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Efforts are now being made by a growing number of ranchers to get their cows back to more moderate frame size—and more profitable: able to maintain themselves and raise good calves on feed the place produces, without a lot of expensive inputs. Bottom line in the cattle business is not how big and how much the cattle bring at market, but how much it cost to get them there. When you pencil it out, a small cow is more profitable than a large one, but this is not an easy lesson to learn because the advice we’ve been getting from agricultural colleges the past half century has been to help us increase weaning weights, calf growth and maximum production. After the fad of ultra-small cattle in the 1940’s and 50’s (the extreme of which produced dwarfs and other genetic defects), the pendulum swung the other direction.
Most of the drive toward bigger animals came from the corn-based feeding industry that was evolving during mid-century, desiring a larger-framed animal that would grow longer (not mature so quickly) and produce a bigger carcass. Breed associations got on board early on, with a push for bigger weaning and yearling weights. Cattle winning the shows helped lead the push to make them bigger; champions in their breed became the popular genetics. Breed records, EPDs and computer-generated selection methods by numbers led us to believe that bigger is better, but faith in this idea is starting to waver. Those fancy sire bloodlines that produced such nice big steers for us also produced daughters bigger than their mothers. A growing number of producers are finding out the hard way that big cows can’t handle the typical ranch environment; they don’t breed back year after year without a lot of extra feed.
As stated by Diana Anderson (raising purebred Murray Gray cattle at Eagles Run Ranch near Livermore, California), “the typical commercial producer buys a beautiful young bull with lots of leg and length and is very happy with the calves from that bull. But when he keeps the heifers, they grow too big. Those big heifers present more challenge to get bred early, to calve as 2 year olds,” she says. They require more feed to do it, and many won’t mature as quickly as a smaller animal and won’t cycle soon enough. They are also more difficult to keep fed for proper body condition, she says.

Buddy Westphal (Valley View Charolais, at Polson, Montana) says “our focus should be to find the optimum efficiency of production so we can best harvest our grass through our cattle. We’re finding, through mis-experiences, that maximum cow size is not optimum. When you see 1800 pound heifers and 3000 pound bulls in the show barn in Denver, they are amazing, but they are just are not practical.”

Environment
Many people recognize that environment plays a role in whether or not a large cow can stay in the herd very long. Climate and feed resources are vastly different from one part of the country to another, and environmental factors (lush grass or desert range, steep mountains or flat pastures) vary greatly from ranch to ranch. Jon Angell, who raises cattle in Missouri and is involved with auction markets says optimum size cow may be different for each producer, depending on two things: “Ranchers must ask themselves what size cow matches the roughage and feed their outfit produces. A Midwestern farm can support a larger cow than an arid Southwestern ranch, for instance. Next they must ask themselves what their target market is for selling the calves off those cows,” says Angell.

“Northern feedlots like to feed cattle longer and want a bigger frame calf or yearling. Southern feedlots don’t want them quite as big. Grass fed or niche market freezer beef producers find a smaller frame animal is more efficient,” he says. He feels that the most efficient grassfed animal might be almost too small to work well in the traditional grain-fed feedlot production model.

Jeff Schmidt (JR Ranch near Othello, Washington) raises Angus and Shorthorn seedstock. His cows get through part of the winter on pasture and cornstalks and he feels it’s a lot more cost effective if cattle can harvest their own feed. “Cattle are meant to graze. If a cow can’t be profitable in marginal conditions, she’s not doing her job,” says Schmidt. He thinks the cattle industry has picked up many bad habits such as feeding a lot of harvested feeds. He also feels cattle have gotten too big. Some ranchers have 1700 pound cows and these take too much feed to maintain, considering what they’ll produce in calf weight. A 1250 pound cow works for him.

He tried some really small cows but says some of their calves wouldn’t finish out large enough in the feedlot. “They get really fat really quick and don’t have as much carcass value. You need a happy medium. We have a good environment here, with better feed resources than some, and a medium size cow works best,” says Schmidt.

“You need cattle fitted to your own environment, to utilize what you can grow, feed-wise. Let the environment sort the cattle for you, rather than you trying to outguess mother nature. Every fall there are certain individuals in the herd that just look better, and have better calves. If you can quit worrying about numbers and EPDs and just look at the flesh on the cattle and the calf they bring home—and remember their mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers (the cows that always did it right), soon you have about 4 or 5 cows families that outshine the rest of the herd,” says Schmidt.

