When I first started ranching forty years ago, my biggest pet peeve was bulls that sired cows with horrible udders. I remember using a couple of very popular AI sires that consistently produced bad-uddered first-calf heifers. Unfortunately, it takes at least three years to identify this problem. These bulls had been in use for several years. I don’t know why they had not already been turned into ground beef.
I hate bad-uddered cows! From the very beginning, we scored all our heifers and cows for udder conformation within 12 hours of giving birth. That is a big step in the right direction – but it only solves half the problem. We will never make any lasting improvement until we stop using bulls that sire bad-uddered females.
To my knowledge, Pharo Cattle Company® is the only bull producer that provides an udder score for the mothers of the bulls they sell. We think this is very important information for our customers to have.