Replacement Heifers: Raise or Buy, Target Weights and Feed

By the XES Netting team — bale net-wrap manufacturer · Updated October 10, 2026 · ~19 min read

Replacement heifers are the slowest decision in a cow herd: a heifer calf you keep this fall will not wean a calf of her own until the fall of 2028. In 2026 they are also some of the most argued-over cattle in the country, because cattle prices are at record highs. USDA’s July Cattle report counted 3.80 million beef replacement heifers, up 3% from a year earlier, while beef cow numbers were still down 1%. Every weaning season AgTalk works through the same questions: keep the heifers or sell them at record prices, raise them or buy them bred, how many to hold back, and how to grow them on hay without spoiling them.

This guide is for cow-calf producers deciding whether to keep, buy or sell heifers and how to develop the ones they keep. It is not veterinary, financial, tax or insurance advice: vaccination, reproductive tract scoring and any synchronization drugs belong with your veterinarian, and risk-management products with a licensed agent. XES manufactures bale net wrap, and most replacement heifers spend their first winter on round-baled hay, so we put the development plan in bales. We read 46 archived AgTalk discussions about replacement heifers, heifer retention and bred-heifer prices (1,092 posts, September 2022 to April 2026) and checked them against Extension research from Nebraska, South Dakota State, Florida, Arkansas and North Dakota State and USDA data.

Heifer retention in 2026

The national numbers moved only slightly. In the July 24, 2026 Cattle report, USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service put beef replacement heifers at 3.80 million on July 1, up 3%, beef cows at 28.5 million, down 1%, and the 2026 calf crop at 32.5 million, down 2%. The University of Florida’s Range Cattle Research and Education Center, in The Costs & Future Contribution of Replacement Heifers (June 2026), noted that the year began with 4.7 million replacement heifers, “the first slight increase in nine years,” and that a heifer retained this fall “will not start contributing to beef production until late 2028-early 2029.”

At the sale barn, the change showed up as heifers closing the gap on steers:

"My salebarn auctioneer/promotion speaker have been pushing 5 wt pretty black heifers as replacements the last 6 weeks. And the girls are pulling down the value per head within $100 of similar wt steers. Just before this time, heifers were a $3-400 discount to steers."

— Doug61, Eastern NE KS · AgTalk thread 1230582

Policy followed the market. In September 2025 an AgTalk thread chased a sale-barn rumor of government payments to keep heifers; one reply called it “misinformation spread on social media.” A year later the idea took a different form. USDA’s Ranchers First initiative said a Livestock Risk Protection policy would be developed to protect a heifer’s value based on her expected slaughter value at enrollment, to “insure the economic value of retaining a heifer for breeding over a two-year period.” As of a September 15, 2026 report by DTN, that was the only public text about the program, and the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association told DTN it opposes market-altering government programs while it looks for a voluntary tool that works for producers. Ask an LRP agent what is actually available before counting on it.

Producers also warned that high prices bring out heifers that should never have been bred:

"I have been watching for signs of heifer retention and the willingness to breed poor quality heifers. I think we are there as of this week at least in this immediate area. Going to be some heifers for sale this fall and winter that should not have seen a bull."

— Simocattle, Central SD · AgTalk thread 1229136

Raise or buy: the replacement heifer math

Raising a heifer costs less cash than buying one, but it is not cheap. The biggest cost is the check you do not cash: her value as a feeder at weaning. Add a year of feed, breeding, health and the heifers that fail to settle, and compare the total with what a bred heifer of the same kind costs.

"600# heifer this fall is worth what? $2000-$2400? So, let's use $2200. What does it cost to take them from this fall to next fall when they are a bred heifer? $1,000? $1,250? $2200 plus $1250 is $3450. Are you going to be able to buy the kind of heifer you like for $3450 next fall?"

— Phil A., Western Ohio · AgTalk thread 1211353

The other side of the comparison is the bred-heifer market. AgTalk producers posted what they saw at sales and private treaty as prices climbed:

These are single sales and regions reported at the time, not market averages. For a ceiling on what a bred heifer is worth to your operation, University of Arkansas economists James Mitchell and Ryan Loy built a free Beef Cow and Heifer Investment Analysis dashboard, described in the Ohio BEEF Cattle Letter in July 2026. Under its default assumptions (92% weaning rate, 520-lb calves, $1,100 annual cow cost, an 8% return and an 8-year productive life) the most a producer could pay was $5,018 a head. Change one assumption and the answer moves, which is the point of running your own numbers.

