We feed both dairy and beef type cattle. Our dairy type cattle, Holsteins are almost exclusively steers because most Holstein heifers are kept on the dairy to become milk cows. On the other end of the spectrum, we feed a lot more beef type heifers because not all beef heifers are needed to be kept back as cows each year. The decision to breed a heifer versus feed-out a heifer is largely made when you consider that heifer's genetics. She has to have the right genetics to do well as a cow, just like she has to have the right genetics to perform in the feedlot. 

Heifers in the Feedlot.

When we have heifers arrive at our feedlot the first thing we do is give them Lutalyse. Lutalyse is a prostaglandin that causes the heifer to abort her pregnancy if she happens to be bred. If the heifer was running with her momma cow in a herd that contained a bull, there is always some chance that she came into heat early enough to be bred by the bull. If the heifer is not pregnant (which most of them are not) Lutalyse has no ill effect on them. 

Why we don't want calves born.

You may think that terminating all pregnancies is a bad idea, after all, we only had to buy the heifer so wouldn't we love an essentially free calf? While a free calf would be nice, a feedlot heifer pregnancy has a high chance of being fatal. A heifer grown to have calves is fed significantly different than a heifer grown to yield meat. You need a heifer to be at the correct weight and have a frame large enough that she can safely deliver a calf without it getting stuck. While we do focus on growing good frames on our beef cattle, we only focus on it for a relatively short period of time so that we know the animal has the ability to support themselves when they reach a target finished weight. A feedlot heifer has too much fat and does not have the bone structure to safely deliver a calf, which can result in the death of the heifer and her calf. 

 Our rations are specifically designed for cattle to gain as much weight as they can at each life stage. We do not want our beef heifers to be pregnant because we are not growing our beef heifers to be able to handle pregnancy successfully. By removing all chance of pregnancy we know we are helping our heifers do the very best they can at the job they were specifically bred and fed for: feeding the world.