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Working at a job to pay for the losses in cattle gets old real fast. I guess if you can see it turning around dramatically somewhere in the future it might be okay. Young people might want to put a lot more effort into it than older people who need to consider retirement? I guess when it isn't...

There are many ways to calculate this, but for a real true cost a person needs to ask themselves "How much would I have if I never owned the cow"? What could you get in rent for your land? How much could you sell your hay for? What kind of wage could you make if you weren't doing this? What kind...

Bluestone works good if you do the posts when they are green. They last in the ground for years.

The NFU nailed it whether we like it or not. Nothing will change up here though. Our provincial and federal government don't care if we go broke, so we have to live with that fact? Personally I don't care if the cattle business goes broke up here. If it doesn't pay why do it? Quit. XL and...

This is a good question. Right now the prices in my area for a decent cow are around 30-34 cents. The packers are definitely stockpiling cows, no way they could get them all killed right now. My local sale barn owner thinks cows will be sky high come spring. He predicts a good cow with calf will...

Anyone seen this documentary? Pretty scary stuff. I thought that old boy who was raising grass cattle, hogs, poultry made a lot of sense when he talked about how a cow wasn't meant to eat corn, chicken manure, other cows or dead chickens! I suspect his hogs, cattle and chickens are pretty tasty?

Drilling in Alberta has been real slow the last year but there is going to be some shallow shale happening this year...mostly exploration. The rumor is there is a big shale play under most of central Alberta. There are also rumors of a huge expansion coming in the coalbed if prices improve a bit...

I had a straight hereford calf who hurt his front leg when he was young. Nothing wrong with him he just walks with a limp. He wintered out with his mother and in the spring I put him into a pasture of native grass by himself, the grass was being banked for early winter grazing. Two weeks ago I...

mossy: I've sure got to agree with Bez on this one. Get an education. No matter where you go in life you will always have that degree? When my son got out of high school all he wanted to do was come back to the farm but I insisted he go to university and get an education. He got a degree in...

Probably getting a job first to get experience and find out if you like it would be good advice, but if you intend to just jump in then I would suggest start out small and try to keep costs as low as possible. Right now the economics of most livestock operations are pretty poor, but if you are...

I think Aaron pretty well has the right numbers for yearlings going on grass? The buyers want a steer coming in off grass in that 900 to 950 lb. range around Sept. 1. A 700 to 750 lean and mean steer is just what the doctor ordered in the spring. British cattle fit this market very well, not so...

Our calf prices are fairly strong...well at least on steers of the right kind, but our cow prices in Alberta are pretty brutal. Takes a pretty decent cow to bring 33 cents Canadian which would be 30.5 cents USD. The bigger cows (1500 lbs +) bring up to 33 cents, smaller cows less. I guess it...

The county where I lived decided to ban quads from county roads because a lot of kids were roaring around. I went to the meeting where they were trying to sell the idea and asked how they figured a farmer was going to chase his cows down the road or run up and check stuff if he couldn't ride on...

Well I don't get it when it comes to prices in the grocery store? Is Canfax right when they say a fat steer returns 16% of the final retail price of that steer? I would think they must have done some serious research before they brought out that figure? Basically the packer sells the carcass...

One time, when Alberta was throwing out a pittance for some kind of drought or cow subsidy, my nephew said it must be nice to be on the government tit. Now he had a good job in the oil patch and lived in town. I told him well yes we were getting a few bucks but he should remember he too was on...

Oldtimer: Looking at your fat prices I doubt the figures are much different. I'm not sure about retail prices in the USA today but a few years ago they were slightly higher than what central Alberta super market prices were...I doubt that has changed? I don't go down to Great Falls anymore...the...

There is a lot of truth in this article and I believe the solution might soon be at hand. I suspect after the sell off of cows this year Canada will be approaching a position where the cattle producers will not be able to supply the domestic market, let alone export cattle. Unfortunately when we...

Adding horned Hereford genetics into a polled herd used to be fairly common. This was done to "beef up" the polled Herefords and get rid of their skinny butts! I am sure the polled Herefords have these desired traits within the breed now but at one time they didn't. At Innisfail Alberta the...

In my opinion the most important thing in buying a bull is the guy who raised him and how he raised him. Big names and pedigrees and a feed bucket don't really cut it with me. Knowing the breeder is honest, raises a practical product, fed right is more important to me. In the last several years...

MCOOL has hurt the industry up here without a doubt, but it was going to pot anyway. It sure has let our own little "multi-national packer" XL operate like the big boys JBS, Cargill, Tyson! I don't think it is all that rosy in the USA either from what I read about prices in the USA? When the cow...