What the numbers leave out

Producers who raise their own heifers rarely argue on price alone:

"Can’t put a price on raising your own. Only way to know what you are getting. I keep heifers every year to cover opens and maybe add a few to the numbers. I know the genetics behind them and to me that is worth more than saving some money buying who knows what at the barn."

— bacon, SC North Dakota · AgTalk thread 1095310

A Michigan producer who had bought bred cows, bred heifers and open heifers “never really had good luck with them,” and suspected that “people generally sell off their lower quality animals and keep their super stars.” A north-central Kansas producer would not buy bred heifers “from someone who has never calved heifers or calves.” Buying still works for some. A Missouri producer who sold 90% of the cow herd and bought bred heifers instead reported in October 2024: “I've calved 200 and pulled one calf so far.” The same operation buys North Dakota heifers that are “guaranteed AI bred to calve in a two week window,” with a seller warranty that credits back heifers that fail to mother up. A southeast Montana rancher runs the opposite system:

"Our system is not the normal, we run short term cows, buy all of our replacements. Our herd is old, and very profitable. From what we have seen the past few years, there’s almost no way we would ever go back to raising our own replacements as it is cost prohibitive."

— dieselfume1, SE MT · AgTalk thread 1174761

Raising also builds a delay into the plan. Florida’s analysis notes that a purchased bred heifer can produce a calf in three to six months, while a retained weaned heifer takes roughly a year and a half; that wait is the extra $2,000 to $2,500 of foregone income in its example.

How many replacement heifers to keep

Start with the cows you expect to cull, then add heifers for the ones that will not breed or will not make it. Florida’s guidance is to retain more heifers than you need, because some will not conceive or will be culled, and Nebraska Extension’s Reducing Replacement Heifer Development Costs Using a Systems Approach (G2215, Aaron Berger and Rick Funston) says the same for low-input programs and adds that open heifers grown that way “can be a profitable commodity as they can be marketed as feeders.”

The table divides the bred heifers you need by the pregnancy rate you expect and allows another 3% for deaths and structural culls, rounded up. To grow the herd, add the extra cows you want. The pregnancy rates match the research below: about 85% for heifers developed to 60% to 65% of mature weight and about 80% at 55%.

On AgTalk the answers ranged from “one heifer for every 6-7 cows” (northeast Iowa) to “15-20 % every yr” among one Montana producer’s neighbors and 20% “just to stay at same herd numbers” in central Saskatchewan. An Idaho rancher described the common version:

"I like to keep 10% for replacements myself. That means keeping just a few more heifers over the 10% to cover for opens or other problems. Anything like that can be sold as yearlings which will never hurt you, especially since you mention you have pasture for them."

— ICC, deep in the southeastern corner of Idaho · AgTalk thread 1174761

Skipping years has its own cost. A Kansas producer who saved no heifers when prices were high two or three years earlier, then sold off older cows, wrote in February 2026 that “A year from now 60% of our cows will be less than 3.3 years old.” Consistency is the other way to run it. An Alberta rancher keeps the top two-thirds of the heifer crop every year, runs a 23-day breeding season and sells any that do not settle: “We usually end up keeping about 40 to 45 percent of our heifer crop as bred heifers. The markets change nothing in our world.”

Picking replacement heifers at weaning

South Dakota State University’s Managing Reproduction in Replacement Heifers (Michael Smith and George Perry) gives the short list for weaning day: heifers that are structurally sound, older and heavier, and that did not get a growth-promoting implant within 30 days of birth, which can lower later pregnancy rates. Age matters because early calvers stay: in South Dakota data, heifers that calved in the first 21 days of their first calving season lasted 5.1 years in the herd on average, against 3.9 years for later calvers. A Manitoba rancher made the same point from the other end:

"The other thing is to make sure that those heifers were born early on in calving, as two or three weeks of age can make a big difference come breeding time."

