Buying vs Raising Replac Heifers

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Rock bottom for us was 5 years ago when we had a 25% conception rate from the group of heifers we started out with. Experience is the BEST teacher...a degree is just an expensive piece of paper if you can't swallow your pride and learn from your mistakes. Even if it is going against what you were taught. ...Accuration was also chalked up as an expensive learning experience.

Jessica
 
ricebeltrancher":1odij3pb said:
Rock bottom for us was 5 years ago when we had a 25% conception rate from the group of heifers we started out with. Experience is the BEST teacher...a degree is just an expensive piece of paper if you can't swallow your pride and learn from your mistakes. Even if it is going against what you were taught. ...Accuration was also chalked up as an expensive learning experience.

Jessica

We have all been there. The only thing I have learned for sure is to try my "bright ideas" on a small scale first and to do it with cash I have in my hand. ;-)
 
ricebeltrancher":3i6f0ln0 said:
Rock bottom for us was 5 years ago when we had a 25% conception rate from the group of heifers we started out with. Experience is the BEST teacher...a degree is just an expensive piece of paper if you can't swallow your pride and learn from your mistakes. Even if it is going against what you were taught. ...Accuration was also chalked up as an expensive learning experience.

Jessica

That is what I am trying to tell my grandaughter at TAMU right now. I am getting smarter again thank goodness.
Brute had it right it is about networking. I make the same deal when hauling for everyone when I see a heifer I like, I will give you average of the sale that day take the bottom and highest selling in that weight and that is what I will pay.
If you don't want to do that it is fine by me as I have got her number when she run's through the ring.
I wont buy a cow off the trailer she has to be palpated and aged before I will even bid. She might be a five year old and have SS teeth due to your grass management. I know the prices and what the potential for that bovine to make before I ever bid. Again networking when you walk in the auction barn and the auctioneer greet's you over the load speaker you are buying and selling enough that it is impacting his billfold. I have had him holler Caustic this is one of your type that Brute 23 dropped off this morning. He is not doing that for fun he is trying to maximize the thickness of his billfold for his family.
 
Caustic Burno":37j6xyk5 said:
I love these thread's I can't buy as good of heifer's as I can raise :bs: Pasture blindness is a disease.
Retaining heifers has a pretty stiff price tag they are a long way from being free.
There is absolutely no financial advantage for the commercial cattleman to retain quite the opposite.

CB I agree mostly. I haven't been to a sale in a while but over the years have bought a few that made nice replacements. I always just enjoyed going and watching. For some reason it seems there might be one or two bred cows or even young open cows that came in the ring and nobody wanted them so I got them cheap. No intention of keeping them. Just calve them out, get the calf up to about 400 lbs. haul them right back... always seem to make money too. That's the bottom line anyway. Jsut have to remind myself that I'm trying to sell the high price cows, not buy them.... it's not a sin to bring that trailer home empty either.
 
Brute 23":bgzaekej said:
There are a couple factors you have to think about. One, Caustic lives at the auction barn so its no big deal for him to pick up a couple here and there. For the rest of us that time has a value. Plus, we can't pick out prime replacement stock in the 3 sec as they run by.

Brute, I sort of studied under an old old dairyman years ago. It took him just about 3 seconds to know if he wanted to bid on a cow. The best I ever saw and he didn't buy high price animals either. Only those that he knew would be high priced when he sold them as 2nd calf springers in about 10 months. He77 he would hardly ever let his study of a cow and his bidding interrupt his conversation or snacking.
 
TexasBred":1sy0ebgn said:
Brute 23":1sy0ebgn said:
There are a couple factors you have to think about. One, Caustic lives at the auction barn so its no big deal for him to pick up a couple here and there. For the rest of us that time has a value. Plus, we can't pick out prime replacement stock in the 3 sec as they run by.

