John Sides has been raising cattle a long time on his ranch near Smithwick, S.D. He has developed a cow herd that requires very little labor or input costs. Part of this success is due to the way he selects replacement heifers to be efficient and trouble-free cows.

“We pick replacements when they are 1 to 2 days old,” he says, acknowledging most cattlemen select heifers at weaning or when they sell calves.

Sides says there are many reasons to select replacements at birth. It’s the best time to see the cow, to know if she has any traits you don’t want to perpetuate in a daughter. You get a clue to her disposition and can also see what her udder is like when she calves. For spring calvers, almost every cow has nice teats in the fall, because the calf has been sucking them. When she calves, however, she might have big, fat, too-long teats that a newborn calf would have trouble latching onto. You also know if she calved early, at the start of calving season, rather than late.

Some cows might be too big, Sides says.

“We bought some cows several years ago that made our cows look small. We still have a few of those left. They are good-quality cows, but I never keep a heifer from them because they are too big,” he says. Getting a good look at the cow when she calves is the best time to evaluate everything about her, including her conformation.

A day-old calf is very easy to evaluate, because there’s not a lot of fat covering her skeletal structure. You can readily judge leg angles, slope of the pelvis (tipped up or down), back line, etc. When that calf is older, with a lot of baby fat, it’s harder to evaluate actual conformation.

You can also look at her little udder to see if she will have long teats or if she has extra teats.