He feels that no cow works perfectly in every environment and what might be the ideal cow on one ranch may not be the best on another. Hard winters, for instance, require a different type of efficiency than heat and humidity where you need a more heat tolerant animal. “That’s what’s so difficult for the seedstock producer, trying to produce the type of animal that will work for his customer. A cow that might work nicely here might be 100 pounds too big for a more harsh environment,” says Schmidt.

But small is definitely more efficient and profitable than large. Ken Dunn, who raises registered Angus (HD Dunn and Son) near Tetonia, Idaho says seedstock producers in his environment have been trying to pay attention to frame size and keep their cattle from becoming any larger; the commercial rancher who buys bulls and keeps replacement heifers can’t make a profit with cows that are too big. “The problem is that some of the popular genetics in the Angus breed today don’t take mature cow size into consideration. They have not used moderate cow size as a model and have gotten cow size bigger than they should be. In harsh environments, cows bigger than 1250 pounds won’t breed back,” says Dunn. In many range environments, even a 1200 pound cow is too big.

“People need to recognize that some of the genetics being promoted won’t work in our environment. Ranchers must pay more attention to where they are getting their genetics, and make sure those cattle are working in an environment that represents their own conditions,” he says. “It’s always wise to scrutinize the cow herd where you are buying bulls, and see how big those cows are. With the marketing power behind AI companies, they can promote sires that may or may not be useful in your environment. A person can’t afford to get cow size too big,” says Dunn.

Kit Pharo, seedstock producer of several breeds and composites at Cheyenne Wells, Colorado, goes one step farther in discussing environment’s role in optimum cow size. “Many people believe optimum size changes from ranch to ranch and from one environment to another, and there may be a few cases where this is true, but very few,” says Pharo. Some people say that if they get 40 inches of rain and have green grass year round they can use a bigger cow than the rancher who lives in a desert. Pharo’s response to that argument is: “Not really. I could run big cows here, too, just not very many of them. Ranchers in a more favorable environment could run smaller cows in their lush pasture and run more of them. Environment doesn’t really make a difference on this point,” he says.

“A cow has to be adapted to her environment. My cows may not work as well in a different environment and someone else’s cows might not work in my environment, but the size of my cows should work just about anywhere in the world. It doesn’t matter where you live, the smaller cow will always be more efficient,” he says.

Westphal says seedstock producers have gotten many stockmen into trouble. “A lot of purebred breeders are not cattlemen. They don’t spend time studying genetics. They just look at the numbers. Any hobby breeder can look at EPDs and determine the numbers that will produce big cattle, and that’s what they’ve selected for,” he says. “They loose sight of efficiency, age at puberty, fertility and breedback, ease of calving, structural soundness, longevity and disposition. The idea that bigger is better has gotten many breeds, and breeders, into trouble. A better yardstick for any ranch is to determine how many dollars of beef are being produced from the grass.”

“It’s been too easy to get cattle too big—whether it’s the purebred breeder’s fault or the cowboy running the outfit. There are too many seedstock operations owned by an investor or stockbroker and he likes those big, pretty cows. He doesn’t know they are inefficient and sometimes they don’t have to be efficient in his economic situation. The cowboy who calves out his cows or feeds them may only work there a year or two and has very little input in the selection process. There are many reasons why a lot of purebred operations continue to breed big cattle,” explains Westphal.

Efficiency Factor
“When you consider cow efficiency, a smaller cow will always have an advantage over a bigger cow,” says Pharo. “Smaller cows can do more for less. If your ranch can support 100 head of 1400 pound cows, it will support 120 head of 1100 pound cows, on the exact same inputs. That’s 20 percent more calves, and I guarantee those 120 smaller cows will always produce more total pounds of beef than the 100 larger cows. On top of that, the calves out of the smaller cows (because they have smaller individual weights) will be worth more per pound,” he explains.

Feed requirements for the larger cow are not compensated for cost-wise by the additional size of her calf, compared to the smaller cow. “A cow eats about 2.5 to 3 percent of her own weight in feed every day,” says Pharo. The larger animal has a larger maintenance requirement, yet she can’t wean off enough extra pounds of calf to justify that extra feed cost.

