Brand new baby

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T Diamond

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We have a new baby. She was 4 days overdue. She is out of a Chi/Angus cow and a Shorthorn/Lowline bull. We were hoping for a bull calf. The reason we got into breeding was to have 4-H steers for our son, but now we have to buy a steer for next years fair. She will make a nice addition to our little herd.
 
heifer calves will always make a herd grow.sorry that you have to buy a steer for your son to show.
 
Our county fair has both Market and Breeding classes but only steers go to auction. This helps the kids finance the next year's project. My son raised 2 pigs before his first steer and that helped him pay for the steer and feed. He took Grand Champ with his first steer and cleared over $9000.00. He bought another steer, 2 heifers, a years worth of feed, and paid for the breeding on both heifers. We lost 1 heifer and the calf she was carrying at 3 month gestation. We will just go to AZ Nationals for next years steer. You always have a 50/50 chance when you breed. We will give the bull 3 more trys then we will switch semen if he keeps throwing heifers.
 
Last year we had over 75 % heifers. We are a commercial operation and I was not happy. I thought something was wrong with the bulls or weather or feed. This year only 8 of our first 31 calves are heifers. We didn't do anything different. I would love to have this keep up, but I probably jinxed it by talking about it. I wouldn't blame the bull with only 3 calves.
 
Who cares if you are a commercial operation and get mainly heifers? Slaughter the heifers. Not that big a deal, okay so you might get a slight slight discount when selling but really, its not the end of the world. When calves come out of our terminal herd, I couldnt care less what bits they have, as long as they are well muscled, grow quickly and finish out.
 
I sell the heifers for slaughter too. But a 600 pound steer at $1.00 is worth more than a 550 pound heifer at $.90.
 
Katpau":jzrn8ube said:
Obviously my calves don't go directly to slaugher. I sell them as feeders.
I sell mine as feeders also, Katpau. A steer is worth at least $100-$150 more than a heifer at 6-7months of age in my market. I care considerably whether I get mainly heifer calves.
 

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