— northerngrazer, MB, Canada · AgTalk thread 1140772

Beyond birth date, producers sorted on the dam and the disposition. A northeast Missouri producer’s advice was “Find hfs out of maternal genetics,” because a good-looking set of feeder heifers may be out of terminal genetics rather than maternal ones; a Wisconsin producer wrote “My best replacements come out of my original cows.” Several hold the decision until midwinter. A Montana rancher with 50 to 60 cows will “hold all heifer calves til late January/early February to let them grow some then decide who stays and goes.” Our weaning guide covers getting heifer calves through weaning onto hay and a bunk, and the backgrounding guide covers the feeder heifers you do not keep.

Target weights: how big at breeding

The old rule was 60% to 65% of mature weight by the start of breeding. Nebraska research since then shows lighter targets can work, at a modest cost in heifer pregnancy rates. A University of Nebraska–Lincoln analysis of 1,434 March- and May-calving heifers and cows from 2005 through 2019 at the Gudmundsen Sandhills Laboratory, summarized in BeefWatch in 2024, found:

Weight at breeding had no effect on pregnancy rates as 3-, 4- and 5-year-olds, and the authors advised developing heifers to fit the operation’s goals “rather than striving for a specific target weight.” G2215 reaches the same place: heifers at 50% to 57% of mature weight can still reach 80% to 95% pregnancy in a 45- to 70-day season if they are in positive energy balance before and through breeding. It also warns against the other extreme. Heifers fed to a body condition score of 7 or more at first breeding may need that much fat to breed back as 2- and 3-year-olds, while heifers bred at condition 5 are more likely to conceive at condition 5 later. South Dakota State adds the second target: about 85% of mature weight at first calving.

Not every producer is convinced by the lighter targets. The Manitoba rancher quoted above said there is “a harsh dropoff below 60%” and warned that a heifer has to reach 85% to 90% of mature weight before calving, “because she's sure not going to do it after she calves.” Another producer in the same thread recalled a study showing heifers could get bred “quite well without the holy grail 60-65% mature size body weight,” provided they were “on an upward plain of nutrition though the last 60 or so days.” Both views have support: in the Nebraska data, pregnancy rates held up at 55% of mature weight but slipped at 50%, and G2215 says lighter heifers work only when nutrition is rising into breeding and they keep growing afterward.

To use any of this you need your cows’ real mature weight. The Alberta rancher quoted earlier weighs the cows three times a year, at weaning, before calving and at spring processing, and sees “200 to 400 Lb weight differences” depending on fill, stage of pregnancy and condition: “Any 1100 Lb cow can also be a 1500 or 1600 lb cow.” Weigh a few mature cows in moderate condition before you set a target.

Weaning in mid-October and breeding in mid-May is about 212 days; adjust for your calendar. The targets in the table call for 0.5 to 1.4 lb of gain a day, and your hay test decides how much of that the hay can supply on its own.

What to feed replacement heifers through winter

North Dakota State University’s Janna Block uses 2.5% of body weight as a planning estimate of daily dry-matter needs for each class of cattle, including yearling heifers, in Now is the time to estimate winter hay needs. At that rate a heifer eats about 14 lb of dry matter a day at 550 lb and 16.5 to 21 lb at breeding weight, roughly 16 to 25 lb a day of hay at 85% dry matter. Applied to the targets above, a heifer growing from 550 lb to 660 to 845 lb over 212 days eats about 3.1 to 3.6 bales of 1,200-lb hay at 85% dry matter, or about 3.6 to 4.2 bales offered once you add NDSU’s 15% loss allowance. Plan on roughly 360 to 420 bales for every 100 heifers if hay supplies the whole ration, fewer if a supplement replaces some of it. Our hay intake guide explains why 2.5% is an estimate and how to refine it.

