Nesikep
Well-known member
OK, what do you think of these?
Heifer above with her first calf at about 5 months old
Her sister with her first heifer calf at 205 days
Her 3rd heifer calf at 5 months
Retaining Heifers in a Hot Market
- Thread starter Drose
- Start date
Heifer above with her first calf at about 5 months old
Her sister with her first heifer calf at 205 days
Her 3rd heifer calf at 5 months
puzzled in oregon
Well-known member
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- May 31, 2020
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- 1,386
Have you managed to produce calves of this quality without the use of the heavily relied on American EPD system ? :unsure:
:cool:
:cool:
simme
Old Dumb Guy
Always good to see pictures. Pictures are worth a thousand words as the saying goes. At least they seem to validate the message. Wish others would share more pictures of their cattle.
Looks like that "narrow gene pool" did not produce narrow cattle.:)
Caustic Burno
Well-known member
And don’t need too.
Figures don’t lie but liars figure.
What started out as a good thing is nothing more than selling paper.
Figures don’t lie but liars figure.
What started out as a good thing is nothing more than selling paper.
Dave
Well-known member
Move to cow country where there are tens of thousands of good well bred cattle within 50 miles. We all realize what it is like where you live. But you asked and that is the answer.
Without anything for reference as to the size of these cows, I'd say you either have little cows that raise big calves, or normal size cows that raise big calves! Either way, that's a nice set of calves. And some beautiful country you are raising them in. What is that in the green field behind the cows in the 2nd picture? What kind of bull s are you using, @Nesikep ?
chevytaHOE5674
Well-known member
If you say so.
Travlr
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- NW Arkansas, W South Dakota, retired in Utah
I'd like to know about where you live. I'm not likely to ever get there, so wondering. Do you get a lot of lake effect snow/rain? Is it lush in summers? Lots of deciduous trees and not any pine? Or are there pines? Open, flat ground or rolling hills? How close to a grocery store we would all recognize the name of? Is your county all rural? What's the population density?
If they are so good why are they being sold, especially by the thousands?
chevytaHOE5674
Well-known member
I live 6 miles from the shores of Lake Superior, one of my farms is 1/2 mile from the lake. The majority of our 200 inches of snowfall is lake effect, in summer lake effect rain and fog is common. It's not unusual for it to 80 degrees and sunny at noon and by 1pm it be 55 degrees and pea soup fog. Even a drought in the summer here is probably moist compared to what a lot of you are used to, we get measurable dew most nights. Most of our forest cover is deciduous hardwood trees, there is some pocket of spruce/fir/cedar (away from the lake where our deer migrate too), ground is flat by a lot of standards but I call it rolling terrain with some steep river valleys that run to the lakeshore. Nearest Walmart is 60 miles up the road. Population density is less than 5 people per sq mile last I know.
I think he means Nebraska ;)
Travlr
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Thanks... If you get a chance to post a picture or so I'd love to see them. I suspect I'd like that country just fine, except for the snow. That's the kind of snow that drove me out of SD.
I don't see the money in buying them either, not at current prices. It's a wash at best.
If you don't have the room or just don't like fooling with heifers I understand the convenience but I don't see the math being any better.
If you don't have the room or just don't like fooling with heifers I understand the convenience but I don't see the math being any better.
I don't think he meant that there were tens of thousands for sale, just that there were that many cows. So naturally there'd be more for sale there than where Chevy lives.
farmerjan
Well-known member
Because they are reproducing and there are that many offspring every year, so the ranchers naturally have to sell off a certain number????? Just saying...
What kind of grass do y'all have for grazing? And for hay? Is there much agriculture around you, like row crops, etc? What breeds of cattle do most people have up there? Sorry for all of the questions, but this is interesting to me. I will be the first to say, y'all are a heck of a lot tougher cattlemen that I am. I don't think I could survive one winter in the cattle business up there. Are you originally from there? Lived there your whole life?
Cowboy math....Today a good 750-800# breeding age heifer is bringing around $1,800. We'll use that as your purchase price if you keep her. For us it takes about 1/2 the ground to run a Heifer as a cow/calf pair so 2-3 acres. Gotta feed her for 2 winters so maybe $500 on the high end. I'd have $2,300-2,500 in her by the time she calves. Heavy bred heifers are around $3,000 right now. I'd say it's a little cheaper to raise them than to buy. I know there's allot more that can go into figuring cost but we keep it simple. Called on a nice set of 25 first calf pairs today for $3,400 and they sold as soon as they were listed. Maybe that's were the money is at.
