How do you approach the raising vs. buying replacements?
By buying "look good" older, how long on average do these cows last w/o any special feeding?
That’s strong for our part of the world.
They do fine until you get a polar vortex.......???
Happens at least once a year here, usually several times.
We sold 300 older cows last fall for good money in anticipation of me being down for the winter and to lighten the load for my wife. I am back on the work crew now, we are short of cattle for our range tenure and bred cattle are very reasonable considering what the current feeder market is and the contract we have for this year’s steer calves. Still need another 50. These cattle have half a winter’s feed in them and are $300 cheaper than what we sold
Where was that Tom?
Where was the sale at?
So that's just under $1500 US$ -- seems about right. I'm looking at a few off a guy's farm for $1600, but hope to make a little better deal. Too many opens in my heifer pen for this year.
All according to their mouth's.... older cows that are in good flesh, will often get 2-3 more calves here... sometimes more. Biggest criteria is 1st.... calving with no problem, 2nd.... raising that calf in good flesh which means milking good, 3rd.... gets around good so that they can "rustle their grub/grazing, and stays in good flesh themselves, and 4th..... breeding back. If I can buy them for not alot over cull price, then they deserve the chance to see what they can do for me. Broken mouth are one and dones 99.9% of the time. I prefer to buy them with the calf already on the ground. Short mouth are usually one and dones.... maybe another calf if they have a real nice calf and are keeping their weight on good. Full mouth will go back with the bull for sure to get a chance to breed back. The one black one I bought has a decent calf, so will go back with the bull in June. She will be a spring calver in 2022 even though her calf now is probably 6 weeks old.... but I don't want any Jan/Feb calves next year if I can help it. The other one has some "popcorn nubs" for teeth. She will go with the one and dones out to pasture to raise this calf and gain some weight. She is 1300 lbs and could carry 1500 easily.... not thin but lean right now. Calf is doing good and she is putting her all into this calf. They are both in a pasture with a couple other older cows, getting silage and hay so ought to come around and be in good shape when grass greens up.
He said that was the cost "landed here". There will be a bit of freight getting them from Alberta to the end of the earth where his ranch is located.
Yes, back haul rate ended at $50
