Try These Things at Home To Make Your Bottom-Line Bigger!
You can use the fact that animals learn quickly and effectively from mother and one another to reduce costs and increase productivity in a variety of ways. Here are just a few examples:
What is learned in the cradle lasts to the grave.
Old Saying
1. Early Training Improves Transitions
Expose young animals to food they will need to eat later in life such as grains they might encounter at a feedlot, and poor-quality foods you might feed during the winter or that they will find on the range. Young animals need to get used to the flavor and acquire the skills to eat new foods. Animals with early experience with foods are less likely to become ill and are more likely to gain weight and maintain productivity when they encounter foods in new environments.
Be aware of the effects that toxins can have on an animal's willingness to eat some foods. Read more about this in Palatability is More Than a Matter of Taste.
2. When it Comes to Replacements - Handsome Is As Handsome Does
Keep replacement animals whose mother have desirable habits. Don't keep heifers, no matter how good-looking they may be, if their mothers eat the wrong foods or graze in the wrong places.
Price and good looks are only part of the equation when it comes to purchasing replacements. If you want animals to graze, don't buy replacements who were raised on harvested forage or in dry lot. Buy replacements from areas with vegetation similar to that on your home place.
3. There's No Place Like Home
Be careful where you raise your replacements. If you have an opportunity to lease grazing land at a cheap price but it's vey different from your home place, you may want to leave your replacements and their mothers at home. This ensures that they will learn to live and eat in the environment where they will spend the most time.