Regarding efficiency and profitability, Westphal says you must look at number of cows exposed to a bull and number of calves actually marketed from those cows. How many actually became pregnant and had live calves that made it to market? “Next look at how many cows you can run on your grass. If you could run 10 to 20 percent more cows (smaller and more efficient), you’d probably make more money. The big cows won’t give you maximum number of pounds weaned from the herd or net dollars returned from your grass. And if you’re looking at $150 a ton hay, like we are this year, it’s easy to put a lot of money into wintering cost of a cow. The big cow, with a 30 pound heavier calf, won’t make enough more to pay for the extra hay she needs,” says Westphal.

“A 2 frame cow that weighs 1000 pounds can easily wean off 50 percent of her own body weight, but it’s much harder for a 1200 pound cow to do that and stay in the herd. A 1400 pound cow will never be able to wean off 50 percent of her own weight and stay in the herd,” says Pharo. Some small cows will come close to weaning 60 percent of their own body weight. He’s had some 1 frame cows weighing 950 to 1000 pounds that could consistently wean off 58 to 60 percent of their own weight and stay in the herd for many years—and many ranchers experienced this in earlier years when they had small frame crossbred cows that milked well and had good fertility and longevity due to hybrid vigor. By contrast, a 4 or 5 frame cow that weans off much more than 50 percent of her own body weight is putting too much of herself into milk production and will eventually fail to breed back.

The Milk Factor
Many of the larger cows in various breeds milk well, since selection for growth (early gains and heavy weaning weights) is correlated not only with genetic frame size but also the milking ability of the dam. But the dam needs high feed input in order to do this. Without extra feed she can’t maintain herself and won’t breed back while raising that big calf.
“In any herd, the smaller cows are weaning off a higher percent of their own body weight than the bigger cows, yet if you just start selecting for cows that wean 60 percent of their own weight, you are inadvertently selecting for so much milk that you reduce fertility,” says Pharo. He doesn’t feed his cows; they must graze native range year round. This quickly weeds out the cows that can’t maintain themselves and breed back while raising a calf.
Some cows, especially crossbreds, may be able to produce the extra milk and stay in the herd, but if a person keeps selecting for extra milk and growth, this can still have negative effects. When you keep big, fat heifers as replacements, they don’t milk as well as their mamas because fat displaces the developing mammary tissue and they never produce as much milk. Their calves are usually the dinkiest calves in the herd. Yet if you keep those dinky heifer calves they grow up to milk like grandma. “My point is that if milk is one of your primary selection factors, you don’t have much you can depend on, year after year through the generations,” says Pharo. High milking ability will skip a generation. Moderation in milking ability is probably more dependable. Using cow size as a target in the efficiency equation, rather than looking at milking ability, is much more reliable, according to him.

Calving Ease Factor
In the push for more growth (higher weaning and yearling weights) we inadvertently selected for larger birth weights, since calves that are big at birth also tend to be the ones biggest at weaning. There are some genetics that combine low birth weight with fast rate of gain and high weaning weights, but they are the minority; in the rush to have higher weaning weights not much attention was given to birth weight until calving problems became an unavoidable issue. And since breeding selections for the past several decades have been made on weaning/yearling weight (choosing bulls that sire calves that grow bigger, and picking the biggest heifer calves for replacements), calving problems increased.

Bigger cattle often create more calving problems. This has impacted customers of any seedstock producer who has big cattle. “Purebred breeders know a big cow is going to have a big calf,” says Westphal. “That big bull calf can create calving problems when he goes into a commercial herd to breed commercial cows. Birthweight of a calf is greatly affected by gestation length, and a big cow tends to have longer gestation,” he explains. He stumbled onto the affect of gestation length on birth weight while trying to select bloodlines with shorter gestation, to have cows that would be able to breed back earlier after calving.

“Cows producing big calves have more dead calves at birth. A calf that dies at birth or doesn’t get up quickly to suck (and ends up dying of scours or pneumonia because it didn’t get colostrum) has a very negative weaning weight! The number of live calves marketed will probably be greater from more efficient moderate size cows. And big, dummy calves that won’t get up and suck take more time and management, requiring more labor at calving,” says Westphal.

