Bread Cows are Pricey

[Bigfoot]

I know a guy who had a smallish feedlot that was located in between a green bean processing plant and a place that makes taco shells. Packed a silage pit full of bean waste and had a truck load of cull taco shells nearly daily. The area grows a lot of grass seed too. So he would get grass seed straw cheap. He fed a TMR of green bean silage, broken taco shells, and grass straw. All which he got for free or nearly free. It also helped that he is a buyer for a cow kill plant so he is at the sale several days a week. It was a small gold mine but..... a divorce took care of the gold mine.

Toured the San Jaquan valley (spelling), on a farm tour once. They were feeding byproducts there I never dreamt possible. At that time, there was a large vegetable industry there, but that was 30 years ago. Things that I would have thought were poisonous were being fed.

 

[MurraysMutts]

I'm normally not the spelling police, but when I see bread cows, I think of cornbread calves.

Must be cross bread....
Plenty of high bread vinegar

 

[MurraysMutts]

What exactly IS a cornbread calf?
Google is of no assistance.

 

[Dave]

What exactly IS a cornbread calf?
Google is of no assistance.

A calf out of a bread cow who has been fed corn.

 

[smoothmule]

I'm normally not the spelling police, but when I see bread cows, I think of cornbread calves.

Me too.

 

[Allenw]

If you were looking for a bred cow priced at $300 that would be a piece of junk cow. It has been a lot of years since good bred cows could be bought that cheap. An old shelly cow that weighs 1,000 is still worth $0.40 to kill. That is $400. How sorry does a cow need to be to only be worth $300? This fall/winter I bought 40 old broken mouth cows. I averaged paying $657. That was pretty much being a bottom feeder in the bred cow market. There were a lot of times I came home with an empty trailer and a sore rear from sitting at the sale all day. When broken mouth cows were bringing $800-1,000 I sat on my hands.

Easier to double your money on a $300 cow. It's all about timing and an open mind plus a bit of luck.

 

[WFfarm]

Easier to double your money on a $300 cow. It's all about timing and an open mind plus a bit of luck.

It's also easy to have a train wreck with a $300 cow.

 

[Dave]

Easier to double your money on a $300 cow. It's all about timing and an open mind plus a bit of luck.

Bottom of the barrel kill cows were $0.40 here. That makes a $300 cow come in at 750 pounds. I was at the sale twice a week from October through February. Probably watched several thousand bred cows sell. I never saw a single 750 pound bred cow. Just a very few 900 pound cows. To get one of those for $300 it would be $0.33 a pound. That would be a cow on deaths door.

 

[kenny thomas]

It's also easy to have a train wreck with a $300 cow.

I disagree. But I'm a trader. I would buy 4 $300 cows rather than a $1200 cow.

 

[Dave]

I disagree. But I'm a trader. I would buy 4 $300 cows rather than a $1200 cow.

I haven't seen one $300 bred cow in the last 10 years. If there is enough of them around that you can buy 4 of them for that price, I know why calves are so cheap in that part of the world. I bought 40 bottom end of the market broken mouth cows this winter. The cheapest one I got bought was $570. The average for the 40 head was $657.

 

[Hereford2]

I saw cow calf pair sell for $450 this past November. The cow was in good shape, didn't act wild. The guy that bought them, ran the calf back through and got $375 for it, .

 

[greybeard]

I was thinking that they are being fed old bread and bakery waste. It is such a hassle to unwrap that bread and then what do you do with all those wrappers.

Man I know that's right!! My father insisted on doing it for about 4 years and I hated every bit of it. Buying a pickup load of it every week never made much sense to me back then and even less so now. (ours wouldn't eat the corn tortillas either, which is what about 1/4 of the racks were)

One study tho said It contains approximately 65% dry matter, 14% crude protein, 14% energy, 3% oil, 23% fibre 73% starch and 2% sugar.

Maximum bakery product % of the total ration was recommended to be no more than 55%.

 

[georgiabob]

i bought a couple of unchecked cows at a sale barn a couple of years ago that turned out to be bred. one was a kill cow that i decided i could fatten up and flip. i gave about 800 for the pair and sold the kill cow for 750 6 months later in her 3rd trimester. the other calved and i sold him the day he turned 4 months for 425. the cow is still in my pasture and bred back. i think she's 6 years old. number 655. bought her in february of 2020 thinking i'd feed her and flip her in may but covid changed that plan.

 

[georgiabob]

Bottom of the barrel kill cows were $0.40 here. That makes a $300 cow come in at 750 pounds. I was at the sale twice a week from October through February. Probably watched several thousand bred cows sell. I never saw a single 750 pound bred cow. Just a very few 900 pound cows. To get one of those for $300 it would be $0.33 a pound. That would be a cow on deaths door.

i bought a big framed brindle cow for .35 a pound. she weighed 940 if i remember right. the first couple of weeks i kept expecting to find her dead. when i sold her she was in her third trimester. she was actually bred when i bought her in that condition. she brought double what i gave for her and somebody got a calf before they sent her to the packer. that was my first sale barn cow. i bought her and a black hided cow that wasn't too bad but was unchecked. i gave .52 a pound for the black cow and she weighed 860. she was also bred and dropped a monster of a bull calf that i pulled on the day he turned four months and sold. she's the only sale barn cow i own and i'm always on the fence about her because of that.