Longhorn cross

[Ky hills]

Are you able to run more cows per acre now vs. your old charolais herd?
Did your charolais herd require more supplemental feed than now to maintain?
I'm confident that today you would see a 20-30 cent dock in char calves so we won't even got there. Don't know about 30 years past.
Other factors I'm not thinking of?

I find this interesting. The biggest names in AAA are WW chasers. A sale catalog I received recently had many high 9 weight and even 1000+ WW bulls. I understand, they sell stock for prices way above what commercial calves bring, but as KYH said, many factors come into play.

I find myself torn between low cost production and running small numbers due to limited availability of pasture and increasing herd size with more produced feed and more overhead. Low cost has always won so far, due to return on investment, but it is the most limiting factor of expansion. Low cost has the best exit strategy by far, in worst case scenarios. Any type of farming/ranching is geared towards get big or get out and economies of scale, however, so small production has its disadvantages too. Not looking for a silver bullet here, just trying to keep a good discussion going and get some valuable input.

We are running a few more now, but the caveat is back then that was a registered herd and I had to a lot space for a group of yearling bulls as well as heifers. Now being commercial I only have a heifer group outside of the cows.
I did supplemental feed the cows, but still do through the winter, and on occasion throughout the year to keep them gentle. I don't think I gave them much more feed than I do now, may have fed more often in warmer weather back then.
I sold registered stock so very little experience with what they would have done at the stockyards. Yes a pure Charolais will be docked at the stockyards.
The only time I sold calves other than a cull, was the year I was phasing out the herd. It was in the mid 90's and sold sone 10 month old registered heifers. The market was cheap with 500 lb commercial calves going for 50 cents.
My heifers weighed around 800 - 900 and sold by the head, for anywhere from $225-$275. By then the demand for registered Charolais had tanked. I had previously been selling heifers for $800-$1000.
I will add that the Charolais herd did not receive near the consistent quality of minerals that our cattle do now. Back then if they got a trace mineral block they were lucky, outside of a high mag mineral in late winter early spring.
Those cows seemed to breed back more consistently than now. Seems like now I'm spending an arm and a leg on loose mineral and keeping it laying by them all the time.
I've used via AI some of those big number Angus bulls and it doesn't translate to more pounds of calf, they are not close to the weaning weights of the Charolais. Don't get me wrong they are nice calves but the numbers don't add up so to speak. Lots of registered outfits run the numbers game and while they may achieve it most farms and ranches are not going to repeat it under their management.
I will add that my largest cows have been 2 Herefords that weighed at or near 2000.
Have had some registered Angus cows slightly smaller at 1800.
The largest Charolais cows I had were 1800, and the smallest were 1450. That range is consistent with the range of my registered Angus cows, yet the Angus calves weaned considerably lighter than the Charolais, in spite of the cows having similar mature weights.
Hereford cows have weaned slightly heavier calves both from Hereford and Angus bulls than the straight bred Angus.
One of the 2000 lb Hereford calves would wean a 700 calf but she was an outlier in that.
Now I would guess our cows to weigh average from 1200-1450.
The advantage I see is these cows now (Angus, Herefords and BWF) bred to Angus and Hereford type bulls, will have smaller calves, and not have to worry about the occasional big slow calf that happened with some Charolais. Also the cows seem to be as a whole and especially heifers more attentive to their calves. We had more coyote predation issues with Charolais, and now our biggest concern is buzzards, which will circle and wear down even the most protective cows if you aren't there to intervene.