Buying a breeding bull through the ring

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My grandfather, Maurice Boney, always told me to buy the best bull you can afford. If a bull at the sale barn is the best bull you can afford, then be darned sure and try and get the best one there. If you can afford more, do research, understand what works well with your own cows. Talk to other ranchers, experiment with AI, use EPD's if available, but always BUY THE BEST BULL YOU CAN AFFORD.[/quote]

I have met your Grandfather and have a lot of respect for his cattle knowledge. I want you to know that this is just the kind of post i was hoping to see from you when i chided you for just coming here to advertize. I also want to tell you that i totally agree with your grandfather. However there are always going to be those out there who go to a bull sale with the idea of buying a bargain and they are always out there. Sadly, they almost always demonstrate their true worth sooner or later. I always laugh when i see someone who cusses those overfattened feedlot bulls so he goes to a bull sale and buys one that doesn't meet that criteria. Only to find out that he just bought a bull that couldn't gain under the best of circumstances.

To illustrate the value of Maurice's words I will relate how it can effect you. Two years ago i had sold my good Angus bull with the idea that i would AI everything straight Gelbvieh and then just run my cows with my firnds Angus bull to clean up. He was in fact an amazing example of the breed and a breeding machine. As it turs out we had a catastrophic failure when the semen tank went dry and i only had a 30% success on the AI. If it werent for the quality of that bull i woud have little or nothing to sell this year. As it turns out a have a real nice bunch of Balancer bulls on test.

Like Maurice said buy the best bull you can afford.........or like they say buy once, cry once.
 
MacGillivrayAngus":3nm5pvop said:
There is a lot of good discussion here, and as you can see there are many different answers. The common thread between them all is "It depends on your own personal goals"

The impact of a bull can have a huge impact on the success or failure of your herd, and understanding the cows within your herd is jump as important, but since this conversation is about bulls, I'll keep to that. Everyone always has their own niche in the market that they are trying to fill; Cow/Calf, Feeders/Stockers, Heifer Development or a Seedstock operation. You have to first identify where you and your herd fit in, what is hurting you the most and how to improve on that.

Here is my take on why purchasing a quality breeding bull is so important as it can influence your bottom line for years to come. Buying a bull through the sale barn is just like purchasing a car through a used car auction and you can only judge that bull on his physical phenotype and disposition at that time. With the amount of crossbreeding that has been done over the years, even being confident in his breed purity is difficult. If you were purchasing a car for your daughter so that can she move across the country to go to school, would you put her in a car that you only got to look at for a couple of minutes?

A bull can be one of the single most important investments you make into your cattle operation and is responsible for 50% of the genetics in his offspring.

Let's put this into some numbers and I'll be conservative here.

Say you use your bull for 4 years on 25 cows, so over the life of that bull you get 100 offspring.
-Let's say by using a Low Birth weight, easy calving bull, you get 1-3 more live calves out of that 100 than using an "average" bull. Using $1.50/lb for a 500lb calf, that is $750-$2250 in additional revenue.
-Now let's say that by using a bull that transmits a high Average Daily Gain and converts efficiently. With an additional 40-50 pounds per calf, that can mean an additional $7,500 in revenue in a Cow/Calf operation.
-Now, let's say you retain those cattle and feed them out. Sure you can just get paid market price, but if you buy a good bull that passes on high quality carcass traits, you could be looking at an additional $30 per CWT if you get paid on the grid. Or let's say you run a freezer beef program and can now ask a huge premium to consumers for your quality beef. This could add 10's of Thousands of revenue dollars to your operation.

So, with the purchase of a bull that excels at all of this, over the course of 4-5 years, you could easily add ~$45,000 of revenue to your operation. Not many places in life can you find that Return on Investment.

Let's say you go to the sale barn, and pick out a bad bull. Sure the calves look ok, but they do not perform in the feedlot or on the grid. The same thing could work in reverse, and you could lose out on ~$45,000.

My grandfather, Maurice Boney, always told me to buy the best bull you can afford. If a bull at the sale barn is the best bull you can afford, then be darned sure and try and get the best one there. If you can afford more, do research, understand what works well with your own cows. Talk to other ranchers, experiment with AI, use EPD's if available, but always BUY THE BEST BULL YOU CAN AFFORD.


Good post
 
TexasBred":25niwnrj said:
wacocowboy":25niwnrj said:
the sales I go to here in Texas if you buy him for a breeder he is tested before he leaves the sale barn
BSE only. Trich test has to be done in a state approved lab and signed by their agent. Bull has to be quaranteened on your farm for 30 days from date of purchase.

Perhaps "CULL" is not the right word. it may be a cull for one buyer to go to slaughter and a herd prospect for another. Who makes that determination? Some bulls are sold because the operation needs a new bull. This one has served his purpose. It doesn't necessarily mean he's a cull. Just no longer needed...trading material more of less like big time football players. :lol2:

vet collects the trich test at the sale and sends it off and only takes like 10 days to get it back and see if he is clean until then you have to keep it away from cows I just had my bull tested have a sale pending on him and the same vet works at the sale barn and does them there too
 
AussieLim":3flbmeff said:
Why buy someone's cull? A bull is responsible for 50% of his progeny a genes and can have 50-60 calves a year in a seasonal joining. Why would u buy a cull to be the one that is responsible for much of your progenies performance.

I know a guy he was down on his luck divorce and other crap and his bull died didn't have the money to go replace him with a nice bull like he usually would do so we went to the sale and picked out a good looking bull he bought him took him to the vet he was 6 years old and had good fertility and he used him for 5 year till he got back on his feet got good calves out of him every year but even if they were crappy some crappy calves is better than no calves until he could get his money right
 
wacocowboy":29c70e2g said:
vet collects the trich test at the sale and sends it off and only takes like 10 days to get it back and see if he is clean until then you have to keep it away from cows I just had my bull tested have a sale pending on him and the same vet works at the sale barn and does them there too

The test the State of Texas runs takes about a month:

Initial -- test for a bull that has not had a valid trichomoniasis test within the previous 30 days.

Retest – second or third culture test performed as part of a three-test series, or the second PCR
conducted within 30 days to release restrictions on exposed bulls.


Bull can be taken home but must be isolated from cows.
 
in kansas before the sale barn will sell them as a breeding bull they must have a negative trich test. it dont take nearly as long to get resukts though. ijust had one tested on wednesday and had results by monday.
 
TexasBred":1yudqhzb said:
wacocowboy":1yudqhzb said:
vet collects the trich test at the sale and sends it off and only takes like 10 days to get it back and see if he is clean until then you have to keep it away from cows I just had my bull tested have a sale pending on him and the same vet works at the sale barn and does them there too

The test the State of Texas runs takes about a month:

Initial -- test for a bull that has not had a valid trichomoniasis test within the previous 30 days.

Retest – second or third culture test performed as part of a three-test series, or the second PCR
conducted within 30 days to release restrictions on exposed bulls.


Well I just had a bull tested on Jan 20th and got the results last Friday I got the paperwork from the lab saying he has a clean bill

Bull can be taken home but must be isolated from cows.
 

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