The ration that came up most often on AgTalk was simple: free-choice hay, 4 to 6 lb a day of something extra, and mineral. One northeastern Kansas producer suggests 4 to 5 lb of an 18% calf starter; an Ohio producer suggested 4 lb of whole shelled corn and 1 lb of a 35% beef pellet; an eastern Kansas drylot starts heifers at 5 lb of a ground corn, distillers grain and alfalfa mix, about 15% protein, working up to 8 to 10 lb by spring. The Montana rancher who holds heifer calves until February shared both the recipe and the result:

"the recipe is free choice grass hay, start them on 5#/hd/day bull/calf pellets and top dress with medicated crumbles for coccidiosis prevention (21st regime). By time the 21 days has come, I’ve transitioned over to 6#/hd/day whole oats from the pellets. Free choice mineral and salt. I’ve had good success with this; 2022 results were 19/21 bred, with 3 in 3rd cycle and 4 in second (54 day exposure to 2 yearling bulls)."

— tbeck, Culbertson, MT · AgTalk thread 1140772

How much supplement you need depends on the hay, which is why the same thread kept coming back to testing:

"It’s around $30 per sample to test hay. I composite sample 4 random bales in each group of bales to see what I have. 5% protein hay probably isn’t going to do those replacements much good compared to 15-20% protein hay. If your hay has enough protein you shouldn’t need to feed additional protein (expensive) sources."

— JAnderson, McCanna, ND · AgTalk thread 1140772

A Michigan producer answering a heifer-ration question put it more simply: “I'd start with a hay test and build a ration off that. Don't guess, test.” Our hay test guide explains what the protein and energy numbers mean for growing cattle, and the supplement comparison and winter mineral guide cover what to add. G2215 cautions that heifers on low-quality forage often need protein, but that excess protein when energy is short can hurt reproduction just before and during breeding. It also notes that ionophores approved for growing heifers can add 0.1 to 0.2 lb of gain a day; ask your nutritionist.

Drylot or low-input development

G2215 compares the two systems. Heifers developed on crop residue or native range at low rates of gain made compensatory gain on better spring forage, and when that higher gain coincided with breeding it appeared to help conception. Heifers grown fast in a drylot through winter often stalled or lost weight for several days when turned onto grass just before or during breeding. Low-input heifers also learn to graze the forage they will eat as cows. Producers in that camp described similar results:

"They get developed on cornstalks very low input. Breed 45 days and I only keep the first cycle breds. Sell the late breds and opens. … I don’t have stellar Preg rates on those heifers. However, they really shine on their second preg check. If they make it in they rarely come up open."

— RSG, Central Nebraska · AgTalk thread 1174761

A southwest Minnesota producer put the philosophy bluntly: “treat them like cows and they'll become cows.” Our guides to grazing or baling cornstalks, stockpiled forage and bale grazing cover the low-input feeds. Whichever system you use, feed heifers in a bale feeder that limits waste, pull every strand of net wrap before bales go in a feeder or grinder (our guide to cattle eating net wrap explains why calves and weaned heifers are at higher risk than mature cows), and keep water open through the winter with the methods in our winter water guide.

Breeding heifers and selling the opens

South Dakota State recommends a prebreeding exam four to six weeks before breeding, with prebreeding vaccines and a veterinarian’s reproductive tract score, and wants at least half the heifers scoring 4 or 5 (cycling). It recommends starting heifers two to three weeks ahead of the cows and using sires selected for calving ease, and it warns that heifers that conceive late in the season may not have enough time to rebreed. A short exposure lets the heifers sort themselves:

"expose to a bull for a short 30 days. Pull the heifers from the bull, and preg check them after another 40 days. Keep the pregnant heifers sell the open 1 or 2. The opens should bring more dollars per head as yearling than today."

— Doug61, Eastern NE KS · AgTalk thread 1223537

Reported results show what a short season costs and saves. The northeastern Kansas producer described a neighbor who exposed 53 spring-born heifers to two bulls for 30 days and found 39 bred; the 14 opens went with bulls for 65 days to calve in the fall, and 12 of those settled. The Alberta rancher quoted earlier runs a 23-day season, sends anything open to the feedlot and expects “a 70 percent catch in 23 days.” Bulls need planning too. The Manitoba rancher’s advice: “don't forget a backup bull--you'll only make that mistake once.” Our preg-checking guide covers when and how to check heifers and what to do with the opens.

If the heifers will be bred in late summer on native range where forage quality is falling, G2215 reports that 1 lb a day of a 30% crude protein cube containing an ionophore produced 20% to 25% greater pregnancy rates in one study.

