congrats to James Coffelt, Ohio land and cattle.. front page of ohio farmer!

[Lazy M]

I don't know for sure but I don't think he is hooked up with pharo anymore. pharo used to have a bull sale in ohio and now they don't. There may have been a parting of the ways.....may be somebody can verify that knows more.

Not listed..

https://www.pharocattle.com/coops/ohio

https://www.pharocattle.com/coops

Poor Mr. Coffett having to look at his pastures full of tiny, stunted Pharo cattle. Probably constantly having to sit through teleconferences with Kit spewing his extreme low input rhetoric..reminds me of the joke about the 2 dung beetles: One turns to the other and says, "This BS is getting hard to swallow!"..

 

[Stocker Steve]

So it mentions that he has about 1 cow per 10 acres of land and that allows him to feed basically no hay. So right now I would estimate that I need about 5 bales to get one cow through the winter. One bale $40. So $200 in hay per cow per winter. If I wanted to get rid of this once a year hay expense I would have to buy eight more acres per cow. Cost in my area $3500 an acre. Cost for eight more acres $28,000. I know land normally goes up in value, but a $28,000 investment to make $200. Am I missing something or might the marketing of his cattle and getting a better price be more of the reason he has been able to expand.

Ya - - hay is evil :devil2: and you should yield more than 5 bales worth of forage from 8 acres.

One of Kit' points is that many producers are overstocked and this contributes to a lot of hay feeding. This is true, but the short term optimum depends on feed and labor and beef prices. True believers skip the math and just state that feed prices will go up some day so -- hay is evil.

Pretty hard for non traders to expand and contract a cow herd quickly due to pricing volitility. So we need to consider some short term cattle. Sounds like Jim has some. Pasturing stockers or yearling breeding stock or cull cows can work well during the spring flush.

 

[Bigfoot]

My book keeping and justification of expenses is questionable at best, so I promise I'm not throwing stones. He calls land $15 an acre, and 10 acres per cow. Pasture here (and he's not here) would rent for $40-$60, and row crop could get dangerously close to $300. To the best of my knowledge there is none of either to rent. I'm with him on the added value of a bred heifer though (if you can sell her). I'm also in favor of a young cow herd. I'll let one simmer till she's 9 or 10 though.

Any time your doing it different, your gonna attract attention. His operation is certainly different.

 

[Nesikep]

If you make your own hay, and stock what you can stock, then in the winters we have here you're always going to be feeding hay or you're going to be terribly understocked in the growing season. The cost of making hay rarely varies by much, the cost of it is mostly determined by demand (serious droughts ignored).

I'm of the opinion that as long as a cow produces average or better calves, she gets to stay.. there must be something good about her and I might want a bunch more daughters.. My old granny I only kept one calf before she got to 10 years old, her 14th-16th calves I kept and are great... I'm willing to write off the value of the cow (bury her) if I get more, better calves... evidently this is the exception not the rule though.

Steve, I've had single cuts where I've made that much or more per acre.. I've pulled 700x 80 lb bales off 6 acres in a cut.. unfortunately again, the exception not the rule..

 

[ddd75]

i baled 118 4x4 round bales off 8 acres last year. That's 3,540.00 @ 30 / roll value in 1 cutting.

That land is 10-14k / ac land. lets say you pulled 200 for the year. that's 6k in hay. Every 2 years you'll pay for an acre. 8 acres would take 16 years to pay for in hay. Not bad when considering how much the land is valued.



Now to the understock so you don't have to make hay theory. In KY I fed hay around Xmas every single year. They were back to grazing on March 20th, every year. I had 3 months of hay feeding, around 600-800 round bales. If I understocked and fed stockpiled grass, I'm guessing I'd have to cut my herd size in almost half. What would you do with all the grass in the warm months? buy stockers? You can't gain enough weight in that time on grass alone to make them even worth it. 800 bales @ 30 each is 24,000 dollars. My hay equipment cost me around 10k. What about fertilizer and seed!?!?!? Well, I unroll my bales where I got the hay. no seed / fertilizer needed. 0 input costs other then fuel.

Anyway you want to spin it it just doesn't make sense.

 

[kenny thomas]

Just a couple of thoughts, very first thing it says its reclaimed mine land. Value is nothing compared to crop land or even good grazing land. In some areas of eastern KY, and in VA this type land can be leased cheap. Thousands and thousands of acres. I do know of 2 producers that have so much of this leased that they run hundreds of cows and never feed hay. But there also is no,where there to make hay or buy hay. I can graze 10+ months by stockpiling and have a cow to 1.2 acres. Yes i could feed a lot of hay and increase numbers but mornings like this when its 14 I'm too lazy to get out and feed. Let the cow harvest it.
My grazing is not the mining land. My soil is really productive, just steep.

 

[Bright Raven]

There are several programs in Eastern Kentucky to promote cattle production on Reclaimed Mined Lands (Coal). The programs are generous. I have a friend who participates in a heifer program offered at the UK Agricultural research facility in Breathitt County. He takes open heifers there in the spring, they are AI bred, grazed all summer and he goes and gets them in the Fall.

https://www.lanereport.com/54377/2015/0 ... -kentucky/

https://www.google.com/amp/amp.kentucky ... 07057.html

 

[Jogeephus]

Ok I read the article and I see that he has a very low cost per head, but here is my question. So it mentions that he has about 1 cow per 10 acres of land and that allows him to feed basically no hay. So right now I would estimate that I need about 5 bales to get one cow through the winter. One bale $40. So $200 in hay per cow per winter. If I wanted to get rid of this once a year hay expense I would have to buy eight more acres per cow. Cost in my area $3500 an acre. Cost for eight more acres $28,000. I know land normally goes up in value, but a $28,000 investment to make $200. Am I missing something or might the marketing of his cattle and getting a better price be more of the reason he has been able to expand.

