Bull vs A.I. $ Value

[Alan]

Cheapest way we found to get started is to use the calves as cash. Breed to AI - you do not really have enough cattle for a bull to pay for himself - yet

.

I pasted this quote from another thread on this message board.

I'm wondering what your thoughts on value for your buck on A.I.ing vs purchasing a $1000 to $1500 bull and keeping with 12 to 15 cows. Assuming you have the same bull for 4 years and sell him after for $1000 to $1500 (2000lbs @ .50 cents/lbs)

Price of straws, certs., and rebreeds (what percentage to rebreed), induce into heat, etc. I have never A.I.'d but using a variaty of bulls would be a nice way to build a small herd of 20 to 25 cows.

Thanks for your responses.
Alan

 

[la4angus]

I'm wondering what your thoughts on value for your buck on A.I.ing vs purchasing a $1000 to $1500 bull and keeping with 12 to 15 cows.
Price of straws, certs., and rebreeds (what percentage to rebreed)
Thanks for your responses.
Alan

If you are only going to be natural breeding to a $1,000.00 to $1,500.00 bull that is about as cheap a bull as you gonna find. Probaly can't brag on for quality very much. So therefore if you are needing Cert's you will be breeding to Reg. cows or hfrs. I would hope you would try to find some bull better than the bottom of the barrell to breed to. Put your numbers together using a $2,500.00 to $3,500.00 bull.He may die too, so you may not have anything to sell.

 

[Alan]

I'm wondering what your thoughts on value for your buck on A.I.ing vs purchasing a $1000 to $1500 bull and keeping with 12 to 15 cows.
Price of straws, certs., and rebreeds (what percentage to rebreed)
Thanks for your responses.
Alan

If you are only going to be natural breeding to a $1,000.00 to $1,500.00 bull that is about as cheap a bull as you gonna find. Probaly can't brag on for quality very much. So therefore if you are needing Cert's you will be breeding to Reg. cows or hfrs. I would hope you would try to find some bull better than the bottom of the barrell to breed to. Put your numbers together using a $2,500.00 to $3,500.00 bull.He may die too, so you may not have anything to sell.

Sorry LA not understanding your answer, I bought my $1000 reg polled hereford bull 4 years ago his Epd's were what I was looking for, low calving ease with good growth and good milk epd's. and 4 years ago he was only covering 5 cows next year he'll cover 12. But I'll sell him next year, but he is a long why from the best, but he's far better then alot of bulls for more money I shopped for him and got him from a good breeder.

My next bull I'll spend more money on but he'll cover more and better cows.... but that was not my question.

Alan

 

[la4angus]

Sorry LA not understanding your answer, I bought my $1000 reg polled hereford bull 4 years ago

Alan

Bulls were much cheaper 4 yrs ago than they are today for the same quality.

 

[Bez!]

Cheapest way we found to get started is to use the calves as cash. Breed to AI - you do not really have enough cattle for a bull to pay for himself - yet

.

I pasted this quote from another thread on this message board.

I'm wondering what your thoughts on value for your buck on A.I.ing vs purchasing a $1000 to $1500 bull and keeping with 12 to 15 cows. Assuming you have the same bull for 4 years and sell him after for $1000 to $1500 (2000lbs @ .50 cents/lbs)

Price of straws, certs., and rebreeds (what percentage to rebreed), induce into heat, etc. I have never A.I.'d but using a variaty of bulls would be a nice way to build a small herd of 20 to 25 cows.

Thanks for your responses.
Alan

Alan

My statement in your quote - so I will answer.

There are a couple of ways to look at this - rough numbers we use - $1.50 per day to keep an animal. Maybe less where you live. There is an economy of scale that seems to make things drop to around a buck a day when we hit around 75 head.

When it comes to cost of an animal, less is more. The smaller the herd the more it costs to keep it. Bull breeds the small herd and rests all year on your wallet.

If you do as we do now - AI selected animals on natural heat - then there is no cost of drugs and paraphernalia. Simply the cost of the straw and the AI tech. Here we use semen in the 10 - 50 dollar range depending on the animal. Yeah sometimes we have to go through the mill twice to get a catch. Tech is $15 for the first animal and 10 for all others on the same call.

So what we used to do back when we were your size:

25 or 50 bucks for estrumate - run them through and hit them all with 2 cc's.

AI with the semen we wanted when the first heat came on. Hit those who did not come into heat at 10 days with estrumate and AI at - sorry cannot remember exactly - I believe it was three days later - but in the end it does not matter for the example - AI all the remaining animals.

Rent a bull or make arrangements with someone to put a clean up bull in the herd in event we missed some. Because we run red animals we always used a black bull - made it easy to keep track of who was AI and who was bull bred.

I figure that using feed, vet, infrastructure and other assorted and sundry costs - if it is a small herd - 25 or less - it is now cheaper to go this route than it is to keep a bull and also run the risk of him dying, getting sick, getting hurt and so on.

Your 1000 buck animal still costs you each day and will continue to do so - even if sold at the same price as what you purchased him for.

If I spent 1000 bucks for AI on my original start up herd every 4 years - which even in todays dollars I would not - I could not get the genetic diversity I would need to grow the herd larger.

Not all will agree, but a bull is an expense that generally exceeds the cost of AI for small operators.

You sell that bull tomorrow for a thousand bucks and you AI - you will be farther ahead. When you hit 25 or more animals - AI the 10 selected best and bull the rest!

Bez!

 

[Bez!]

Additional benefit to AI for small operators - very tight calving season. If all goes well, you can literally be completed calving in 4 weeks or less - we always aimed to be inside 6 weeks.

Those that fell outside this time frame despite our best efforts often went down the road.

Regards

Bez!

