cost to carry a cow for a year

[MO_cows]

I'm still wet behind the ears on many aspects, so don't be too hard on me here - BUT, it seems to me like selling calves is leaving money on the table. "Value added" has been tossed around until everybody is sick of it, but isn't it true?? You also see people post that they don't get any premium on their calves for properly weaning them instead of on the trailer, and that isn't right, either. If you can hang onto the calves and grow them some more without excessive cost, can you capture more of the dollars tacked on between the producer and the dinner plate??

 

[Aero]

If you can hang onto the calves and grow them some more without excessive cost, can you capture more of the dollars tacked on between the producer and the dinner plate??

i am not convinced of this still. the more pounds you put on, the less you get paid for them. if you used the same amount of feed to carry more cows, you could sell more calves at lighter weights.

this has been on my mind pretty heavily today
http://5barx.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=4371

 

[Jogeephus]

Been getting everything ready to file personal taxes and the cattle are definitely in the black this year. I guess I should have bought that no till drill I was wanting or maybe built another barn. Cows did redo the kitchen for her sweetnesty and she is happy so I am too. I still have around 8 stragglers that I've just been too lazy to sell but I've also been quite busy selling hay due to the unprecedented cold weather. Had an old timer once tell me that you don't make money raising cattle till you sell your herd. I can see where there can be truth in this if you don't get lazy like I did this year.

 

[Angus Cowman]

There are a lot of people in RR's neck of the woods that are losing $300 a head on every calf they sell If they are losing that pr hd they better cut the cord now and start swimming instead of keeping a hold and sinking deeper

(according to a friend's ag accountant). I would assume they are either working off-farm to subsidize the cows or are in debt up to their neck (I was led to believe the latter).
Doesn't make sense ifthey are losing money in one aspect by subsidizing it with another so they would be better to sell out pay the proceeds to the bank and then take the off farm income and make payments to the bank
I have been in several different businesses and if one can't support itself then you are only prolonging the inevitable (bankruptcy)by supplementing it from another source
In order to make it pay, a lot of people have quit selling calves and are backgrounding their own either to yearling or through grass season as well. :cowboy:

still won't work as the cost increase in heavier cattle won't make up for the $300 deficit the lighter weight calves are bringing to the table if they have the ground to run and sell yrlings then they should be able to either run more cattle or use that grass as stockpile or hay to lower the cost on the upkeep of the cow for the yr
in short you can't stay in business if you are losing money all the time

 

[rockridgecattle]

What Aaron said for our area is true. Some guys are loosing their shirts. With two bad years of too much rain, alot have had to buy hay. This increased the cost of raising a cow. I admit, I want out of cows right now. I see the hemoraging of lost money and want it to stop. We have cut where we could, I monitor what we spend. Cut on vet meds to heal sick cows or calves. We have not cut on the health program, but cut in treating. No longer do we treat until we can not treat any more. Now it is "here is your course of meds, get better or get dead." We do not buy hay. We sell cows to the point of having enough hay to cover what cows are left. If we do not have the money, we go with out. We cut on small things too. Like using a hay trailer to take the hay we need to the cows for the feeding instead of running back and forth to the hay yard and then to the feed area. Little things to save pennies here and there. Grain for the cows is a luxery unless the hay is poor quality. That said, at 200 a cow, how can you afford to get out. Hubby is holding on.
My off farm job pays our living expenses. At one time we both worked off farm.
I am still trying to get hubby to see some expenses in a new light. Get him to look at all things from a cost perspective. He is learning. But i have to realize, he grew up on a family farm. His parents did things differently. For them it was a way of life, not a business. Treat old bessie untill she could take no more. Not count in all the expenses because then you would never make money. Working off farm was a way of life. I was not born on a farm. I have informal business training. I have had to cost things out, price out labour etc. So i come at it from a different perspective. I see the farm as a business like any other business and should be treated as such. Hubby is learning but it has taken alot to change his thinking.

