A Successful Suckler Cow Enterprise
"a quality calf per cow per year"
D. Cahill

The Suckler Cow
She should be of medium size to avoid heavy maintenance costs in terms of winter feeding, a tight udder with adequate milk to produce a high Kg quality weaned calf each year for at least 7 years with very low veterinary costs.

Type and Breed of Suckler Cow

The suckler cow should be crossbred in nature to take advantage of Hybrid Vigor and its associated fertility and longevity traits. The pure Friesian be it British or Dutch in origin provide excellent suckler mothers when crossed with either the traditional beef breeds (Angus and Hereford) or the continental beef breeds preferable breeds with maternally tested traits. Holstein genes are not recommended in suckler cows due to their lack of muscularity over supply of milk and low longevity and fertility traits. The Simmental (Fleckvieh) breed due to their dual purpose origin make excellent suckler mothers either bred pure or crossed with pure Friesian but care should be taken in selecting medium size Simmental when crossed with pure Friesian but care should be taken in selecting medium size Simmental when crossed with Friesian otherwise you may end up with a very large suckler cow.

Terminal Cross Bull

To take further advantage of Hyrid Vigor ensure that your Terminal Cross Bull is of a different breed to the breeds in your suckler mothers and choose this breed to suit your farming and managment regime or system and to be succesful you must aim for a high Kg quality weaned calf per cow per year. The North American Ranchers measure their Herd Performance in terms of Kg of weaned calves produced per 100 cows per year.

Replacements

In a successfully managed suckler cow herd replacement rates should not exceed 15% and preferably be around 10% - 12% unless you are voluntarily changin the composition of your suckler herd. The quality of the annual replacements is the key to success and accordingly great care should be taken in choosing replacements. It must be borne in mind that you can change the composition of your suckler herd over a 6-7 year period through your replacement selections.

The Dovea stud of Beef Bulls rank very high in ICBF Economic Beef Indices as presented in Table 1 and 2 below. In addition, Dovea has acquired two new elite Belgian Blue Bulls through their Genetique Avenir Belgimex agency, RYB and MZI. These two bulls in conjunction with VDC will make excellent Terminal Cross Sires for usage in the Suckler herd and DIB who is noted for his easy calving is an excellent choice for usage in the Dairy Herd. Through its trading agreement with No Genetics Austria. Dovea has semen available from the Fleckvieh bull named Dieter (TID). Dieter combines both high Beef Indices with excellent Maternal Traits for his daughters calving ease (Index 112) - making him the ideal bull to produce Suckler replacements and quality weaned calves.