Nesikep
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The market always wants what you don't have
Not paying much for weight
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Lee VanRoss
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Nesikep nailed it...................
Rydero
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Why I focus on weight. Trying to top the market based on color requires a crystal ball and is subject to change here. It sounds like black cattle in the US may be more of an ingrained thing but does it swing to black baldies etc. at times?
Whatever the dominant breed is at the moment has more competition within it. More people producing, more calves so buyers can be picky and be sure that another group of black calves will walk in the ring right after this one. My experience here was that sure a group of blacks topped the market but they weren't my blacks. We switched to Charolais which is consistently good here, hasn't been the most popular breed for a while now but the buyers always have orders. There's less variation of price within the Char crossed calves that are a few cents off the blacks. We do better and the calves weigh more.
As Silver pointed out the 700lb calves dollar out better than 500lb calves in Virginia (as they do in Canada) so really it's a question of whether the extra weight can be put on pre weaning/feeding when the extra lbs start costing you money. We certainly can here even with our shorter growing season. At 7 months we can put the majority of our calves in the high 600's and low 700's. It works here - I have a set # of calves to sell so $/hd matters more than $/lb.
Dave
Well-known member
Here calves are all born February-March (or at least that is the plan). Cows head out on the hills to the range land starting in mid April. Calves all need to be branded before turn out. (I got a call yesterday, first branding of the year is this Saturday) Cows come out of the hills in mid to late October. So what they weigh when they come out of the hills is what you have to sell. The majority get 45 day weaned and preconditioned. Some get held over and sold in the spring. Some get held over and ran back out and sold mid summer as 800-900 pound yearlings direct to the feedlots.
farmerjan
Well-known member
Overall, most all producers here cannot put on the weight pre weaning to get 700 # calves. And you can carry a few more cows that weigh 1100-1200 lbs than you can 1500 lb cows. So you are selling off more weight with a few more of the 500 lb calves than you are if you try to get them to 700 lbs. 700 lb x 1.25 = 875. 500 lb x 1.75 = 875. Equal return and if you have 3 more 500 lb calves and you are weaning them a little sooner so the grass can be stretched out for a little longer, with less animal units, you are ahead to wean sooner and wean a few more.
All the buyers here will tell you that they do not have the orders for the 7 wts.... there is just not the market for them in this area.
We sold several groups of 5 wt black steers on 3/5/21 that brought in the 1.77 and 1.79 . A few that were over 650 lbs that didn't bring 1.30. Not worth it. The ones that are announced as being weaned and bunk broke bring as much as ones that are vaccinated and weaned. These guys want calves that will go to the bunk as soon as they get off a truck and go to a water faucet and then the bunk to eat. Many places will run them through the chutes themselves and give the vaccinations they want for their operation.
There is no question that black calves sell better here, year after year. Black baldies do nearly as well, AS LONG AS they are not feathernecked.... many times there are bb calves mixed in with blacks.
Sometimes there are some smokies mixed in, but they will give the option of taking them out and 75% of the time, the buyer will cut them out... They will offer them for the price the buyer of the blacks paid, but mostly they will get rebid and it will be .05 to .20 less.. Pure char with pink noses are heavily discounted.
I don't make the "rules" ... just been watching the sales for years and years.
All the buyers here will tell you that they do not have the orders for the 7 wts.... there is just not the market for them in this area.
We sold several groups of 5 wt black steers on 3/5/21 that brought in the 1.77 and 1.79 . A few that were over 650 lbs that didn't bring 1.30. Not worth it. The ones that are announced as being weaned and bunk broke bring as much as ones that are vaccinated and weaned. These guys want calves that will go to the bunk as soon as they get off a truck and go to a water faucet and then the bunk to eat. Many places will run them through the chutes themselves and give the vaccinations they want for their operation.
There is no question that black calves sell better here, year after year. Black baldies do nearly as well, AS LONG AS they are not feathernecked.... many times there are bb calves mixed in with blacks.
Sometimes there are some smokies mixed in, but they will give the option of taking them out and 75% of the time, the buyer will cut them out... They will offer them for the price the buyer of the blacks paid, but mostly they will get rebid and it will be .05 to .20 less.. Pure char with pink noses are heavily discounted.
I don't make the "rules" ... just been watching the sales for years and years.
