AI for the rich and famous!!

[Wewild]

no only months we try to avoid is late july early august

Intresting. Are you a cow calf operation?

 

[MikeC]

How much does he get for them?

Of course it depends on the year and the demand, but I would say he gets as much as many purebred herds are getting for theirs.

 

[Wewild]

How much does he get for them?

Of course it depends on the year and the demand, but I would say he gets as much as many purebred herds are getting for theirs.

I wouldn't think the regular cattleman is buying them then????

 

[glover36]

yes we are we only do it this way because we have dairy to so they go all year round so mitgh as well breed with them

 

[Wewild]

yes we are we only do it this way because we have dairy to so they go all year round so mitgh as well breed with them

Cow calf don't equal dairy operation. Which is it?

 

[glover36]

both we have a beef barn and a dairy barn raise calves till about 600 pounds if good enough for cows we keep everything else goes

 

[Wewild]

both we have a beef barn and a dairy barn raise calves till about 600 pounds if good enough for cows we keep everything else goes

What kinda beef you got in the beef barn.

 

[MikeC]

How much does he get for them?

Of course it depends on the year and the demand, but I would say he gets as much as many purebred herds are getting for theirs.

I wouldn't think the regular cattleman is buying them then????

Yep. Raising replacement heifers is something everyone can't do for various reasons. You might be surprised what a set of good springing commercial heifers can bring around here.

 

[glover36]

charolais x simmental cows, red angus cows, shorthorn cows, pure simmental, pure charolais, and a couple hereford simmentals

 

[glover36]

every first calf hiefer is bred red angus no matter what

 

[Scotty]

The calve is alive and healthy, or they do not get paid.

I still don't understand.

What do you not understand? Answer in more than a few wrods.

 

[Wewild]

Yep. Raising replacement heifers is something everyone can't do for various reasons. You might be surprised what a set of good springing commercial heifers can bring around here.

I reckon so. We seem to be able to do it for our self. How do they justify spending that kinda money to replace 10% of their herd every year.

 

[Wewild]

charolais x simmental cows, red angus cows, shorthorn cows, pure simmental, pure charolais, and a couple hereford simmentals

You A.I. them?

 

[glover36]

yes every single one

 

[Alice]

I PROMISE you I can breed more cows in a day than your "good" bull can too! ;-)

Sure you can. He has to build back up. He don't have a load of straws.

Do you think it's best to A.I. a cow calf operation?

1-That's exactly what I meant about the bull. ;-)

2-It all depends on where your goals lie. The time involved wouldn't make it feasible for some.

Most of the bigger commercial guys that AI that I know are selling bred and virgin heifers for replacements. They receive quite a few more dollars than the feeder market brings on average.

There's a guy about 20 miles from me that synchs and breeds over 300 heifers every year. People fight for his commercial replacements.

Dairy cows wouldn't be where they are today without AI for sure.

When my Daddy died, he was still an active dairy man, and he AI'd every cow but the first time heifers (kept a little angus bull for that)...and had been doing so since I can remember. I remember seeing COBA out there, jeez, I think I was still in high school...at least that's as far back as I remember. He had one of the best holstein dairy herds in the state...oh heck yeah, I'm proud to say that.

Alice

 

[Victoria]

We've never AI'd a commercial cow and I actually agree that I don't see the need to for our operation. We just got into AI'ing when we got into purebreds. That said if someone wants to use it for their operation and feel that it works for them after they put the pen to the paper why would anyone else care? This is not the only post in the genre of putting down others ways of doing things and I just don't get why people feel the need to call people names and put them down because they do things differently. Everyone has their reasons for running their operations the way they do and I could see questioning someone's reasons, never know what you will learn (or what they will learn) but I just don't get the personal attacks that I see on these boards so often.

OK, fire away.

 

[VanC]

We've never AI'd a commercial cow and I actually agree that I don't see the need to for our operation. We just got into AI'ing when we got into purebreds. That said if someone wants to use it for their operation and feel that it works for them after they put the pen to the paper why would anyone else care? This is not the only post in the genre of putting down others ways of doing things and I just don't get why people feel the need to call people names and put them down because they do things differently. Everyone has their reasons for running their operations the way they do and I could see questioning someone's reasons, never know what you will learn (or what they will learn) but I just don't get the personal attacks that I see on these boards so often.

OK, fire away.

Excellent post. I don't get it, either. Maybe we're just not as smart as those doing the attacking.

 

[aplusmnt]

I am not sure how profitable it is for the commercial operator either, but It would have been better served to S.R.R. and all of us if this interesting subject was put in a friendly question on rather any of the commercial raisers can A.I. And still show profit and if so how? What are the advantages economically and what are the disadvantages? Thread started a fight right from the first post.

I would like more info but I wonder these things:

How cheap can a commercial guy synch his cows and A.I.? I figure only way a commercial operation can afford it is if they can do it themselves?

Does the math work out after the above pricing, could a guy with 300 cows, A.I. with say 60% Success rate. Which would save him from having to own say 3 additional bulls. Might be the cost of purchase, feed, vet bills and death or need to cull, might be more for these 3 bulls than the A.I.ng of all 300.

Then if you sell Replacements or just retain some for your self, you could retain the ones from the more proven A.I. bulls which would be a quicker way to improve you herd.

Another possible advantage is you could A.I. to say the breed you wish to retain females from but at same time run a terminal bull of another breed as clean up. Maybe the bulls you buy could be a little cheaper due to not needing as much quality for female retention all of the ones you get from the clean up you will sell as market animals.

Other advantages could be that sync-hing is just a natural part of A.I.'ng so your herd management would be less labor intense with less hours spent in the fields. You could end up with a 300 head operation having 180 or more cows calving withing just a couple days of each other.

The synchronizing would then also offer possibly better prices at sale barn if you can off 180 calves within just a couple days of same age with better uniformity.

I would want to know lots of things about all the above issues and crunch the numbers and get some professional advice from those that due it instead of just assuming it is stupid and will not make you money.

 

[badroute]

I AI around 200 a year. I AI my heifers and coming 3's. The reason I do this is to improve and keep good females in the herd. It might not be all that profitable when the pencil is put to it but being able to produce good females is hard to put a dollar amount on. And I also do it all myself except I hire a few cowboys to help me heat detect and get cattle in for a week or so.

 

[dun]

I AI around 200 a year. I AI my heifers and coming 3's. The reason I do this is to improve and keep good females in the herd. It might not be all that profitable when the pencil is put to it but being able to produce good females is hard to put a dollar amount on. And I also do it all myself except I hire a few cowboys to help me heat detect and get cattle in for a week or so.

I'm glad to hear from someone in MT with the experience. Back in the 80's I was nearly drafted into a herd AI program in MT. The deal was supposed to be that the semen was shipped in from one of the studs, the owner and his help synched everything on, the techs would show up, at that time there was going to be several of us, and we would breed everything on observed heats. A week later they were turned out with clean up bulls. At the time it was supposed to be a fairly common practice with a number of large ranches. I wish I could have gotten into that but I had a fairly large herd of Ankina in the local area that wanted everything bred on natural heats during that time span.

dun