Hello I am looking at a good, black, polled, three year old bull. His WW was 610 and his MW is 2000lbs The calves are on site and look great. He is a reg. 100% full blood Welsh Black. I am not as concerned with the breed as the fact he is polled and black with good muscling.The asking price is $2500 do you think that is reasonable? I live in eastern Canada. Thank you for the help.
Bull cost?
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What are you wanting to do? If you plan on registering the calves and using them for a purebred operation, I would say 2500 is a good price. If you are wanting commerical calves to sell at the sale barn, you are probably paying too much.
Even if you are just breeding for commercial calves, you need good genetics. A cheap bull may end up costing you more in the long run. If you just have five or ten cows,he may be a little high.If you intend to keep replacement females,you should buy the best quality you can afford,they are your future. A good bull doesn't cost,he pays.
Jeanne - Simme Valley
Well-known member
Dun, I'm not sure of the number either - 4 to 6.
$2500 does not sound unreasonable to me for a proven bull, if you feel he can improve your cattle.
$2500 does not sound unreasonable to me for a proven bull, if you feel he can improve your cattle.
That is cheap for a good bull. proven or not. Unless you just want a bull to breed them and not improve or at the very least, maintain your quality, then buy him. Otherwise, get ready to pay a little for them. We just averaged $3200 on 80 bulls and the high dollar bull was only $7250. The majority of the bulls sold from $2500 to $3000, while the top end all sold over $4000. Only one bull at $5750 sold to another registered breeder, while the rest all went to commercial guys that sell by the pound. Good bulls pay the bills!!!
turning grass into beef
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The following is my way of deciding what to pay for a bull. Take it for what it is worth. The first thing to consider is that feeding a good quality bull year round costs the same as feeding a poor quality bull, so that is a wash. The next thing I assume is that you will use a bull on average for 3 years and on average he will sire 33 calves per year. For round figures we will use 100 calves sired in his lifetime. Let's assume that a poor quality bull costs $1000. A bull that costs $2000 will have to return $10 more per calf that the $1000 bull. If you sell 500 pound calves that is a $0.02 per pound difference. 2 questions then have to be analyzed. 1) Will the calves sired by the good bull bring a premium of $0.02 or more because of their quality? and 2) Will the calves off the good bull weigh more (at the same age), thus you will have more pounds of calf to sell.
If you are keeping your own replacements a third question that will need to be considered is; How will a better quality bull improve my cowherd and thus my calf crop in years to come?
We raise and sell purebred shorthorn bulls as well as buy purebred horned hereford bulls to use in our commercial cow herd. Based on the reasons stated above we have no problem paying between $3000 and $4000 for a bull if we feel his quality justifies the price.
If you are keeping your own replacements a third question that will need to be considered is; How will a better quality bull improve my cowherd and thus my calf crop in years to come?
We raise and sell purebred shorthorn bulls as well as buy purebred horned hereford bulls to use in our commercial cow herd. Based on the reasons stated above we have no problem paying between $3000 and $4000 for a bull if we feel his quality justifies the price.
I often come across good bulls cheap (often at registered sales where all the buyers are there for females); but $2500 is pretty reasonable for a 2 year old bull. Why mess with growing out calves or yearling bulls given what grain, hay, and fertilizer all sell for now? Buy 18 month old or 24 month old bulls and make the breeder risk their money. IF you sell four 600 pound steers, at $1.10 /lb you have paid for him, the next ~120 calves (4 years x 30 calves per year) are essentially free.
randiliana
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turning grass into beef":3q8x8ewn said:
Good post!!
Thank you all for the help. He is a bull out of Quizmaster Challengers son Quizmaster Boomer from Randy Scotts ( the president of the Welsh Black Ass.)ranch in Alberta. The current owner has used him for two years and his cows are bred back to him for the coming season. He is selling him only because he wants new blood in his herd. The calves look great and he has kept most of the heifers out of this bull in part because of the bulls Dam, a top cow in the herd.