Edit: We would actually only have to feed her 1 extra winter. The first winter she'd be fed with the yearlings while she grows to be worth the $1,800.
Edit: We would actually only have to feed her 1 extra winter. The first winter she'd be fed with the yearlings while she grows to be worth the $1,800.
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chevytaHOE5674
Well-known member
We grow tons of timothty, orchard grass, reed canary, trefoil, and clover. Thats what we make for hay as well. No row crops here just hay and small grains as a cover for new seeding hay. We don't have a co-op, feed store, salebarn, equipment dealer, etc so everything is a few hours away.
Cattle is typically in small herds of less than 15 or head. Because of our "cheap" land prices many have came here to "homestead" and have taken to raising highlanders and Dexter's. There's a few larger scale guys like myself that raise Angus, Simmental, Herefords, and like myself a mix of the 3.
I wasn't born right here but a few hours away. My wife was born and raised on a piece of ground we run cattle on.
Well, it turned out to be a good day. Not only did we get that job, all the pieces of it, but Wilson told me he had decided to let me buy two of those heifers. One red Charolais x red Brangus and one red Charolais x Santa Gertrudis. Said to just come back down there and pick out the two I wanted. We gonna start on his job after the 1st of the year. He already has ginned the last of the cotton for the year. so we can start when we want to.
He really liked my cows and calves too. And he really liked the Simmental bull. He said that if he had it to do over, he wished he had bought black Brangus instead of red, and that black Brangus would probably be what he will gradually replace them with. My calves are only 2 weeks to a day old, and he couldn't tell the Simmental calves from the Charolais calves either. I told him that some of the Simmental calves may be 10-15 lbs heavier at birth than the Charolais, but by the time they were weaned in 6 months, the Charolais would have caught them, and maybe even passed them by a little bit. I told him so far in 4 years, I have never had to pull a calf, and my cows were not much, if any, bigger than his. I mentioned again he could get a bull like him, and start now getting black calves, without having to replace his cows with Brangus. But, he said again he don't want no part of no Simmental, so I shut up! He has done very well for 80 years without any input from me, you know? My grandaddy and daddy were the same way, and thought I had lost my mind when I told them I was going commercial and was going to use a Simmental and a Charolais bull. I was born in 1970, so I don't remember any of the problems they told me about the cow-killer Simmental and Charolais bulls of the 60's and 70's. My granddaddy said, when he saw my bulls, that they weren't what I said, that Simmentals are red & white and Charolais are white! LOL
He really liked my cows and calves too. And he really liked the Simmental bull. He said that if he had it to do over, he wished he had bought black Brangus instead of red, and that black Brangus would probably be what he will gradually replace them with. My calves are only 2 weeks to a day old, and he couldn't tell the Simmental calves from the Charolais calves either. I told him that some of the Simmental calves may be 10-15 lbs heavier at birth than the Charolais, but by the time they were weaned in 6 months, the Charolais would have caught them, and maybe even passed them by a little bit. I told him so far in 4 years, I have never had to pull a calf, and my cows were not much, if any, bigger than his. I mentioned again he could get a bull like him, and start now getting black calves, without having to replace his cows with Brangus. But, he said again he don't want no part of no Simmental, so I shut up! He has done very well for 80 years without any input from me, you know? My grandaddy and daddy were the same way, and thought I had lost my mind when I told them I was going commercial and was going to use a Simmental and a Charolais bull. I was born in 1970, so I don't remember any of the problems they told me about the cow-killer Simmental and Charolais bulls of the 60's and 70's. My granddaddy said, when he saw my bulls, that they weren't what I said, that Simmentals are red & white and Charolais are white! LOL
Bebe. Almost 15 and still one of the first to calve. I've kept all her heifers except for this year. For some reason, this heifer had attitude, and I don't deal with that. Next! But her lineage has trickled down into multiple generations I have retained. Same with the majority of my old girls that include direct lineage, grandkids (grand calves?), and even great grandkids/calves.
Switch it up by rotating & buying new bulls every few years and I'm perfectly happy with the results.