He’s had heifers with calves too big and bred them to easy-calving, low-birth weight bulls and they still had calves too big. “By about her third calf I’d cull her and look at her record and find she was over 100 pounds birthweight herself,” he says. No matter what you breed her too, a heifer that’s too big at birth will likely have a calf that’s too big. A lot of people don’t realize the cow contributes to birth weight of the calf and they generally blame a too-big calf (and calving problem) on the bull. But gestation length and calf size is just as important on the cow side.

Some people that breed big cattle think birth weight doesn’t matter if the calf is long and streamlined, but research has proven otherwise. Westphal points to the work done by Dr. Bellows during the 1980’s at the Miles City Research Station. “The number one reason for calving problems is birth weight. Even if a long lean calf is supposed to slide right out, he can still create calving problems due to a leg or head turned back,” says Westphal. Long limbs are more difficult to get into proper position for birth. When the cow starts labor there may not be enough room in the uterus for that big long-legged calf to straighten his legs.
A good way to make sure you don’t fall into the trap of keeping big heifers (or bulls) is to make note of the size/weight of every animal at birth. “When you tag that calf at birth, even if you don’t weigh it but just make a note on every one you know is too big, or notch its ear, then you’ll make no mistake at weaning time that this is one you should NOT keep, even if it’s the most beautiful animal in the weaning pen,” says Westphal. In a purebred herd, if any bull calf is over a certain size at birth it should become a steer. “If you put a rubber band on that calf at birth, there will be no mistake later,” he says.

Total Profitability
Ranchers often have trouble knowing whether they are actually making a profit, having a hard time separating the gross from the net. It’s not as important how many total dollars the calves bring when you sell them. What’s important is how much cost you have to deduct from that figure to see if you broke even, made a profit or went into the red. “It doesn’t really matter how big your cattle are, or how fast they can grow, or how pretty they are or what their breeding is, if they are not profitable,” says Pharo. “I believe most of a rancher’s profit or loss is made or lost within his own fences; he has more control over profitability than he thinks. Cow size and type, which has a huge impact on ranch profitability, is one thing a rancher has full control of,” he explains.

When ranchers started selecting for more growth and performance in calves, this increased the size of cows, while decreasing net profits. Pharo says he eventually took a hard look at some of his older grandma cows that had produced good calves for 10 to 16 years without missing a calf. “These were our most efficient and profitable cows. Their pedigrees and EPDs were not all that impressive, but they were making us money. Those good old grandma cows were considerably smaller than our younger cows,” he explains.

Westphal says almost all breeders tend to select replacement heifers on size. “We walk into a weaning pen and the biggest ones look the best, so they are kept to breed. They produce big calves and pretty soon all our cows are too big. We now have computers to keep track of our record data so there’s no excuse to keep doing this. We need to realize that if a heifer is in the upper 1/3 of the group in size, she’ll probably be too big as a cow. We should be keeping replacement heifers from the middle third. These will be more efficient cows that come home pregnant every year and produce a calf that will jump up and suck and reach puberty earlier and excel in the feedlot better than the oversize calf,” says Westphal.
“How many cows are you culling because they come up open or break down—they couldn’t hold up under conditions they are run in. There’s more breakdown in bigger cows because they are often not as structurally able to climb mountains and do their job in tough country and maintain good body condition,” says Westphal. A cow may have to travel more than a mile to water, for instance, and some are less apt to do it. Cows need to be athletic and size/structure is a factor. “With larger cows you are often culling them as 6 year olds or younger, rather than as teenagers,” he says. If a cow can’t hold up or comes up open after just a few years, you’ve wasted her potential and much of the investment you made in keeping her in the first place.

“If we’re in this business to make a profit, we need to concentrate on producing the most for the least—total ranch production, not individual weaning weights,” says Pharo. “Smaller cows will always produce more total pounds than larger cows, with the same inputs. Many people continue to miss this point. While they are busy increasing individual weaning weights, they are producing less total pounds and/or increasing feed expenses,” he says.
Westphal points out that some ranchers might be able to run 50 more cows but they choose instead to have bigger cattle so they can have higher individual weaning weights—and a more impressive average weight of the fewer calves produced or that survived to market age. The competition factor among ranchers often blinds them to the reality that smaller calves are more profitable (less open cows, more live calves at birth, less cost to feed a cow, more total pounds of calves sold every fall). Somehow pride enters the picture. Many ranchers feel their reputation would suffer if they were to wean smaller calves. But profitability is not how big each calf is, but what it cost to produce those calves. You can’t just look at weaning weights. You have to consider the number cows your ranch will run (and how many more it might support if they were optimum size), number of cows exposed to a bull versus how many actually had live calves that lived through weaning and were marketed, whether you had to purchase additional feed to support the cows, etc.

