Bull Investment Perspective ?

[Stocker Steve]

I plugged some bull cost and calf selling price numbers into a Texas A&M excel tab with this name. It basically said I needed an additional lb. of weaning wt. per calf to pay for an additional $100 of bull purchase price. This assumption could get a guy in a bidding war for those +100# WW terminal bull epds...

But there was no Pharo like additional cow and calf costs identified for that additional pound of weaning weight. So I think there is a couple questions that need to be addressed:

- Are your calf feed inputs good enough that you will actually see any increase in weaning weight? (I think mine are)
- What is the cost of gain? (this gets a bit harder, perhaps worst case would be cost of creep feed, 10 to 1 conversion on $200/ton creep would give a $1.00 cost of gain w/o any bull cost, so really need to do it with forage at current calf prices)

Am I missing anything here?

 

[Son of Butch]

Using Angus numbers the Average Bull is about 50 ww and top 1% bull is 75 ww
75-50 = 25 and 25 x 100 = $2500
$2500 premium over an average bull is the top price you can afford to pay for an extreme top terminal sire
$1500 premium for top 10% ww
$1000 premium for top 20%
$500 premium for bull in top 1/3 of breed

I don't know Simmental breed average for ww but....
79 ww Simmental is in top 4% of breed but you'll need to do across breed adjustment to compare breeds
40 ww Charolais is top 15% (so good luck locating a 100 ww Charolais)

 

[Stocker Steve]

So +25# WW will GROSS $2500 with VOG at $1 and 100 calves per bull during his productive life.

But how much will +25# WW net? You could be giving up over $25 in extra feed cost?

 

[Son of Butch]

So +25# WW will GROSS $2500 with VOG at $1 and 100 calves per bull during his productive life.

But how much will +25# WW net? You could be giving up over $25 in extra feed cost?

Good questions.
IF Texas A&M did not address it... no way for me to really give an accurate answer.
I'd suggest erroring on the conservative side on the premium you'd be willing to pay by 20% for each class of bulls
$500 on $2500 premium reduces it to $2000 and to $1200 premium on a top 10% ww sire
But that is just a semi educated guesstimate

 

[Stocker Steve]

So +25# WW will GROSS $2500 with VOG at $1 and 100 calves per bull during his productive life.

But how much will +25# WW net? You could be giving up over $25 in extra feed cost?

Good questions.

I am too sensitive to give Kit Pharo a call on this. I did look at a group of yearling high WW epd bulls yesterday that are being wintered on mostly hay. Some - - mostly with later birth dates - - looked rough.

If you swing between + and - $EN you could get a $50 per year difference. So I think it is the old maternal vs. terminal sire thing. A growthy bull would be worth the $$$ in the feedlot but his daughters could have too much power for replacements.

I have a couple F1 baldy heifers, out of Hereford teenagers, that are a bit on the small side but just round. I was tempted to cull them but they should be the high profit ones.

 

[WalnutCrest]

If they're otherwise really good mamas, but you don't want to replicate their genes, maybe those are the ones that get an egg from your preferred donor ...