Bred Heifer Quality ?

[Stocker Steve]

Saw a bunch sold last week. The obviously higher quality bred heifers (thicker and more uniform) sold for $25, occasionally $50, higher. Do you see this?

 

[Son of Butch]

I haven't seen anything. You talking 1400-$1500 bred heifers?
Can I assume you're saying quality is bringing less than a 2% premium?
$25 is 1.8% of $1375
$25 is 1.7% of 1475

 

[Stocker Steve]

There were a couple heifer price points.
Large pot load groups were around $1400 to $1450. I think they went west.
Smaller groups dropped down to $1250 to $1325. I think they stayed local.
So buyers paid up more for group size than for quality. Maybe I am going to the wrong sale?

 

[Aaron]

Obviously someone has feed in the countryside. Here, those $1400 US heifers would be 1/2 price and 90% would go to slaughter - quality or load lots be damned.

 

[elkwc]

I haven't seen much recently but what I have seen there is more of a difference than that. Heard of a group of bred heifers that were nice that brought 1,750. Know of some Red Angus heifers with young first calves on them that brought 2,250. All of these were quality heifers. And the pairs sold privately so may not be a good indicator of price.

 

[Stocker Steve]

There are a few buyers that will pay up for the first 10 to 12 head in the ring, but after that there is a dip in sales barn pricing. Hard to know how the pre selling went down... For commercial heifers - - it seems like you either need to consign pot load quantities, or sell private party.

About every fourth producer here is trying to sell registered black heifers. Not sure how well that is working. Sounds like open heifers sell better. Do you have a strong market for registered heifers from newer no rep producers?

 

[Stocker Steve]

Obviously someone has feed in the countryside. Here, those $1400 US heifers would be 1/2 price and 90% would go to slaughter - quality or load lots be damned.

Alot of rain in SD this summer, after a dry 2017. We saw thousands of old and/or late bred comingled cows run thru Minnesota rings last winter. Some big pasture man eaters in the mix.

I think heifers are cheap enough here to easily pay for the trucking west. They are probably a back haul for someone bringing kill cows east.

 

[Stocker Steve]

Here, those $1400 US heifers would be 1/2 price and 90% would go to slaughter

I forced myself to look back and rerun the numbers - - 80% of our heifers could have been luted and sold into the feedlot. We had a strong yearling market here this fall, and bred heifer pricing are lower than expected. So could have gotten the same revenue for less feed by selling earlier.

 

[talltimber]

Just watched a regional heifer sale online that I normally attend, if just to bs. These are pretty nice heifers mostly, natural and ai bred, some to high percentage accuracy sale qualified ai sires. Some registered, some commercial. Some from recent upstarts and but most from reputation area breeders/seedstock guys. There were no groups larger than three head that I recall but there were a few with three. Mostly two head groups I'd say. 35 lots total. Per head average was 2099 according to the sale lady, who is with the Extension Service.

Blacks

1750-2950

Reds

1600-1900 (I should note that the bids were started around 1500. One man brought the only red angus at the sale. He had four groups that I recorded. The first group brought 1600 and the other three brought 1900 ea/hd)

Other colors/breeds

One, three head group of mousey char cross hfrs brought 1800/hd
A couple of groups of black baldies that averaged around 1900/hd
A solid black simangus group brought 2300/hd

Nothing with any ear at all. No Brangus, no Ultrablacks, no nothing with any ear at all.

 

[NEFarmwife]

Just watched a regional heifer sale online that I normally attend, if just to bs. These are pretty nice heifers mostly, natural and ai bred, some to high percentage accuracy sale qualified ai sires. Some registered, some commercial. Some from recent upstarts and but most from reputation area breeders/seedstock guys. There were no groups larger than three head that I recall but there were a few with three. Mostly two head groups I'd say. 35 lots total. Per head average was 2099 according to the sale lady, who is with the Extension Service.

Blacks

1750-2950

Reds

1600-1900 (I should note that the bids were started around 1500. One man brought the only red angus at the sale. He had four groups that I recorded. The first group brought 1600 and the other three brought 1900 ea/hd)

Other colors/breeds

One, three head group of mousey char cross hfrs brought 1800/hd
A couple of groups of black baldies that averaged around 1900/hd
A solid black simangus group brought 2300/hd

Nothing with any ear at all. No Brangus, no Ultrablacks, no nothing with any ear at all.

We've sold our AI Bred Heifers for $1900. But that being said, we also preg checked again before loading, poured, re-tagged and branded for one buyer (their brand), and hauled to them (within 30 miles). We have a few head left that my husband will either buy the other half of (partnership) or take to sale in late December. We've been told by several sale barns that they just can't get enough for them.

 

[Son of Butch]

Went to a small registered Angus herd dispersal sale. 100% of the calves sold as breeding stock.
Weaned bull calves 580 lbs $1050 - $3,000 with $1600 average (a couple of them should've been cut)
Weaned heifer calves $1,300 - $2,400 with $1,780 average

All cows bull bred this year.
Top selling cow was a Thomas Top Hand daughter going on 5 yrs old $2,200
Most interesting was a first calf GAR 100X daughter $1950 with 18 epds in top 10% and only $EN below breed average
Best Buy a 1200 lb Final Answer daughter going on 7 yrs $1900
Worst buy 1350 lb Daybreak daughter $1100 going on 9 yrs old sold as Open (but exposed to bull)
Based on her calving date it took her 3 services to conceive last year.
Not counting her the cows averaged $1,785

No bred heifers sold as 100% of calf crop was sold last year by private treaty off the farm as breeding stock.

 

[Aaron]

'Tis the season to hide the money
Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la

 

[mncowboy]

http://www.gostockmens.com/images/E0331001/181123.pdf

Nov 23rd in Dickenson ND 760 bred commercial heifers averaged $1673. As low as $1500 and as high as $1900.

 

[Stocker Steve]

So we need to ship pot loads of commercial bred heifers west?

 

[NEFarmwife]

We have the rest of our Montana heifers selling tomorrow at sale barn. I’m hearing other area barns are selling bred heifers from 16-1900.

We’ll need $1625 to break even. Hoping for the best.

 

[NEFarmwife]

Our bred heifers avg 1019lbs. Sold (no saled) for $1600/hd.

Ours took top of sale at that 1600 with everything else averaging $1450 within 50lbs of ours. Reds, blacks, Charlois.

Pairs were going $1350. Mostly 4-6 years old.

 

[Stocker Steve]

Rumor is $1650 ish in Dakotas. I would check it out.
Pot load quality were $1450 ish here - - and were then trucked to the Dakotas.
Small lots were $1250 ish - - and bought by locals.

 

[NEFarmwife]

Rumor is $1650 ish in Dakotas. I would check it out.
Pot load quality were $1450 ish here - - and were then trucked to the Dakotas.
Small lots were $1250 ish - - and bought by locals.

Only 41 left (two came open) Headed to bank tomorrow to buy out the partnership at breakeven and make them our own. Calve them out and cull some older gals.

Lots of interest but no one can get the financing or has the pasture. Tough times.

 

[True Grit Farms]

At $1600 it would take 4 calves to pay for the heifer. And that's not figuring in the risk of loss or not breeding back.

 

[NEFarmwife]

At $1600 it would take 4 calves to pay for the heifer. And that's not figuring in the risk of loss or not breeding back.

No. We’d calve them out and finish the calves for our NHTC program. We’d be building our herd, they’d become our replacements. They’re in a 30 day calving window, due Feb 14th. We wanted to buy more anyway.

They’re from a reputable ranch out of Montana. Purebred/non-registered. So we know they’ll do well around here. We were just hoping to make some money but now isn’t a time to sell. We got 80 sold for $1900 about a month and a half ago. Could have let these go for $1600 and still make a slight profit as a whole. Hubby was itching to buy the rest anyway. Guess it works out. I’m just a little uneasy in this climate.