The first calf and the second breeding

The hardest test for a replacement is not the first breeding but the second, while she is still growing and nursing her first calf. Nationally, only 83% of heifers produced a calf in 2017 compared with 93.5% of cows, according to the University of Florida’s analysis of the USDA NAHMS Beef 2017 survey (AN379). G2215 wants first-calf heifers at body condition 5 or better at calving, and it notes that low-input heifers need adequate nutrition from breeding through calving to make the compensatory gain that lets them calve and rebreed.

"Breed back can be rough, and that is another thing you figure out with time. I believe you want to supplement them until they are close to their mature weight, it is hard for them to have enough energy to milk and grow at the same time… unless you have very good grass/forage."

— nkline, West Central Iowa · AgTalk thread 1109155

A southeast Nebraska producer who needs only a handful summed up the risk: “Big money big risk. Always challenging to get them to catch the second year.” Penning first-calf heifers apart from mature cows, as North Dakota State recommends in our drylot guide, keeps them from losing out at the bunk. The good ones repay it. A North Dakota producer reported this spring: “I have 3 heifers out of the first 95 to calve this year that won't be cows.”

Frequently asked questions

How much does it cost to raise a replacement heifer?

A University of Florida example from June 2026 put direct costs at about $3,028 per bred heifer: her $2,226 value at weaning, $350 to $800 of development, breeding and the cost of heifers that came up open. Counting the extra year before her first calf, the investment came closer to $5,000 to $5,500 a head.

Is it cheaper to raise or buy replacement heifers?

It depends on your development cost against the price of comparable bred heifers. AgTalk producers reported bred heifers at $3,500 to $4,500 in late 2025 and early 2026, and a University of Arkansas tool’s default breakeven was $5,018. Raising wins with cheap feed and known genetics; buying gets a calf a year sooner.

What weight should replacement heifers be at breeding?

Most programs aim for 55% to 65% of mature cow weight at breeding. In University of Nebraska data, heifers at 55% had an 80% pregnancy rate against 85% at 65%, with no difference once they were 3 to 5 years old. They should reach about 85% of mature weight by first calving.

How much hay does a replacement heifer eat?

Using North Dakota State’s planning estimate of 2.5% of body weight a day as dry matter, a 550-lb weaned heifer eats about 14 lb of dry matter a day, rising to 18 lb at 720 lb. Over a 212-day winter that is roughly 3.3 round bales of 1,200 lb at 85% dry matter, or 3.8 with a 15% loss allowance.

How many replacement heifers should I keep?

Keep enough to replace the cows you cull plus extras for heifers that will not breed. A 100-cow herd culling 15 cows a year with an 85% heifer pregnancy rate needs about 19 heifer calves. AgTalk producers commonly keep back 10% to 20% of cow numbers, then sell the opens as feeders.

The bottom line on replacement heifers

Replacement heifers pay when you keep the right ones and grow them for your ground: price the heifer you are keeping at what she would bring today, add a year of feed and the opens, and compare that with the bred heifers you could buy. Pick early-born heifers from your best cows, keep a few extra, test your hay and grow them steadily to 55% to 65% of mature weight, breed them short and early, and sell the ones that do not settle while yearling prices are strong. Most of that development runs on round bales through the winter, so the hay has to keep its quality from the field to the feeder: XES bale net wrap holds bales tight in storage, and wrap that comes off in one piece is wrap that stays out of young cattle.

Research note: We read 46 archived AgTalk discussions about replacement heifers, heifer retention and bred-heifer prices (1,092 posts, September 2022 to April 2026), set aside vaccine, drug and political arguments, then checked the linked Extension, USDA and news sources on October 10, 2026. Post counts include questions and replies, not counts of farms, and prices are single reports from the time and place given, not market averages. Tables marked as XES calculations use the cited rates and stated assumptions. XES sells bale net wrap and does not endorse any breed, feed, insurance product or seller; nothing here is veterinary, financial or tax advice.

Featured photograph: Shorthorn heifers eating hay, Cavalryman, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Shorthorn heifers eating hay in Victoria, Australia, February 2019. Image unchanged apart from display resizing.