kenny thomas
Well-known member
For me it's easier to take them from 5wt to 7wt than 3wt to 5wt. But I like going from 3wt #3 to 7 and 8wt. #1.
Stockers Don’t Pencil
- Thread starter rocfarm
- Start date
rocfarm
Well-known member
Maybe next year. Weather not conducive to buying anything needing weaning and shots, anyway. July after a good rain is a good place to pick up that weight and wean. The weather doesn’t make them sick and they have plenty of grass to graze on in the months before the cold weather hits. It worked pretty good for me this year for my first set.
rocfarm
Well-known member
I am thinking of buying 3 weights in the late summer and selling them then next summer after things calm down over the next few years. It could work. If I bought all heifers, I could keep a few I’d got to watch grow for a year for replacements using this method.
Already set for next year, though.
rocfarm
Well-known member
I think the best thing the small producer can do is to just follow a long-term sustainable model. Take care of your land and give it the chance to give back to you.
All this politics stuff is perhaps not helpful.
In the end, for me, it the powers that be aren’t going to pay me to raise cattle, I’ll just drop my numbers.
Tired of the system thinking they should get the use of all this capital for free to give everyone super cheap beef. That’s not very logical. The work the producer does has value and producers should have the right to make a fair profit from all the work and capital they invest in production.
We’ll see how things fare iver the next few years. The fundamentals actually look quite promising if the news cycle could just calm down.
Every time I worried about what others were doing I missed opportunities. Yes, I have lost money in cattle before but never enough break us. Don’t buy new iron or the feature bred heifers at an auction and most times things work out.
rocfarm
Well-known member
Got my iron off of Craigslist. Got my cattle at auction in the middle of a bad drought.
They’ve been paying for my #1 heifers that are replacements.
Grass looking really good this year. Winter stockpile definitely sufficient.
Attachments
When we ween calves I always have a few 3 weights. For me they don't seem to do as good as the 5 weights. In the end they'll gain the 250 pounds we're looking for but they never really look like good healthy calves. Hopefully this market will hold through 2026 and we can make some again. Feed is cheap and hay wasn't terrible this year. It was one of those years I wish the barn held 600 instead of 300 bales.
Travlr
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- NW Arkansas, W South Dakota, retired in Utah
I'd be selling cows that produced light weight calves, whether because they had low milk production, genetics for dink calves, or they bred back late. If bred back late, might also keep them on the cow until they get to the right size to wean, and possibly give the cow a chance to breed back earlier.
We do if they are older cows and we notice they are slipping. Generally they'll be off 1st calf heifers. Back in January we bought 25 Angus bred heifers that had calves weighing 35-50 pounds. Most of those did not grow off well. In my experience calves born at less than 65-75 pounds don't grow as good. Some will but most of our really light born calves wean light.
You also have the fact that every calf isn't gonna be a good calf no matter the genetics. Every year you just get a few that don't grow. I've said it before but working cattle with a good set of accurate scales is an eye opener.
There are two things I know happen. When a cow producers a light or funky calf I always write it down in my spreadsheet. Yes, some will repeat it again but not all of them. If they do it twice in a row I sell them but not just for one. I have had a cow just have an off year for what ever reason. None of these calves are really bad... just outliers that catch your eye.
greybeard
Well-known member
It was my experience, that this happens with dams that they themselves were light weight. I kept some that I thought "Well, she ain't much, but maybe she'll make better with a good bull on her..."
That very rarely worked out. Easy calving low birthweight sure.. but there was a price to pay later when their calves didn't grow well. For a small producer like me, it's sometimes difficult to make good culling decisions as you're trying to grow a herd and back then, prices weren't what they are today. To get low birthweights and good growers takes more than just the sire's genetics.
Travlr
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That's an important point.
That's why I never used a LBW or easy calving bull on anything except heifers, and I've never kept heifers that were first calves. In fact it has to be an exceptionally great animal to be kept if the dam is less than 8 or 10. I use "heifer maker" bulls on older cows to get replacements, and anything raising a calf that doesn't grow at the upper percentage is in jeopardy of being culled.
mwj
Well-known member
I find that it is much easier to raise other peoples cattle than it is my own!
Dave
Well-known member
I find it easier to make decisions about culling by putting all of them on a truck. The only decision to be made is it a cow. With years of experience I can tell if it is a cow. And if it is a cow she gets on the truck.
Ebenezer
Well-known member
Sell the cows as bred and keep the light calves to grow. It work$ out better.
rocfarm
Well-known member
This is where I’m at. My new heifers are bigger boned, but I’m concerned they won’t be easy keepers and they’ll have trouble breeding back. The science shows that lighter cows breed back more consistently. It also shows they raise lighter calves. But I remember a quote from a guy at Texas A&M, I think it was Ron Gill. He said, “A live calf on the ground is the most important thing for profitability.”
I asked again in November if my neighbors had any good heifers for sale. They didn’t seem interested in selling small numbers. One did offer to sell me some at the end of January, but it seemed like he was going to sell me the ones that didn’t get bred for him—not a great way to build a herd and also after my breeding season ended.
So I went to the auction. That was tough, too. Picked up one that was already bred and had to deal with that after I got it back to the ranch.
I think I’m going to go to a model of simply culling 20% of the cows that are the worst performers each year until I get to the point where I don’t want to cull, then recalibrate my model.
I’m thinking I want the average age of my herd to be 5 years old and just keep it there.
We got 35% more than the average rainfall this year, which made things easy to manage. Hoping I get one more easy year this next year and then will start preparing for that ever-coming drought year.
rocfarm
Well-known member
It is a good point on most models. But for my situation, I really like the fact that a Waygu bull is always a low birthweight bull. If I get the top of the market for whatever weight class the cows raise off of it, it makes up some of that ground. Also, I don’t have to worry about my heifers ever. That’s good peace of mind.
Dave
Well-known member
My neighbor uses a Wagyu bull on his commercial heifers. He does that primarily for the calving ease. But I know he checks the heifers about 6 times a day during calving. If you think using a Wadgyu bull on heifers will eliminate calving issues and you don't " have to worry about my heifers ever". You are in for a big bad surprise one day.
rocfarm
Well-known member
Guess I’ll find out next fall. Still have never been present for the birth of a calf. Doesn’t work for my operation.
