Jogeephus
Well-known member
While moving hay today I looked at the remains of a big muscadine head that had been chewed to oblivion by some cows. I watched as one cow chomped at the last reminents of what once was a huge mountain of vine and wondered how much of this worthless weed was converted into salable weight at little to no cost to me. As you all know, when doing monotonous tractor work all you have is time to think. So rather than thinking about what it would be like to be invited to one of Hugh Hefner's parties, I spent the day thinking about how many worthless plants cows are capable of converting into money and wondered:
In a commercial cow calf operation, how many inputs (costs) are we using that are not necessary. In the pursuit of creating slick well conditoned cattle are we possibly spending money unnecessarily?
Lets just say you are going to make $650 on the sale of each calf you raise and for simplicity there is no death loss. The most you can make is the $650 yet the average cattleman only clears say $200 per head. Where'd the $450 go? Of this, how much HAD to be spent in the care of the animal?
Take a vet call for instance. If you are only going to clear $200 on the calf, does it make sense to spend $650 plus a day of your time to have a C-section of the animal in hopes that the calf will live and Bessie will thrive and calve in the future?
How bout minerals. Is the most expensive brand actually going to make up for the extra cost to you in weight gain. Using real world figures not advertisement figures.
Is it worth your time and the expense to spray the patch of weeds in the far corner of the pasture?
Was the last bag of range cubes or sweetfeed actually necessary and did you make a positive return on the investment when you sold the calves? Or did momma eat them all?
In markets that discount "fat calves", is creep feeding your calves a wise choice? Are you doing it for money or self satisfaction?
I'm not trying to stir anything up here but I think this kind of stuff is worth considering. I think it is too easy to make raising cattle harder than it needs to be, At some point you reach a point of diminishing returns. After all, we have to deal with the elements, market fluctuations and all kinds of other adversities and it would be nice to get as large a reward for these toils as possible without spending all our profits on frills. I don't know of any magic recipe for each of us to follow since each operation is different. But I do know IF I could raise my cows year round on muscadine and pigweed I'd be making a ton of money and I'm going to try and do a better job identifying what is truly neccessary from this point on.
Again, this is meant only for the commercial folks. To you folks on the board that are selling those $20,000 pure blooded papered animals - my hat's off to ya and I'd feed em all they could eat too on my mommas best china set. ;-) :lol:
In a commercial cow calf operation, how many inputs (costs) are we using that are not necessary. In the pursuit of creating slick well conditoned cattle are we possibly spending money unnecessarily?
Lets just say you are going to make $650 on the sale of each calf you raise and for simplicity there is no death loss. The most you can make is the $650 yet the average cattleman only clears say $200 per head. Where'd the $450 go? Of this, how much HAD to be spent in the care of the animal?
Take a vet call for instance. If you are only going to clear $200 on the calf, does it make sense to spend $650 plus a day of your time to have a C-section of the animal in hopes that the calf will live and Bessie will thrive and calve in the future?
How bout minerals. Is the most expensive brand actually going to make up for the extra cost to you in weight gain. Using real world figures not advertisement figures.
Is it worth your time and the expense to spray the patch of weeds in the far corner of the pasture?
Was the last bag of range cubes or sweetfeed actually necessary and did you make a positive return on the investment when you sold the calves? Or did momma eat them all?
In markets that discount "fat calves", is creep feeding your calves a wise choice? Are you doing it for money or self satisfaction?
I'm not trying to stir anything up here but I think this kind of stuff is worth considering. I think it is too easy to make raising cattle harder than it needs to be, At some point you reach a point of diminishing returns. After all, we have to deal with the elements, market fluctuations and all kinds of other adversities and it would be nice to get as large a reward for these toils as possible without spending all our profits on frills. I don't know of any magic recipe for each of us to follow since each operation is different. But I do know IF I could raise my cows year round on muscadine and pigweed I'd be making a ton of money and I'm going to try and do a better job identifying what is truly neccessary from this point on.
Again, this is meant only for the commercial folks. To you folks on the board that are selling those $20,000 pure blooded papered animals - my hat's off to ya and I'd feed em all they could eat too on my mommas best china set. ;-) :lol: