Ring the Bell

[Brute 23]

So what makes them score low?

Any thing that costs the operation money. You have the big ones like breeding back, weaning weights, being an easy keeper, easy to handle and catch, etc. I will add their salvage value.

As an example, I have 2 that won't have hold good condition. Calves are still good but that's not going to last long term and I don't want to accidently end up with heifers from them. If they miss one breeding or are late or short me pounds on calves it wasn't worth it. They are young, prices are high, and I have replacements on deck. I'm of the opinion to get while the gettin is good.

 

[Silver]

I look at one guys cows and wonder why he bothers... and another guys cows and wish I had some of them. And I look at the results in the sale ring and wonder why the one guy isn't trying to learn from the other guy.

I do this all the time. I was sitting beside an older guy at the sale ring one time. He raises top shelf cattle. He made a statement that has stuck with me for years. He said “Everybody talks about how great their cows are and how much they’ve improved over the years and what great bulls they’re buying yet here I sit after all these years watching the same sh!t come through the ring.”

 

[Travlr]

I do this all the time. I was sitting beside an older guy at the sale ring one time. He raises top shelf cattle. He made a statement that has stuck with me for years. He said "Everybody talks about how great their cows are and how much they've improved over the years and what great bulls they're buying yet here I sit after all these years watching the same sh!t come through the ring."

Yeah, I see it all the time. And the people that stay in business can do it either way, but the guy with the better cows is more likely to be living in more comfort.

 

[mwj]

How can someone setting at the sale tell what the profit is in a group of cattle going thru the ring? I have heard some strange things over the years but that takes the cake!:rolleyes:

 

[Spot & Bubby]

You could buy an older bred cow, treat her like a queen, get a decent calf, and send her to McDonalds for a profit. Couldn't you?

 

[Spot & Bubby]

How can someone setting at the sale tell what the profit is in a group of cattle going thru the ring? I have heard some strange things over the years but that takes the cake!:rolleyes:

I suppose instead of sitting at the sale barn, you can show up early, walk the cat-walk, talk to the sellers (or at least find out who they are) and the hands at the sale barn, really look the cows over, and make a reasonably educated guess.

 

[Spot & Bubby]

"If anyone tells you that a certain person speaks ill of you, do not make excuses about what is said of you but answer, 'He was ignorant of my other faults, else he would have not mentioned these alone.'" - Epictetus

You could just say it's none of your business what someone else says.

 

[Named'em Tamed'em]

"Ring the bell" and I thought this was going to be about the last day of radiation!

 

[Silver]

How can someone setting at the sale tell what the profit is in a group of cattle going thru the ring? I have heard some strange things over the years but that takes the cake!:rolleyes:

Don’t you think you can tell the well bred, well built, productive calves from the junk that come through the ring? And aren’t the top quality calves the ones the buyer prefer because they know they are more profitable?

 

[Travlr]

"Ring the bell" and I thought this was going to be about the last day of radiation!

Older sis did that one in October. I wish everyone a bell ring if that's the kind they need.

 

[Travlr]

You could buy an older bred cow, treat her like a queen, get a decent calf, and send her to McDonalds for a profit. Couldn't you?

I've done it many times with older cows, and @Dave has too.

 

[Travlr]

How can someone setting at the sale tell what the profit is in a group of cattle going thru the ring? I have heard some strange things over the years but that takes the cake!:rolleyes:

LOL... and I'm pretty sure, and only because it is YOUR experience, that no one in the history of the world has ever been able to do anything better than you.

 

[mwj]

Yeah, I see it all the time. And the people that stay in business can do it either way, but the guy with the better cows is more likely to be living in more comfort

Tell how the ''better'' cow provides more comfort. That ''better'' cow may have lost them more money than any cow they owned. You can not see profit or loss by casually observing an animal walking thru the ring.


There are good profits made on many classes of cattle that do not ''ring'' that bell for looks or top prices.

 

[Travlr]

Tell how the ''better'' cow provides more comfort. That ''better'' cow may have lost them more money than any cow they owned. You can not see profit or loss by casually observing an animal walking thru the ring.


There are good profits made on many classes of cattle that do not ''ring'' that bell for looks or top prices.

Do you at least recognize that some people can pick out better cattle than other people can? You understand that there are quality differences? And that those differences can be passed from parents to offspring?

Or is that out of your wheelhouse? You think everything going through a sale barn is exactly the same except for the color? Do you think buyers are all just buying the same weight steers to make up a pot load?

 

[Silver]

When you buy cattle you are playing with odds to a certain extent. Better classes of cattle have better odds of being profitable. There are always exceptions but if you want to get or stay profitable you need to keep the odds in your favour

 

[mwj]

Do you at least recognize that some people can pick out better cattle than other people can? You understand that there are quality differences? And that those differences can be passed from parents to offspring?

Or is that out of your wheelhouse? You think everything going through a sale barn is exactly the same except for the color? Do you think buyers are all just buying the same weight steers to make up a pot load?

You are arguing about something that was not said. The point I made was that you can not tell whether an animal is profitable by looking.

I am sure that I can identify a high quality animal just as well as you. What I cannot do is determine if the animal made a profit by looking.

 

[alacowman1]

So how do you choose your replacements to raise? What do you look for?

Keeping the best, from my best cows…but had a few disappoint later..I like them to to have a broody look ..and easy fleshing …those pretty ones are nice to look at but come apart after the first calf

 

[WAnabee]

I started out by buying the best black heifers i could afford and the best angus bull that I could afford, which wasn't necessarily saying a whole lot. Looking back i wonder if I couldn't have bought more 'inexpensive' but healthy, cows, maybe due to color, maybe Hereford or some other good beef breed that gets discounted in my area, and run an angus bull on them. That seems to have worked well for a lot of people around me. I'm not disappointed in the cows i have but if i was trying to have the sharpest pencil possible, that may have been better.

The other related question i would throw out there is: Does a bull really contribute 1/2 of the genetics of the calf? What about those one that "really stamp their calves"??? If 3/4 of the calves phenotype comes from the bull, does it make more sense to go with more inexpensive cows?? I am not a geneticist.

 

[alacowman1]

I started out by buying the best black heifers i could afford and the best angus bull that I could afford, which wasn't necessarily saying a whole lot. Looking back i wonder if I couldn't have bought more 'inexpensive' but healthy, cows, maybe due to color, maybe Hereford or some other good beef breed that gets discounted in my area, and run an angus bull on them. That seems to have worked well for a lot of people around me. I'm not disappointed in the cows i have but if i was trying to have the sharpest pencil possible, that may have been better.

The other related question i would throw out there is: Does a bull really contribute 1/2 of the genetics of the calf? What about those one that "really stamp their calves"??? If 3/4 of the calves phenotype comes from the bull, does it make more sense to go with more inexpensive cows?? I am not a geneticist.

Yes, If you retain your own replacements over a period of years.. your bull selections will be the overall majority of your herds genetics

 

[Travlr]

Keeping the best, from my best cows…but had a few disappoint later..I like them to to have a broody look ..and easy fleshing …those pretty ones are nice to look at but come apart after the first calf

Yeah, I think buyers like easy fleshing calves, so it makes sense to have cows that pass that along. And broody, I guess, would be a way of saying they are feminine and have the characteristics of a good mother. Body volume, good udder, and hips built for calving.