Brute, I sort of studied under an old old dairyman years ago. It took him just about 3 seconds to know if he wanted to bid on a cow. The best I ever saw and he didn't buy high price animals either. Only those that he knew would be high priced when he sold them as 2nd calf springers in about 10 months. He77 he would hardly ever let his study of a cow and his bidding interrupt his conversation or snacking.

Its an art... Im amazed when I go to the barn. It takes me a fair amount of time and dragging a few old farts along with me for back up to even have a chance. :lol:
 
Brute 23":2owq8rkw said:
Its an art... Im amazed when I go to the barn. It takes me a fair amount of time and dragging a few old farts along with me for back up to even have a chance. :lol:

Well if it makes you feel any better, by the time I get a good look at one and process what Im seeing she belongs to somebody else. :nod:
 
Caustic Burno":yr7b1yud said:
Brute I don't know all the reason's people dump good cattle other than they die and the kid's head for the salebarn as fast as they can. I do know and find out why some are sold by watching and listening. Man can learn alot on the catwalk. I buy quite a few opportunity cows every year through the barn.
I haul a lot for surrounding guy's . I know who has what in the area. I will let you decide who made or lost money.
This high yeller baldie I bought last year off the trailer before she unloaded at the barn all ready tagged in, I never let her get off the trailer . It is all about haveing an eye for the girl's and the cash in your billfold when the time come's.
The man that owned her had retained her didn't have enough grass for all he retained I paid 780 dollar's for her.
I should have bought the whole trailer load of them.


Now these two girl's the one in the front is 1/2 Shorthorn 1/2 Hereford was a retained heifer as well
she ended up getting culled for a register S/H heifer to stay paid 800 for her.
The Certified Golden F-1 came off one of the premier operation's around here that a girl got to show.
That heifer is halter broke, girl decided they didn't want to play the game ran her through the barn, picked her up for 1025. I can't raise them for that.



The girl in the front got picked out of a fellow's retained heifer pasture about two year's ago.
He had a Massey 135 that no one around here could fix, I had one for ever, told him I could fix it for a heifer of my choice. Took me about six hour's labor for that one.


I remember the day you posted that photograph of the first heifer you bought out of the back of your trailer, I had to wipe the drool off my chin. I think a lot of pasture blindness could be avoided if people focused more on selling when they start out as opposed to herd building. Nothing focuses your attention like receiving less money because your animal is inferior to the average...
 
Kindof hard to grow your herd if you load up and sell everything. Wouldn't it make more sense to get some outside opinions? I think someone would have to live in a bubble to only ever see their own cattle. Replacement sales (good ones) are a good place to recalibrate your eye.
 
I just found this.

http://www.cattlenetwork.com/more-cows- ... tml?page=2

Table 1. Example inputs and outcomes for change in net income and breakeven analysis for raising versus purchasing replacement heifers in Northern Colorado in December 2011.
Item - Value

Sale weight of raised heifer calf, lbs - 600

Sale price of raised heifer calf, $/cwt - $1.30

Operating interest, % - 9%

Hay, pasture, supplement, health, labor and bull costs
for raised heifer from weaning to pregnancy diagnosis, $ - $683.25

Other non-feed costs and interest of raised heifer, $ - $91.25

Cost of purchased bred heifer, $ - $1350.00

Breakeven sale price of raised heifer calf, $/cwt - $0.66

Breakeven price for purchased bred replacement heifer, $ - $1557.25


Based upon the example computations outlined in Table 1, the sale price of the raised heifer calf could drop from $1.30 to $0.66 per cwt before it would cost less to raise replacements from within the herd than purchasing them at $1,350.00 each.

Conversely, a producer could pay up to $1557.25 per bred heifer before it would be more costly to purchase than raise a replacement, using these assumptions.
 
but the unknown is still there...what yer gonna get.

no matter what..you really never know positively what is gonna come out of that cow....no matter what...you CANNOT be positive..you only think you can...you can be 99% but it could still come give you issue to losing both cow and calf.

rep could be a loser to but easier recouping the cash i think
 

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