Bottle Calves!

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Warren Allison

Warren Allison

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Watching a New Mexico sale and a 2-day old, orphan Angus bull calf sold for $485! 80 lbs. Then a 4 day old orphaned Angus heifer, 66 lbs, brought $515. Both could barely walk. Even with a nurse cow and good grass, I don't see how they can come out ahead on these. But, if they live and thrive, and prices hold...
 
Warren Allison said:
Watching a New Mexico sale and a 2-day old, orphan Angus bull calf sold for $485! 80 lbs. Then a 4 day old orphaned Angus heifer, 66 lbs, brought $515. Both could barely walk. Even with a nurse cow and good grass, I don't see how they can come out ahead on these. But, if they live and thrive, and prices hold...
Click to expand...
Wow maybe I should take my bottle calves to the sale barn!
 
Same sale in NM, a Hereford colored Corriente steer, 600 weight, brought $2.55 a pound. Solid black Corriente steer, 700 weight brought $2.38. Both were in great condition, almost fat. They announced these were "long yearlings", which could be anywhere from 13 months old to 18 months or more. Someone on the Butchering forumn last year had asked about buying Corrs to feed out and butcher. Asked about yield etc. 18 months is long time to feed one to just 700 lbs, even if you had bought them for just a few hundred bucks.
 
Jersey bottle heifers sold off the dairy are going for $300 here. And they have not been stressed or got sick going through the sale barn.

Thats what I plan to do with the milk, raise up my dairy heifers born on the farm, grow them out, dehorn vaccinate and halter break and sell them for family milk cows.
 
I sold my bottle holsteins... started calves... 2 weaned, 4 ready to wean... $600 for the one holstein, 500 for the jer/hol/angus cross that showed the jersey build... hol heifer twin to bull calf.... small...180 and her bull twin 300.... holstein bull I got off the dairy for $150 brought 310 after 4 weeks...little jersey bull calf I didn't want to keep by himself for nearly 100..... Not worth my feeding them.... Kept the twin holstein heifers as they should be good to breed... Had maybe $1000 in them all (8 total calves including a small jersey bull calf) ; purchase price, gas to go get them, milk replacer, some grain....couple bales of real good 3rd cutting orchard grass... and got back almost $1900 check after commissions... PLUS, I still have the holstein heifer twins....
Holstein steers are bringing about 1.75 for 6 wts .... so that is about 1,000 for them... BUT, how much are they going to eat to get to that place and how many months???.... not worth it to me.... because small holsteins cannot just go to grass at 300 lbs as they have to have more protein and concentrates to grow properly... so they are going to COST to get them to the 6 wt size...
Understand that some big 100+ lb holstein bull calves brought nearly $6 lb last week...
Totally insane... If I get any calves off the dairy going forward, I am probably going to just sell them...they want me to come get them since they are several hours away from the sale and not worth their time (and gas) to take only 1 or 2 to sale, I am over an hour closer to the sale than they are... and could make it pay to go with only 1 or 2 since I go to the sale some anyway...
 
From what I read in Progressive Dairy magazine lots of dairies are doing Beef on Dairy. That is, they AI the cows they are not breeding for replacements using sexed semen from beef bulls to get steer calves to sell. They even have special lines of beef on dairy bulls that put more muscle on the steers.
 
Around here, many dairies are using Angus, Black Limousin, and black Simmental on the cows they are not using sexed dairy semen on... basically the bottom 50% or so of the milking herd. There are a few just using straight holstein semen, and on the farms that are not milking alot of cows (under 100 or so) they mostly have pretty good herd averages, so not as many get bred beef, because a replacement heifer even out of their "bottom end cows" will usually be pretty decent.
Years ago alot used an angus as a clean up bull, and back then the calves weren't worth what a straight holstein bull calf was worth... now they are worth nearly twice what a holstein bull calf is...
 
Back when we milked, we always ran a lbw angus with the heifers, and usually would rotate him in with the milking herd on his last year with us (usually year 3). That gave us a cash crop of calves from the heifers and one from the milking herd every 3 years. Granted, they didn't bring as good as straight beef, but we didn't want our dairy herd too big.
 
