Culling and replacement rates are the two numbers that will impact the base cow herd. These numbers are shifted as managers determine how to fit cattle to given resources. The rates are the foundation to expanding and contracting cattle numbers.
Knowing one's culling and replacement rates and relating those numbers to industry numbers is important. The North Dakota Beef Cattle Improvement Association keeps track of many traits for producers through the CHAPS program.
Since 1990, the typical culling rate has been 14.1 percent, while the typical replacement rate has been 17.8 percent.
For more than 20 years of the CHAPS program, producers have encountered many challenges in the beef business. If the word "optimistic" is correct, the most optimistic year resulted in replacing cattle at more than 21 percent of the herd, while more conservative times are reflected in a low replacement rate of just less than 15 percent.
Likewise, the culling rate has been at a low of just more than 10 percent and at a high of just less than 17 percent. Herds are very resilient because they contract and expand as outside forces dictate.
The replacement rate is the number of bred replacement heifers or purchased cows that are kept. The culling rate is the number of cows that are removed from the herd. For more than 20 years, only once has the culling rate exceeded the replacement rate. In other words, through good times and bad times, producers are optimistic and have replaced at a greater percentage than they have culled.
Typically, for CHAPS herds, cull cows and bulls and market heifers make up approximately 50 percent of the annual paycheck, with 30 percent from the value of the heifer calves and 20 percent from the value of the cows and bulls.
What is interesting, at least at today's market values and using the CHAPS benchmarks, is that a 100-cow herd would sell 31 heifers and 14 cows. So, how do producers respond to drought once all the male calves have been sold or moved?
The answer is in the ratio of replacement heifers and cull market cows. Do we need to keep the replacement heifers? Do we need to sell cull cows?
If we assign a value of $750 to market heifers and $1,000 to market cows and use those values to measure the impact of culling and replacement rates, we can calculate some impacts. In a typical year, a producer with 100 cows would sell
14 cows for $14,000 and 31 heifers for $23,250. This gives us a total of $37,250 in female cattle sales.
In a dry year, such as this year, producers minimize the replacement rate.