I'm wondering why I go through the headache of taking a calf through weaning when I could get the same money letting the calf get some colostrum, and running them to the sale right after they are born.
Good point. I don’t know where the original poster is located, but around here. 25-30 years ago a stockyards about an hour north of here would have over 200 head of baby calves on some sale days. They would have a pretty steady market for them. Now you there’s just a handful if any baby calves at the markets since most dairy farms have quit milking.
Never thought I'd do that but the bidding got the better of me.Ain’t no friends at auction! :LOL:This is why we always send our cattle to auction. Most of them will fall into the expected category but a few fall into the I'll show you to bid category. People get crazy at auctions.
Years ago I had a guy stare me down and run me up on a feed truck at an auction. I won and was happy with the price I paid but told my buddy I was fixin to buy two feed trucks. I ran the guy up on the next truck like he did me. Luckily common sense came in and I gave up. We were 4 hours from home and could only carry one of these junkers at a time back.
Oh yes there is. I know they say that but if you know buyers very well there most certainly is friends. They know enough to keep their friends honest but they certainly treat them like friends.
Milkmaid was a great poster. Excellent knowledge and experience. I remember this post years ago where she explained the cow necropsy process with words and pictures. At that time, pictures were loaded from a photo sharing service instead of being saved on the forum server. So most pictures are long gone. But read the words and imagine the visual. I am not sure if she was already in vet school or not when she posted this. But her knowledge and ability and willingness to share were impressive. Here is the link. Scroll up to the beginning of the post.
I think these prices are making a lot of people with no experience interested in beef. Anybody with an acre of grass or a place they can feed. Either because they want to raise beef for their own families or because they think they can get rich. So that sets up a scenario where everyone is competing for anything available. An artificial market where demand has little to do with value. Maybe even some panic buying.
I did exact thing with one last year, and I have two I’m doing the same with this spring. The cow last year was pretty old and fairly thin. These will be the same. It worked out better by about $400 than just selling a heavy bred skinny old cow where I’m at anyway.
And that may be how one or both of these cows turn out. Would be ideal. I’ll find out within a month. But if they don’t go that way, then they will be split at the barn. This isn’t a program here, they have been in the herd a long time.
