Breeding heifers to calve in around 2 years old puts them on a productive track to begin paying off the costs of their rearing and avoid mounting up additional expenses while they remain open

When it comes to raising heifers, we don’t want them to grow too slowly – or too fast

The true cost of raising replacement heifers is difficult to determine, although every dairy farmer realizes it’s a significant investment

It’s not uncommon to hear dairy consultants talk about “rightsizing” a farm’s heifer herd to avoid raising too many replacements

The use of beef semen on the dairy herd provides added income when it comes to selling bull calves, but there’s so much more to like about incorporating beef semen into a breeding program and a lot...

With Class III milk prices reaching $17.55 per hundredweight — the highest levels since January 2015 — heifer prices have begun to show a little bit of life

Having dropped by $380 per head in the past year, dairy replacement values tumbled to a decade low of $1,140 per animal

The state of young stock sales in the dairy industry is almost uglier than the milk price this year

With prices ranging $1,170 to $1,250 per head, replacement values in the Great Lake States region are well below the U.S. average of $1,320

Dairies normally have guidelines for culling cows, but how many of you have written rules or at least go through and cull calves and heifers on a regular basis?

As farm gate milk prices remain below the cost of production for the vast majority of U.S. dairy farmers, dairy replacements waiting to join the milking herd continue to be at historic highs