 

[Aaron]

There are a lot of people in RR's neck of the woods that are losing $300 a head on every calf they sell If they are losing that pr hd they better cut the cord now and start swimming instead of keeping a hold and sinking deeper

(according to a friend's ag accountant). I would assume they are either working off-farm to subsidize the cows or are in debt up to their neck (I was led to believe the latter).
Doesn't make sense ifthey are losing money in one aspect by subsidizing it with another so they would be better to sell out pay the proceeds to the bank and then take the off farm income and make payments to the bank
I have been in several different businesses and if one can't support itself then you are only prolonging the inevitable (bankruptcy)by supplementing it from another source
In order to make it pay, a lot of people have quit selling calves and are backgrounding their own either to yearling or through grass season as well. :cowboy:

still won't work as the cost increase in heavier cattle won't make up for the $300 deficit the lighter weight calves are bringing to the table if they have the ground to run and sell yrlings then they should be able to either run more cattle or use that grass as stockpile or hay to lower the cost on the upkeep of the cow for the yr
in short you can't stay in business if you are losing money all the time

That's when the situation arises where the farm couple both get off-farm jobs, one to put food on the table, the other to finance the farm debt interest payment (maybe some principle). :cowboy:

 

[Alberta farmer]

Working at a job to pay for the losses in cattle gets old real fast. I guess if you can see it turning around dramatically somewhere in the future it might be okay.
Young people might want to put a lot more effort into it than older people who need to consider retirement? I guess when it isn't fun anymore you should think about quitting or doing something else.
I've raised cattle pretty well my whole life. Have experienced the good times, as well as the bad.
Somewhere along the line something has really gone wrong in the cattle business...well actually with most of agriculture.
I'd sure hate to be starting out trying to finance a farm or ranch now. The fact is the big corporations have taken all the money out of a cow, leaving nothing for the farmer. I don't really see that trend changing.

 

[dun]

Working at a job to pay for the losses in cattle gets old real fast.

Talk to the darymen, they've been doing it for better then a year

 

[novaman]

Working at a job to pay for the losses in cattle gets old real fast.

Talk to the darymen, they've been doing it for better then a year

And the latest I heard is they are expecting margins to be razor thin this year as well. Earlier they had been optimistic that margins would be respectable and equity would begin to rebuild. It doesn't appear that will be the case.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

Jim, back to you original question, I believe 2009 nation-wide was supposed to be close to $500/yr (all expenses except depreciation & labor).
Ours for 2008 was $471.

 

[SRBeef]

Jim, back to you original question, I believe 2009 nation-wide was supposed to be close to $500/yr (all expenses except depreciation & labor).
Ours for 2008 was $471.

Thanks Jeanne. $500 sounds about right for a ball park number. Being a smaller operation mine is probably a bit higher at $550 or so.

Regards,

Jim

 

[Hondac]

I'm just beginning the process of taking over the family farm (and I know next to nothing about cattle).
Excluding land & taxes on land for a moment, I calculate the FEED COST ONLY for ONE COW to be:

$ 90.00 per year for pasture ( 1 cow per 1.5 acres in Tennessee) which includes fertilize (125 - 150 lbs per acre),
lime every 4 years or so, and spraying once per year for weed control.
$175.00 per year to feed the cow for 135 days (on average each winter), or about $1.30 per day in winter.

Total of about $265.00 per year per cow ( again feed cost only).

Would you say I'm in the ballpark?

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

Hondac - we're at $1.12/hd/day this past year. (hay, grain, mineral, fertilizer, land rent for hay ground). We hire all our hay custom made. We feed grain to our weaned replacement heifers til breeding age & feed grain to a few show cattle, so we have added grain costs. We will have hay left over this year, so that is a bit inflated because it is the costs of all the hay put up.
I just calculated 2009 expense/cow = $558 WOW, that's up $87 in two years.
That includes diesel, feed, min, fert, land rent, hay, semen, vet & meds.

 

[traderaaron]

My direct cash costs last year amounted to $168/hd over an 10.5 month period I owned my Cows. This year is going to be higher.

I have leased crop residue fields, leased pasture, zero vet bill last year, we feed no hay unless there is a heavy snow.

This year with some higher cost fields my costs are running higher but on a per day basis I should be somewhere around .75/day.

I run a non-traditional cow/calf operation that is focused on trading at least annually and buying cows by the pound and running the lowest costs I can on feed.