 I'm Kevin Tucker with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System. Here today I want to talk a little bit about some considerations for starting marketing replacement females. We're at Johnston Brangus Kettle today in Lita Hatchie, Alabama, and thought this would be a good scene for us to talk about selling replacement quality heifers. The first consideration I want to talk about is starting off with quality females. When you start choosing the heifers you plan to breed for marketing, you certainly want to start with the quality heifers you have. These heifers from your high-producing cows in your herd, they need to be the heifers keeping cows, have longevity in them, and they come from dams that are good milkers. Another important point when you start selecting heifers you want to keep to breed will be selecting heifers that come from the front end of your cabin season and those that are born close together. This will help you with your management programs as you go through the breeding process. The older heifers will have a better tendency to breed, you'll get a higher conception rate with those heifers, and you'll have a whole overall easier management program managing groups of heifers that are of the same age. Another consideration I think is really important in marketing replacement females is the ability to group heifers that fit together. Factors for this can include obviously frame and weight and size, the type and kind, but give some consideration to grouping the cattle in match colors. Another really important factor is grouping them into expected calving ranges. Buyers are a lot more interested in buying cattle that'll have their calves all in a tight window, and it's important to make sure that you get your pregnancy checking done. Do this so they can be done with blood tests or palpation by a veterinarian, but keep a good set of records as you get these pregnancy dates and it'll help you sort the cattle into groups to help you market. Major consideration in developing a marketing program is when you get ready to breed the heifers, always be sure to choose a service sire that is certainly cavities, that's going to be your first objective, but with the data we have on our sires now that it's always possible to get cavities in a bull as well as a lot of growth, this will help you as you market your heifers, the buyers will know that they've got calves coming to them that will be heavy weighing at the end and not just low, low birth weight.