Buying light feeders???

[Anonymous]

Does anyone feel that a person can buy some light weight feeders, less tha 200 lbs., and make any money? I have tried to put a pencil to it and figured selling at 500 to 600 lbs. and it seems to me that even if the market fell back to what it was last year a person could make some money. I noticed this week at the sales that some calves went for $1 to 1.20 a lb. Am I overlooking something to be thinking this?

 

[la4angus]

Does anyone feel that a person can buy some light weight feeders, less tha 200 lbs., and make any money? I have tried to put a pencil to it and figured selling at 500 to 600 lbs. and it seems to me that even if the market fell back to what it was last year a person could make some money. I noticed this week at the sales that some calves went for $1 to 1.20 a lb. Am I overlooking something to be thinking this?

I am assuming that you are in Kentucky, looking at your log in name.
After checking the Kentucky sales for last week and this week all that I can find around the 200 lb wt. is holsteins.
Your large and med. 1's and 2's beef cattle are selling much, much more than $1.00 to $1.20 per lb.
Figure the discount that holsteins will take in comparison to the large and med. #1 & #2 calves, sickness problems with these babies and death loss and if you can make them work at last years prices I would say go for it.
If you don't mind would post where these 200 lb. calves are bringing $1.00 to $1.20 per lb.

 

[C & C Land & Catt]

Should work out good for you just watch for sickness & potbelly. Also, what breed areyou getting for that cheap? Last week in Woodward, OK 300 wt blk wf were bringing 168 consistently.

 

[Anonymous]

la4angus, yes I am in KY seen these at 2 different sales Bowling Green and Guthrie. They were beef breeds that were oddballs as far as size that did not grade or fit in with other pens and were sold seperately not in a group. We have done some Hostiens but their price seems to flucate more than beef. We were thinking if we could buy a 150# calf for $200 then sell it at 500# or more it would pay off. But maybe I am not figuring my feed espense right. We have plenty or grass and as high as cows are really did not want to spend that much now. We have a cow/calf operation now (small herd) and want to increase but the $$$ is limited. Thought this might be a way to increase the income some with a little less outlay out first. Thanks for the thoughts.

 

[sidney411]

How do you keep a young weaned calf from becoming potbellied?

 

[hillbilly]

IMO the first 400+ pounds need to be with mom.
I would not recomend anyone buying beef calves less than 400#.
Especially someome new to cattle.
They can up and die in three days without you realizing they are sick.
Beef cattle are harder to get started than dairy calves.
Sometimes they come off old broken mouth cows and have not had a good start to begin with, some are stunted or dwarfs.
Spend the extra money and buy 4 wts. +
There is room for all of us to make some money this year without too much risk.
Hillbilly

 

[dun]

How do you keep a young weaned calf from becoming potbellied?

You feed it a ration consisting primarily of high quality grain and very little grass/hay.

dun

 

[sidney411]

I guess I don't understand how you could make much money if you have to feed the calves almost everything they eat with very little utilization of grass which is cheep compared to feed. Here is my rationing, I'm I way off here?

Buy 200 lb calf = $200.00
feed average of 15 lbs feed a day x 10 days = 3 sacks of feed X $5.25 per sack = 15.75

so every 10 days you spend 15.75 on feed

if calf gains 1.50 lbs per day then it takes 226.67 days to grow till he is 600 lbs. so this means $420.05 in feed to get him to 600 lbs.

$200.00 for calf
$420.05 for feed
$ 10.00 +/- for vaccines
$630.05 total spent on calf

600 lb calf at $1.10 is $660.00 so you have only made $29.95 and you don't have any expenses taken out of this yet.

I'm I not figuring this right? Could someone help me out?

 

[D.R. Cattle]

I'd say procurement of 200lb calf for $200 is a pipe dream for starters.

 

[sidney411]

I know, I am just trying to figure things on best case senario

 

[hillbilly]

well to start with a 200# calf cant eat 15lbs per day. more like 4 or 5 lbs.
They wont gain fast untill they reach 4 to 5 wts.
That plus sickness is why I would not recomend flyweights.
Also the buyer can see early weaners a mile away.
I may be way off here, please correct me if I am.
Hillbilly

 

[D.R. Cattle]

I'm not an expert on feeding but it would seem that volume would have to play a role to make money. Where grain was purchased by the ton and the 50# bags you spoke of are now $.50 instead of $5.25?

 

[sidney411]

I precondition - I buy feed in bulk a ton at a time. last I bought was $180.00 per ton, this works out to $4.50 per 50 lbs. My calves ADG was 2lbs and they are 2 tons per 15 calves in 30 days, which is averaging 8.89lbs per calf per day. BUT- they were on free choice hay and pasture - not dry lotted. Am I doing this wrong?? How much do you have to buy to get it an $.50 per ton??? and where??? I would fill all of our silos at that price.

 

[D.R. Cattle]

My bad. I missed a decimal point.

 

[hillbilly]

Dr. Cattle,
Where do you buy feed for $20 ton?
.50 X 40 [50# bags] = $20
Send me a semi load!
Hillbilly

 

[D.R. Cattle]

See previous comment.

 

[sidney411]

Darn, I was thinking about coming to florida to load up on feed. lol :lol: But seriously - I'm I doing this preconditioning feeding right? Can anyone that has done this longer give me any pointers? Thanks!

 

[jcarkie]

if you are buying light calves you don't want them fat you want them to grow. i always give them all the grass or hay and about 3 -5 lbs of 13% grain. so they will gain and grow. i buy mine at 4-500 lbs then sell them at 700.