Pharo predicts the parameters for the commodity beef industry will soon be changing. “The current beef production model was built on cheap grain and cheap fuel, but these are things of the past. As we move away from our current corn-based system to a grass-based system, optimum cow size will be reduced even more,” he says. When cattle prices drop, which they always do, stockmen will have to seriously look at trying to raise efficient cattle that can thrive on a minimum of harvested feeds.

FRAME SCORE VERSUS BODY CONDITION
Some people confuse body weight (body condition—amount of flesh and fat on a cow) with frame score. You can’t determine frame score just by how much a cow weighs. You might have 2 cows that each weigh 1200 pounds but have totally different frame scores (hip height). A thin 1200 pound cow will be larger frame than a fat 1200 pound cow. “Some people have 6 frame cows that don’t weigh any more than my 3 frame cows,” says Pharo. “Their 6 frame cow at that weight is not pretty, and she’s probably open,” he says.

Westphal says you can’t automatically say all 1500 pound cows are too large because one might be a very obese frame 3.5 or 4 frame cow. “She might weigh 1200 pounds on my ranch but when she goes to lush California meadows and is up to her belly in grass she may put on that much extra weight,” he explains.

The difference in hip height between a frame 6 and a frame 3 cow is only about 6 inches, but they are completely different animals. The smaller frame cow is usually thicker and easier fleshing. Many people also don’t understand what a 2 or 3 frame cow is. “This is a 1000 or 1100 pound cow in average body condition,” says Pharo. “These are not miniature cows; they are precisely what all our ranches used to have a few years ago.” Many ranchers think their cows weigh about 1100 pounds, until they sell some—and realize their cows are bigger than they thought. Yet they keep buying 5 and 6 frame bulls and wondering why they now have 1400 pound cows.

CAN COWS BE TOO SMALL?
If smaller cows can produce more total pounds (on the same feed inputs) that are worth more per pound, some people ask how small they should go. Is there a point at which smaller cows cease to be more profitable than bigger ones? Most breeders say yes. There comes a point at which the calves are too small at finish and you have trouble marketing them.
Since nearly all cow-calf producers sell calves that must fit within the current parameters of the commodity beef industry, those calves will be discounted if they are too big or too small. “Therefore we can only reduce cow size to the point that our calves still fit the parameters of the existing corn-based commodity beef industry,” says Pharo. Smaller animals will work, however, in grass-fed beef operations.

“The best system for profitability might be a herd of extremely efficient 1 and 2 frame cows that are mated to 4 to 6 frame terminal sires. This may produce the ideal end product (if you can somehow minimize calving problems) but you can’t keep daughters out of this mating,” says Pharo. It is impossible to produce 3 and 4 frame cows with 5 and 6 frame bulls.

GENETICS AND EFFICIENCY—SIZE IS NOT THE ONLY THING IN THE EQUATION
Diana Anderson says that genetic efficiency is also important—the inherent makeup of that particular animal or family line. “I’ve seen proper size cows that are not efficient,” she says. They won’t hold up in flesh or can’t consistently bring home a good calf and breed back, or produce too much milk or not enough. Something is not quite right with that animal and it won’t make the top cut in your herd even though it might be the proper size.

She feels you have to know the strengths and weaknesses of every cow in your herd and cull or breed her accordingly—to a bull that will complement her and produce a better animal. You can make genetic improvement on a whole herd basis, but can do it more swiftly if you do it on an individual basis, optimizing the genetics of each cow. If you don’t know your cows individually you may make the mistake of keeping a heifer calf from one you shouldn’t, not remembering that the calf has a mama with a bad udder or came up open that fall because she couldn’t breed back.

“Some of my cow lines are incredibly efficient; they always produce well fleshed animals and always carry more weight than their herdmates,” says Anderson. This is why it’s wise to know the individual animals and the traits they pass to their offspring. Efficiency and fleshing ability are generally associated with the smaller animal than the larger one, but individual genetic traits can also be a factor.

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