KaliberBeef
Rearing precocious heifers with the right approach
Fabiano Alvim Barbosa
Product Developer Ruminants
KaliberBeef: a rearing and gestation plan
Optimise your heifers' performance
Get in touch with our experts
Different nutritional needs at each stage of life
As a beef farmer, your aim is to reduce the heifer’s age at first calving and improve fertility rates by increasing the average daily gain of your replacement heifers. How can you optimise each stage of your heifers' life to ensure better performance and raise precocious animals?
KaliberBeef: a rearing and gestation plan
The De Heus’ Kaliber Beef Plan helps to optimise your heifers’ average daily gain and pregnancy rates by defining the best nutritional approach and management strategies during the rearing and gestation phases. This allows your heifers to enjoy superior growth conditions, increasing their performance and reducing their calving age to 21-24 months.
Our plan will help you:
- Increase average daily gain after weaning
- Reduce age at first calving to 21-24 months
- Produce ‘precocious’ heifers
- Increase pregnancy rate at first calving
- Increase economic and biological efficiency of the system
Improving your year-round approach
Each heifer requires specific amounts of energy, protein, minerals and vitamins, depending on its stage in the reproductive cycle. It is essential to support these nutritional requirements with the right quality and availability of grass, as well as the recommended supplements.
Discover the full range of KaliberBeef productsAffecting future growth and development of offspring
The importance of cow nutrition should not be underestimated when rearing heifers. Providing supplementation (optimal nutrition) during gestation activates a higher growth potential for the cow's offspring. After birth, we can modify fat and muscle development at certain points, but the main impact on offspring will be the result of maternal nutrition! For more information, see our Reprobeef cow-calf plan.
Goals for an efficient heifer system
Our tailor-made Kaliber Beef Plan provides a set of goals to meet the precise requirements of your heifer, from rearing all the way through to calving. It increases profitability by improving heifer fertility and increasing the number of high-quality calves per year.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
We have the answers to your questions
By tailoring your nutritional strategy to the breed, season and heifer phases, you can optimise weight gain and pregnancy rates.
Learn more about optimising your heifers’ performanceThe age of the heifer at puberty varies according to farm management and is influenced by breed, weight and body condition scores, nutritional management and health, among other factors.
Learn more about the factors that influence performanceYour heifers require specific amounts of energy, protein, minerals and vitamins, depending on where they are in the reproductive cycle. For the best results combine these nutritional requirements with the optimal grass quality and availability, as well as the recommended supplements to increase your heifers performance.
Learn more about nutritional factorsSeveral studies have evaluated the effects of supplementing beef cows during gestation. In these studies, weaning weights were higher for female calves born to cows that received optimal nutrition via supplementation during gestation. Heifers also had higher pregnancy rates.
Learn more about foetal programming
