often found genetic improvement to be slow and inconsistent, which often eliminated or reduced economic incentives for the quality focus. The technologies that came online over the past few years and new genomic advances on the horizon seem poised to rapidly increase genetic improvement and consistency. The combination of better market signals and incentives for higher-quality beef coupled with technologies that allow producers to more easily invest in genetics focused on quality provide the industry a unique opportunity to increase the cow herd with a more refined focus on the genetic potential of the herd as it relates to efficiency and higher quality. It seems these technologies have the added value of reducing producer risk by providing more consistency in the beef produced.

The decline in beef cow inventory was accelerated by an increase in cow slaughter and a decrease in beef heifer retention as illustrated in Fig. 2.2 This figure calculates beef heifer retention by looking at the change in beef cow inventory each year, the amount of beef cow slaughter as reported by the US Department of Agriculture, and an assumed 2% death loss in beef cow inventory each year. As seen from this graph, nearly 7 million beef heifers entered the US cowherd in the mid-1970s, whereas in recent years it has dropped to roughly 3 million replacements based on recent US Department of Agriculture data. The opportunity for an increase in retention of beef heifers to exceed 5 million head remains a possibility as the herd attempts to recover from the long-term inventory decline. Fig. 2 shows that nearly 5 million head of beef heifers were retained in years where beef cow inventories grew.

Long-term survival and prosperity of the US beef industry depends on its economic viability, which is best served by its competitiveness, profitability, and economic efficiency.3 The effective management of an enterprise requires the fundamental ability to make informed decisions. A range of procedures are available to cow-calf producers to aid in reproductive management of replacement beef heifers and determine the outcome of a development program. These procedures, when viewed collectively as a “program,” assist producers in more effectively managing reproduction in their herds.4,5 Producers that use these procedures are able to use data generated on their own farms and with their own heifers to plan, execute, and accomplish reproductive, genetic, and economic goals for their herds. These procedures facilitate improvements in breeding performance of replacement heifers during the first breeding season and during subsequent calving and rebreeding periods as 2 year olds. Adoption of specific procedures for an operation depends on...