When I was growing up, back when I was little, like under 10, there were LOT of dairies around here. They would breed the heifers to Jerseys for the 1st calves, and sell the bull calves and raise the heifers to add to their milling herd. I was about 10, when the first dairy started using Angus or Hereford bulls. Before that, you bought the Holstein and Jers-Hol bull calves for $5. Once they went to using Ang and Herford bulls, the prices went to $10 and you could buy heifer bottle calves too. When I was in high school and college, some dairies were using what I thought were Brahma bulls . I learned just last week, that they were probably Gyr (or Gir) . I was reading the inside of a Brangus production sale catalog,, and this particular farm that their Grandaddy started, was involved in raising Gyr-Holsteins, as part of some kind of program, back then. Seems like Gyr/Gir are a Zebu breed of dairy cows, used a lot in not only India, but a lot of African and South American countries. This program was part of a project by some college or maybe even USDA or some kind of government program,. to help improve the dairy herds in Africa and South America. Dunno if they got some kind of subsidy or guaranteed price for them or what.... the catalog just said that about 45 years ago, they started raising registered Angus. But, it got my curiosity up, and I got it on my "to do list", to research this in my spare time.

The last dairy herd in my county, closed and converted to beef cow-calf in 2000. But I remember in the 70's or early 80's, them having what I thought were Brahma bulls for their heifers. The owner would be about 80 now, and I intend to ask him, (next time I see him at a funeral...seems like that is about the only time I see any old friends now days, is when one of us dies) if he remembers what it was his daddy started breeding to, and if he knows if it had anything to do with that program.
 
Bottle babies have been high here for a while now. 500 seems to be normal.

Dapples heifer I got for 400
And Bessies I got for 475

I have seen some obvious scrubby type go for much less. Even watched some jersey bull calves "no sale" a few weeks ago.
 
Warren Allison said:
When I was in high school and college, some dairies were using what I thought were Brahma bulls . I learned just last week, that they were probably Gyr (or Gir) . I was reading the inside of a Brangus production sale catalog,, and this particular farm that their Grandaddy started, was involved in raising Gyr-Holsteins, as part of some kind of program, back then. Seems like Gyr/Gir are a Zebu breed of dairy cows, used a lot in not only India, but a lot of African and South American countries. This program was part of a project by some college or maybe even USDA or some kind of government program,. to help improve the dairy herds in Africa and South America. Dunno if they got some kind of subsidy or guaranteed price for them or what.... the catalog just said that about 45 years ago, they started raising registered Angus. But, it got my curiosity up, and I got it on my "to do list", to research this in my spare time.
Click to expand...
We had just found out a couple of weeks ago, that the Herf- Guer cow, that had the tiger-stripe heifer last month, was already bred by a yearling Gyr bull before we took her to the red Brahma bull. After learning about this program, I go to thinking that heifer might make someone a good brood cow one day. If she had been 1/2 Brahma( good mothers with adequate milk) 1/4 Herf ( great mothers and adequate milk) , and 1/4 Guernsey (oodles of milk) , chances are she was gonna be good calf-raiser. But now, being 1/2 Gyr, she might even be able to raise 2. I don't think she will be as "beefy" looking as a 1/2 Brahma would be. I don't know if I have ever seen a 1/2 Gyr, or probably wouldn't have known if I did. I guess we will see how it turns out in about 30 months or so. If I don't have a stroke leading up to the November elections, or a heart attack after it is over!
 
MurraysMutts said:
I've been told this cow is gyr and not brahma. Her son was a herd bull here for a year. Richard.
Click to expand...
Might be! She sure has an udder don't she? Might be at least part Gyr. Gyr tend to have long, Basset-hound ears, and a round, bulbous head. I liked your Richard better than any of your other bulls you posted. What made you get rid of him? 1710607475361.png
1710607585169.png
 
Warren Allison said:
Might be! She sure has an udder don't she? Might be at least part Gyr. Gyr tend to have long, Basset-hound ears, and a round, bulbous head. I liked your Richard better than any of your other bulls you posted. What made you get rid of him? View attachment 42430
View attachment 42431
Click to expand...
At the time I was downsizing. Only needed one bull. And decided to keep the hereford.
 

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