buying cattle

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allischalmers1984

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how much are 600lbs feeder cattle going for ? Looking to buy some,but by my calulations it would cost me $800 then if i feed them up to fat cattle weight and take them to auction where today at 1100lbs they brought on average $1,134. Thats only $334 in profit per head. But still have feeding cost on top of that. Now does that sound right? Im new to this whole thing and really want to be a cattle producer but i cant alot of money at it. Thanks for any help
 
youll most likely go in the hole buying 600lb calves an finishing them out to 1200lbs an selling them.
 
You are right, the price of calves at the sale doesn't figure much profit unless you can hedge the cattle and hedge your feed.
The question is what is your source of feed? If you are an Iowa corn farmer, you have to decide whether to feed your crop or sell it.
 
Were the cattle you sold last week FINISHED?? Their price may have been a lot different depending on whether they needed more feed or if they were READY to harvest.
If they weren't finished, you might have been money ahead to finish them out properly.
 
If you're after profit, it's not there. Sell the feed. People are into buying cattle right now - thus high prices going higher. Profit is made by SELLING now - not buying.
 
Just this last monday I sold some calves that were still bulls that I failed to cut because I wanted to wait a little bit longer on them to see what they would do. I went ahead and sold them without cutting because of the prices. These were 6 weights. They brought 1.16 to 1.30 and they were all full gerts.
 

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