Cost-effective production is key to profitability. Healthy, well-developed heifers pay back their growing costs sooner when they go into the milking parlor.

Whether you raise 'em or buy 'em, dairy heifers aren't cheap. In today's market, a well-developed Holstein heifer in mid-gestation will sell on the high side of $1,500.

If you need replacements in your dairy herd, she should be worth more than that to the producer who raises her. But she'll cost about $1,200 by the time she calves as a 2-year-old, observed Dr. Alan Wessler, director of MFA feed marketing. If a heifer calves the first time at 30 months, you can add another $100 or more to the bill.

Healthy, well-developed heifers pay back their growing costs sooner when they go into the milking parlor, too. Wessler noted that each additional pound of milk a cow produces during her peak (about 60 to 70 days after freshening) boosts the milk she will produce during the entire lactation by 220 pounds.

"With milk priced at $12 per hundredweight, what if a cow gained 11 pounds in peak milk yield?" he asked. "That would be an extra 2,420 pounds of milk for the lactation, and it would mean an additional $290.40 per cow."

"The overall goal for a replacement program should be to cost-effectively raise a heifer that will, as a cow, produce milk to her genetic potential," said Dr. Mike VandeHaar, Michigan State University dairy specialist.

Speaking at the 2002 MFA Dairy Innovators Seminar in Lebanon, Mo., VandeHaar outlined key elements of a good heifer program:

1. Well-developed udder. Don't feed heifers to grow too fast and become fat.
2. Adequate body size. The biggest decision on heifer size at calving is: How big is she when bred?
3. Proper body condition. Avoid getting heifers too fat or too skinny.
4. Keep them healthy. Use good close-up management at calving time.

"The optimal body weight before first calving should be about 1,350 to 1,400 pounds," VandeHaar added. "After she calves, a heifer should weigh about 1,250 pounds, or 80 to 90 percent of her mature weight."

"Begin with the desired end in mind and work backward," suggested Wessler.

"To make that kind of weight gain, heifers cannot be neglected at any time from birth to calving," said VandeHaar. "You want them to grow but not become too fat. Fat body condition may be a better predictor of a heifer's impaired mammary development than is rapid body growth. And adequate protein is critical, especially between 4 and 8 months of age, for mammary development. Where protein is concerned, err on the high side to ensure sound structural growth and mammary development."

He suggests making a mark on the wall at 51 inches high, or hanging a bar at that height under which heifers will walk.

"Heifers should be bred by size, not age, and that height indicates breeding size for Holsteins," said VandeHaar. "If more than 20 percent of the heifers reach breeding size earlier than 13 months, they may be growing too fast. Re-check the feeding program.

"It's worth the money to spend enough to grow heifers properly," he added. "Those heifers are your future; they're the next team in the milk barn. Watch the heifers, not the computer."