I was just looking at the local prices here for last week and I am beginning to wonder if it is worth the effort and expense to go through "pre-conditioning". Pre-conditioned calves are only bringing 15 cents more on average here. When I run the numbers of grain/gluten mix I feed them I am not sure it is worth it (my feed costs have gone up $2 dollars per fifty lbs. in the last year. When I run the numbers, it works out to the fact that I would only be making an extra nickel a lb.
bird dog
Well-known member
Your not giving anything to the reduced shrink for long weaned calves. From my experience that would be about 3 to 5% additional weight. More if they are being fed at the market.
I calculated that in.
Dave
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That has been my experience. Weaned calves taken to the sale a day or even two days early. The sale yards here feed good hay and charge $2 a day. A 5% shrink on a 500 pound calf is 25 pounds. At $1.75 a pound that is $43.75 per calf. Weaned calves gain back any shrink their first trip to the feed bunk and the water trough. Also getting to the yard early puts them through the ring early. When there is 3,000 head some buyers get filled and quit buying. That means less people to bid on your calves.
Rancher
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Would that be dollars usa or canada $ ?
Nesikep
Well-known member
that's CAD
I remember in 2015 I had a little ugly whiteface dink calf that sold for $3.75 (CAD) /lb and he was about 350 lb, then I had some really beautiful solid gelbveih calves in the 600's.. I only realized an extra $200 on the nice ones..
I've found 5wts usually sell well, up into 6's, you get into 7wts and the price drops pretty hard.. how much will depend on the price of feed at the time
Rydero
Well-known member
I agree but...
Not per/hd so if the cow does it for you without creep/stored feed it's still more $ when they get there.
Nesikep
Well-known member
it depends on how much additional effort it takes to make that 100 lbs.. If you have to go up a frame score or two in cow size to do it... Also, a big thing is are you paying for leased pasture by the head? that's a big subsidy to big framed cattle, whether it's crown/public range or private leased pastures
Rydero
Well-known member
We do it with 1250lb cows generally but I'm not saying there isn't exceptions. Hopefully the exceptions are the ones weaning the 700lb + calves not dinks.
Never heard of a lease based on cow frame size not to say it doesn't exist. I personally don't rent much pasture but we do at work. Almost always by the head and what's palatable for price is dependent on the quality of grass. The saying is, "good pasture is free", good grass pays for itself in performance.
I personally don't think you need giant cows to make big calves. I thought the recipe was hybrid vigour and terminal bulls but @Silver is proving me wrong. The number of paddocks we use and level of grass management is higher than almost anyone I know and cattle drink almost exclusively water from wells instead of dugouts. If the calves are limited in growth it's not due to forage availability. Other than that there's no secret sauce here.
Nesikep
Well-known member
that's my point, most leased pasture is on a per-animal basis, so why not run big hungry frame 7 cows if you're not paying for the additional grass for at least half the year.. If you're growing the grass you pay a lot more attention to that
Rydero
Well-known member
I grow the grass and pay absolutely zero attention to it - I don't want to limit the calves so I don't stock it so close to the line that cow frame size is going to matter within reason. Not to say my stocking rate isn't high for the area(# of paddocks one herd) Rented pasture is way cheaper than land bought to be pasture. At this point I probably wouldn't buy land that could only be pasture for that reason. I also wouldn't rent ground that I can't stock to my own preference. The last place I rented tied into mine. I negotiated the price based on how many head the owner thought it should hold for a whole year, then explained I would bring way more cows for a short time. He couldn't wrap his head around how I got the value out of it in 2-3 weeks of grazing all summer but I brought almost 100 pairs instead of the 15 I thought it could hold all summer.
Stocker Steve
Well-known member
Both steers and heifers?
Wondering about taking some of those 7 wt. heifers (no one wants) back to grass. Is there usually a decent late summer market for 9 wt. heifers?
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Stocker Steve
Well-known member
True, but, some have a minimum stocking level that guarantees pool table pastures.
Have a short sighted neighbor that operates this way. He finds a desperate grazer who will happily overstock rented by the pair pastures, and then expects the grazer to creep feed calves to get some weight on them...
Rydero
Well-known member
SmokinM
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Sale here on Monday my calves went thru a 553# steer got you $912.45 and a 712# steer got you $964.16 so $51.71 more. Not saying that wouldn't add up but with the genetics and environment here it would take time and or feed to make up that weight and neither puts you ahead for that $51 IMO.
Edit to add on heifers that spread went to about $110 so if you are pondering wether to keep replacements or not at least you get something for waiting to decide.
Edit to add on heifers that spread went to about $110 so if you are pondering wether to keep replacements or not at least you get something for waiting to decide.
