bird dog
Well-known member
The reports out of OKC say that the market turned up this week because of the buyers wanting calves to ship to the mid-section of the country to put on grass. It seems that all of that moisture in the spring has now dried up into some flush pastures.
But I agree on one thing that y'all mentioned, its a week to week deal. I give up on trying to guess when to sell and just haul them when they are ready.
There was an article in one of the cattle mags this week that talked about what I have noticed. Weaning for 45 days is good but keeping them a few weeks longer is when they really start to gain. What I have seen is from fresh off the mama to 45 days gets you about 1.25 lbs/day gain. They lose some getting weaned and slowly get it back plus some. On the other hand. the additional two to three weeks longer weaned calves boosted the gain to close to 2 lbs/day for the entire period.
This is based on my program which is weaned calves on pasture and about 5 to 7 lbs/per head of creep feed fed every other day. The other added benefit is the shrink is negligible on these long weaned calves if they are marketed somewhere where they have something decent to eat and drink while waiting to sell. It is critical that calves that know how to drink from a trough when the temperature is hot like it is these days. One trip to the water trough will easily give you $10 of weight gain.
But I agree on one thing that y'all mentioned, its a week to week deal. I give up on trying to guess when to sell and just haul them when they are ready.
There was an article in one of the cattle mags this week that talked about what I have noticed. Weaning for 45 days is good but keeping them a few weeks longer is when they really start to gain. What I have seen is from fresh off the mama to 45 days gets you about 1.25 lbs/day gain. They lose some getting weaned and slowly get it back plus some. On the other hand. the additional two to three weeks longer weaned calves boosted the gain to close to 2 lbs/day for the entire period.
This is based on my program which is weaned calves on pasture and about 5 to 7 lbs/per head of creep feed fed every other day. The other added benefit is the shrink is negligible on these long weaned calves if they are marketed somewhere where they have something decent to eat and drink while waiting to sell. It is critical that calves that know how to drink from a trough when the temperature is hot like it is these days. One trip to the water trough will easily give you $10 of weight gain.