Can't speak for him but it sounds like he has several irons in the fire and cattle is just one of them. A lot of people view buying land as a good investment but if you have land there are taxes and upkeep on the land and what better way to pay your taxes and keep your land mowed and and groomed than to run cattle on it? Especially if you aren't out there every day pouring bags of feed in front of them.

 

[sim.-ang.king]

Ok I read the article and I see that he has a very low cost per head, but here is my question. So it mentions that he has about 1 cow per 10 acres of land and that allows him to feed basically no hay. So right now I would estimate that I need about 5 bales to get one cow through the winter. One bale $40. So $200 in hay per cow per winter. If I wanted to get rid of this once a year hay expense I would have to buy eight more acres per cow. Cost in my area $3500 an acre. Cost for eight more acres $28,000. I know land normally goes up in value, but a $28,000 investment to make $200. Am I missing something or might the marketing of his cattle and getting a better price be more of the reason he has been able to expand.

Your thinking too deeply into this.


It's quite simple really...



...don't charge your cattle rent.

 

[Allenw]

i baled 118 4x4 round bales off 8 acres last year. That's 3,540.00 @ 30 / roll value in 1 cutting.

That land is 10-14k / ac land. lets say you pulled 200 for the year. that's 6k in hay. Every 2 years you'll pay for an acre. 8 acres would take 16 years to pay for in hay. Not bad when considering how much the land is valued.



Now to the understock so you don't have to make hay theory. In KY I fed hay around Xmas every single year. They were back to grazing on March 20th, every year. I had 3 months of hay feeding, around 600-800 round bales. If I understocked and fed stockpiled grass, I'm guessing I'd have to cut my herd size in almost half. What would you do with all the grass in the warm months? buy stockers? You can't gain enough weight in that time on grass alone to make them even worth it. 800 bales @ 30 each is 24,000 dollars. My hay equipment cost me around 10k. What about fertilizer and seed!?!?!? Well, I unroll my bales where I got the hay. no seed / fertilizer needed. 0 input costs other then fuel.

Anyway you want to spin it it just doesn't make sense.

What does a 4x4 bale weigh? I may have seen a baler that small once.

 

[dun]

What does a 4x4 bale weigh? I may have seen a baler that small once.

They look like jelly rolls

 

[Bigfoot]

i baled 118 4x4 round bales off 8 acres last year. That's 3,540.00 @ 30 / roll value in 1 cutting.

That land is 10-14k / ac land. lets say you pulled 200 for the year. that's 6k in hay. Every 2 years you'll pay for an acre. 8 acres would take 16 years to pay for in hay. Not bad when considering how much the land is valued.



Now to the understock so you don't have to make hay theory. In KY I fed hay around Xmas every single year. They were back to grazing on March 20th, every year. I had 3 months of hay feeding, around 600-800 round bales. If I understocked and fed stockpiled grass, I'm guessing I'd have to cut my herd size in almost half. What would you do with all the grass in the warm months? buy stockers? You can't gain enough weight in that time on grass alone to make them even worth it. 800 bales @ 30 each is 24,000 dollars. My hay equipment cost me around 10k. What about fertilizer and seed!?!?!? Well, I unroll my bales where I got the hay. no seed / fertilizer needed. 0 input costs other then fuel.

Anyway you want to spin it it just doesn't make sense.

What does a 4x4 bale weigh? I may have seen a baler that small once.

I'd guess 500 pounds. Maybe a shade more. I have fed them a time or two. I put 2 in each hay ring, when I did.

 

[ALACOWMAN]

What was his user name?

 

[ddd75]

i baled 118 4x4 round bales off 8 acres last year. That's 3,540.00 @ 30 / roll value in 1 cutting.

That land is 10-14k / ac land. lets say you pulled 200 for the year. that's 6k in hay. Every 2 years you'll pay for an acre. 8 acres would take 16 years to pay for in hay. Not bad when considering how much the land is valued.



Now to the understock so you don't have to make hay theory. In KY I fed hay around Xmas every single year. They were back to grazing on March 20th, every year. I had 3 months of hay feeding, around 600-800 round bales. If I understocked and fed stockpiled grass, I'm guessing I'd have to cut my herd size in almost half. What would you do with all the grass in the warm months? buy stockers? You can't gain enough weight in that time on grass alone to make them even worth it. 800 bales @ 30 each is 24,000 dollars. My hay equipment cost me around 10k. What about fertilizer and seed!?!?!? Well, I unroll my bales where I got the hay. no seed / fertilizer needed. 0 input costs other then fuel.

Anyway you want to spin it it just doesn't make sense.

What does a 4x4 bale weigh? I may have seen a baler that small once.

about 600 lbs.

 

[ALACOWMAN]

What was his user name???

 

[kenny thomas]

What was his user name???

I actually think it might have been James Coffelt.

 

[Bigfoot]

What was his user name???

I actually think it might have been James Coffelt.

I just did a search. He had 140 post.

 

[Stocker Steve]

I visited his place. He got bad hurt on an ATV. Not doing well at all. Have not heard from him in over a year.

Ouch. Hate to hear that. I do some of his stuff. Needed to pick his brain a little more though.[/quote]

He is obviously a very good businessman. Cheap land, very long grazing season, no cost bulls, selling replacements...

Did he miss anything?

 

[TexasBred]

His cost sound a bit on the high side when you consider you're getting a midget cow.

 

[TennesseeTuxedo]

His cost sound a bit on the high side when you consider you're getting a midget cow.

Moderate framed NOT a midget!