 

[rwtherefords]

Alan, I suggest that you read the thread about A.I. vs. Natural breeding just a bit further down in the topic list. A.I. is definitely more expensive than owning a bull. Most of the people responding are most familier with the high dollar Angus pricing today, not Hereford pricing. They also assume Angus registration Certificate rates, not the going rates for Herefords.

I recommend that you do the math for what you specifically plan to do, and I'm sure the right answer for you will reveal itself.

 

[Case IH]

I cannot for the life of me see spending $2,500-3,500 on a a bull when a $1,500 dollar bull will do everything the more expensive one can do. Around here only registered bulls will hit the $2,500-$3,500 dollar.

 

[Case IH]

Some say you must have a registered bulls to have half way decent calves. You gotta be kidding me?

 

[la4angus]

I cannot for the life of me see spending $2,500-3,500 on a a bull when a $1,500 dollar bull will do everything the more expensive one can do.

Yep. They will get a cow or hfr pregnant, so she can have a calf.

 

[preston39]

Case...,

Soon the animal ID program will allow the terminal stage of grading to be fed back to the feedlot by producer. Who in turn will tell the buyers what animals to pay top dollar for and the others will be discounted...some say as much as 50% and even no buy.

The info on the salebarn screen could be much more than just weight, number and sale price. An animal could be scanned when it comes into the arena showing the producers' # along with his rating based on previous production. This will tell the buyers what to pay for the animal...if they even want it.

The smart producer will start now by infusing better genetics into his herd.

The alternative is a big hit in the check before going to the bank.

 

[rwtherefords]

Alan said he was using a Polled Hereford bull, which is why I replied. You can get an excellent registered Polled Hereford bull for $1500 at 12 months old. Those that are only familier with the high dollar Angus bulls assume that any decent bull costs $2000 - $3000. That's simply not true.

 

[Bez!]

Alan said he was using a Polled Hereford bull, which is why I replied. You can get an excellent registered Polled Hereford bull for $1500 at 12 months old. Those that are only familier with the high dollar Angus bulls assume that any decent bull costs $2000 - $3000. That's simply not true.

RW - You just had to make me laugh dinja'?

If he lived close enough and could prove his herd was clean he could borrow one of mine for a couple of seasons. Mind you he would have to deal with the darned horns off of one of those worthless red and white H'd Herfs.

That may change - I hear tell someone is trying to turn them black?

Alan - do not know where you are - but I still say bulls do not pay for themselves if you are a low numbers type farm.

Enjoyed these posts immensely. Save your money and AI - grab a clean up bull for the remainder - rent/borrow/barter for neighbourly help.

Grow your herd and start trying to pick a future bull prospect out of some of those excellent and diversified genetics you will be raising.

Happy New Year to you and your family,

Bez!

 

[edb130]

Everyone is figuring cost for A.I. with a tech. Go to school and learn how to do it yourself. Its been 10 years or so since I went to a Select Sire school but it cost around $150. After school no more tech costs. Simply purchase a tank and the semen you want to use.

 

[Alan]

Everyone is figuring cost for A.I. with a tech. Go to school and learn how to do it yourself. Its been 10 years or so since I went to a Select Sire school but it cost around $150. After school no more tech costs. Simply purchase a tank and the semen you want to use.

That's exactly what I'm looking into. Thanks for all the post

Alan

 

[dun]

Everyone is figuring cost for A.I. with a tech. Go to school and learn how to do it yourself. Its been 10 years or so since I went to a Select Sire school but it cost around $150. After school no more tech costs. Simply purchase a tank and the semen you want to use.

That's exactly what I'm looking into. Thanks for all the post

Alan

If you gfigure a good new tank will run around 450, amortized over 7 years, that's 65 bucks a year. Semen runs from 12 to the sky is the limit, but you can get some pretty spectacualr bulls for 20-30 a unit. The glove and sheathe run about maybe a quarter. Keeping the tank filled will run around 60-80 a year. A bare bones starter kit shouldn;t run more then 50 bucks. The real killer is the cost of the certificates for some bulls/breeds. But you only need those for the heifers that are good enough to register and the bulls that will be kept intact for breeding.

dun

 

[edb130]

edb130 wrote:
Everyone is figuring cost for A.I. with a tech. Go to school and learn how to do it yourself. Its been 10 years or so since I went to a Select Sire school but it cost around $150. After school no more tech costs. Simply purchase a tank and the semen you want to use.


That's exactly what I'm looking into. Thanks for all the post

Alan


If you gfigure a good new tank will run around 450, amortized over 7 years, that's 65 bucks a year. Semen runs from 12 to the sky is the limit, but you can get some pretty spectacualr bulls for 20-30 a unit. The glove and sheathe run about maybe a quarter. Keeping the tank filled will run around 60-80 a year. A bare bones starter kit shouldn;t run more then 50 bucks. The real killer is the cost of the certificates for some bulls/breeds. But you only need those for the heifers that are good enough to register and the bulls that will be kept intact for breeding.

Alan,

Dun is exactly right with his figures on price for tank and nitrogen. Semen varies alot but most of the bulls I'm buying are 30 to 40 per straw. Most breeds require certificates from what I'm seeing on these posts. Some breeds like Limousin do not require those to register though.

 

[edb130]

Sorry I got the quote box wrong and forgot to preview and now I can't seem to edit.

 

[dun]

The higher price of the semen probably covers the price of what would be a certificate in the other breeds. Not sure that makes sense. Hope someone can figure it out, makes perfect sense to me.

dun

 

[Angus Guy]

My question is why are breeders selling bulls for less than the fat market? As a breeder I expect to get a premium for my bulls and heifers since I've put the extra time and money into producing them.