Interesting longhorn read

[50/50Farms]

The adjacent 40 acres is coming up for auction. Our family used to hold the lease on it, my great uncle ran brimmer crosses on it. I don't think I'll be able to get up the money in time to really be competitive on it, but nobody that buys that place keeps it any longer than they'd keep a pair of shoes so I'll either wait until it comes up for sale again or work out a grazing lease on it if I can. It's worthless for anything other than plugging deer or grazing critters. It's rougher than all hell and I'm fairly confident that it never will be much more than that. That's strip mining for ya.

But that's one of my goals because as of new survey 84 acres of my place can be fenced and that would give me 124 acres of creek country in fence and boy howdy, I think I'd really be in the damn money then.

 

[Warren Allison]

70 or so in fence, more to be fenced on the N end one day.

You could probably run 50? $15k or so in cows, and even with a $5k bull ( That's a $100 a head to breed first time) , you looking at a $20k investment and will get a $37,500 to $50k crop of calves each year.

 

[50/50Farms]

You could probably run 50? $15k or so in cows, and even with a $5k bull ( That's a $100 a head to breed first time) , you looking at a $20k investment and will get a $37,500 to $50k crop of calves each year.

I was thinking maybe 25-30 at first until I do the work on the place I never should have trusted to anybody else and now isn't done. After I'm done with that, way more grass will be open.

 

[Warren Allison]

I was thinking maybe 25-30 at first until I do the work on the place I never should have trusted to anybody else and now isn't done. After I'm done with that, way more grass will be open.

30 on 70 acres in the south, you won't need any thing other than salt and minerals, then. Biggest capital outlay will be your working facility. Our corral is an old portable rodeo arena, 7' tall, heavy duty portable panels. We are never on foot or any kind of motorized vehicle ( 4 wheeler, side x side etc), everything is done horseback. You will probably want to do that too, and you know how to do it. Most Corrs you get around here will most likely been roped or used to raise ropers, and wil be used to being handled with horses. LH, Pineywoods, and Fla Cracker or Scrub cattle work just as well as Corrs, but hardly any of them are " horse broke" and lots of them are about half wild when you get them. Having a working pen or corral that they can't jump or run through, will help when you start getting them used to the horses. We still have the return, chute and header and heeler boxes in ours, in case we want to do some roping practice ever once in a while. But rarely do.

 

[50/50Farms]

30 on 70 acres in the south, you won't need any thing other than salt and minerals, then. Biggest capital outlay will be your working facility. Our corral is an old portable rodeo arena, 7' tall, heavy duty portable panels. We are never on foot or any kind of motorized vehicle ( 4 wheeler, side x side etc), everything is done horseback. You will probably want to do that too, and you know how to do it. Most Corrs you get around here will most likely been roped or used to raise ropers, and wil be used to being handled with horses. LH, Pineywoods, and Fla Cracker or Scrub cattle work just as well as Corrs, but hardly any of them are " horse broke" and lots of them are about half wild when you get them. Having a working pen or corral that they can't jump or run through, will help when you start getting them used to the horses. We still have the return, chute and header and heeler boxes in ours, in case we want to do some roping practice ever once in a while. But rarely do.

I have the materials available enough to build a decent working pen in the fenced field center chamber. Down in the corner. I have a small working pen down there for horses but it won't work for this. I was thinking I'd blind the alleys and make use of gates to close it off in sections kind of like we used to do on the other place. Horses I can do easily enough, though my wife and kids are still learning on all that. I was thinking I'd use some low input feeding and also let them in to graze what we plant for livestock down there, all in that center chamber, when I go down there to hunt. That way they can get used to me, everyone that comes down to hunt or help, and to our other vehicles and machines. My thinking is this will make them easier to work with no matter what I have available on any given day.

 

[crossbreed]

I would suggest Corr cows and Brangus or Ultrablack bulls, but what do I know about it?!!!

I've not tried the corr but started with big bodied lh. Crossed with angus, brangus, and charlais, but have never been able to get that 500 pound calf at winning time. May try some black Corriente in the future.

 

[Travlr]

I've not tried the corr but started with big bodied lh. Crossed with angus, brangus, and charlais, but have never been able to get that 500 pound calf at winning time. May try some black Corriente in the future.

I'd like to know if anyone else has experience running Corriente cows with any kind of European bull on them... and they've gotten 500 pounds at weaning. I gotta admit, I'm pretty skeptical.

What does a straight Corriente weigh at seven months?

 

[50/50Farms]

I'd like to know if anyone else has experience running Corriente cows with any kind of European bull on them... and they've gotten 500 pounds at weaning. I gotta admit, I'm pretty skeptical.

What does a straight Corriente weigh at seven months?

@tex452 might could help.

 

[tex452]

@tex452 might could help.

There's good producing cows in all breeds, we had some corriente cows that would raise really good calves and some not so good.
You have to cull like in every breed of cattle.

 

[Warren Allison]

I've not tried the corr but started with big bodied lh. Crossed with angus, brangus, and charlais, but have never been able to get that 500 pound calf at winning time. May try some black Corriente in the future.

I don't think the color of the Corr cow would affect the weaning weight. We see no difference in the calves as far as the color of the calf goes. I buy all the black ones I can get, because I can sell them for $800 to people that think it increases the odds of a black calf. If you use a homozygous black, though, that expense isn't necessary. For people using commercial, possibly heterozygous black bulls, or another color bull, then yes having the black Corrs would probably pay off.

 

[Travlr]

There's good producing cows in all breeds, we had some corriente cows that would raise really good calves and some not so good.
You have to cull like in every breed of cattle.

Yeah... but are we talking about 500 pound weaning weights?

What do straight Corriente wean at? What do the cows weigh at maturity? I've never owned any, but those I've seen wouldn't top (?) 800 pounds. Hard to believe a Corriente would wean anything much over 400 pounds, and that would be above average.

 

[tex452]

Yeah... but are we talking about 500 pound weaning weights?

What do straight Corriente wean at? What do the cows weigh at maturity? I've never owned any, but those I've seen wouldn't top (?) 800 pounds. Hard to believe a Corriente would wean anything much over 400 pounds, and that would be above average.

We weaned a heifer off of a small corriente cow last fall, it weighed 600 lbs, I would say 7 months old, the cow weighs around 650-700.
I never raised straight corriente, I bought heifers and put black/red angus and brangus bulls on them.
This is the little cow that we weaned a 600# heifer calf off of last year.
This is this year's calf.

 

[Travlr]

We weaned a heifer off of a small corriente cow last fall, it weighed 600 lbs, I would say 7 months old, the cow weighs around 650-700.
I never raised straight corriente, I bought heifers and put black/red angus and brangus bulls on them.
This is the little cow that we weaned a 600# heifer calf off of last year.
This is this year's calf.

Okay... so you are working with animals that are already crossbreds.

I'd still like to know what a straight bred Corriente weighs when mature on average and what a straight bred Corriente calf weighs at weaning on average (and for that matter the range). If anyone knows, please chime in.

Edit: When I google it they say yearlings average 400.

 

[Travlr]

Really hoping someone with experience chimes in...

What does a straight bred Corriente cow weigh when mature on average and what does a straight bred Corriente calf weigh at weaning on average (and for that matter the range).

When I google it they say yearlings average 400.

I have no doubt that Corrientes will thrive on bad ground, but I'm skeptical of advice about buying them to run bigger bulls on and harvesting 500# calves without any inputs.

 

[Warren Allison]

Mature Corriente cows may weigh 800 or more. We don't wean at 7 mos, we wean at 6 mos. Last crop, 2021, the smallest heifer was 438, and the largest steer was 520+, 524 I think. We had this herd calving in February, and we sold them at the end of August. Some calves born 1st of Feb would be nearly 7 mos old, and the ones born toward the end would be barely 6 mos old then. IF someone used the quality of bulls we used, and IF the cows grazed on 25% protein forage as ours do, then these weaning weights should be achievable for experienced cattlemen.

 

[Travlr]

Mature Corriente cows may weigh 800 or more. We don't wean at 7 mos, we wean at 6 mos. Last crop, 2021, the smallest heifer was 438, and the largest steer was 520+, 524 I think. We had this herd calving in February, and we sold them at the end of August. Some calves born 1st of Feb would be nearly 7 mos old, and the ones born toward the end would be barely 6 mos old then. IF someone used the quality of bulls we used, and IF the cows grazed on 25% protein forage as ours do, then these weaning weights should be achievable for experienced cattlemen.

Yeah, I've read your story many times. Now I'm looking for anyone else with experience.

 

[50/50Farms]

Yeah, I've read your story many times. Now I'm looking for anyone else with experience.

Well, I'm not him but Tex's corrientes he's talking about aren't crossed before he breeds them. You can see in his pictures that the one we spoke of earlier is just a regular corriente cow.

 

[crossbreed]

Well, I'm not him but Tex's corrientes he's talking about aren't crossed before he breeds them. You can see in his pictures that the one we spoke of earlier is just a regular corriente cow.

We've got someone local here who runs probably 50-60 black corrs that I see on the highway all the time. I need to pay attention to the bull and calf sizes

 

[Travlr]

Well, I'm not him but Tex's corrientes he's talking about aren't crossed before he breeds them. You can see in his pictures that the one we spoke of earlier is just a regular corriente cow.

Well this is what he said, "I never raised straight corriente,", so just going by what he wrote.

Pretty hard to tell from a picture what the cow and bull were that produced the animal in the pic.

 

[50/50Farms]

Well this is what he said, "I never raised straight corriente,", so just going by what he wrote.

Yeah, because buying a cow and breeding her isn't raising her. If you buy a corriente and you throw a beefmaster on her, you aren't raising straight corriente, you are raising the cross.