Cow prices

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WFfarm said:
Western NY feeder sale this weekend, commercial bred cows 4-7 months bred that were in good condition were going $1/lb. Most were being bought by the kill buyers. I saw the fattest Hereford cow I'd ever seen come thru at 2010 lbs. Looked like a propane tank with 4 legs and ears. Sold for $2000.
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It's going to be a very good time to cull the big ones that don't produce well.
 
Cull cows at the weekly sale on Sat brought .75 - 1.05 /lb..... Bulls were .80-1.15
4 wt steers were in the 2-2.30 /lb... 5 wts 1.85-2.29
4 wt heifers -1.60-1.90 ; 5 wt heifers 1.70- 1.90....

We are taking 4 or 5 (maybe 6?) cull cows (open) and 2 cow/calf pairs to the bred cow sale on Wed eve... these 2 cow/calf pairs will go through anything to get out of the pastures, and it just got old... they are in the lot at the barn.... teaching some others bad habits and they raise okay calves but nothing special....
Going to take the black steers on Friday... weigh 5-600 I think... they are worth too much now, to take and turn out at the WVA property this summer... we will turn out heifers instead....better to make the money off the steers now....
 
Sold the cull cows and they were mostly in the upper 70's... one in real good condition was .95. They have to weigh over 1100 to get the better prices and many of ours are in the 10-1100 lbs...and several had some age and 2 were high strung and wouldn't have put on any more weight if we kept them 3 more months on silage.... got 1.01 for a 1st calf heifer that was open... got bred too young and raised a poor calf but not really her fault since she was too young... the other 2 that also got bred too young, one had a dead calf and I dried her off and the other lost her calf at about 1 month... and dried her up too..stuck them out to pasture since we had plenty of grass there, to grow and see if they would breed back..... they were both 7 bred months this time, so they will get a chance to have their "first real calf" at 6 months older than they would have been if they had gone on and gotten bred when they were supposed to, instead of much too young.... If this one had been bred she would have stayed but she was open, and had filled out nice after pulling the crummy calf off her in January... and she had a crappy attitude of not wanting to come in...all good reasons to ship her.
Sold 2 cow/calf pairs that were constant trouble makers about getting out... one brought 1450 and the other 1550... with 2 month calves on them... they were okay, nothing special... both had heifer calves... glad they are gone and no one else is bothering the fences now that they are not there to try every which way to be out...

NOW....a couple days later we took 36 steers to the sale... they split them up into a group of 23, 7 and some pairs and singles...
The group of 23 weighed in at 561 lbs.... we were hoping for 2.25.... they brought 2.54.... we hit a homerun on them. Over $1400/head ......

The group of 7 had one in there that shouldn't have been, he was slicker coated than the others and it hurt that group.... 1.83 @ 590 lbs... had a couple others bring 2.30....

We have another group of 20-30 that are a bit lighter... 4-5 wts... will be selling them also shortly.

Heifers were in the 1.60-1.85 range for 4-6 wts.... one group brought 1.91 we didn't have any heifers at the sale. Have about 60 that we will be pulling 30 out to go to the joint deal pasture...and 15 to another guy... will sell anything else that is not top notch crackerjack perfect to keep for replacements...

Talk is that 5 wt steers will bring $3.00 lb this fall... this is straight from the auctioneer and several cattle guys there at the sale on Friday.....

We'll see....
 
farmerjan said:
Talk is that 5 wt steers will bring $3.00 lb this fall... this is straight from the auctioneer and several cattle guys there at the sale on Friday.....

We'll see....
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if that happens I will do a lot more bear hunting next winter and a lot less buying calves.
 
farmerjan said:
Talk is that 5 wt steers will bring $3.00 lb this fall... this is straight from the auctioneer and several cattle guys there at the sale on Friday.....
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I was talking to a kill cow buyer whose Dad was a kill cow buyer. I said with the high price of these BM cows that I sure hope this fall the cows are $1.90 on the rail like last year. He said they will be doing all of that. I sure hope he is right.
Every time I look at the LRP bid it has gone up some more. The last time I checked the under 600 pound calves were at $2.64 in the fall months.
 
Dave said:
I was talking to a kill cow buyer whose Dad was a kill cow buyer. I said with the high price of these BM cows that I sure hope this fall the cows are $1.90 on the rail like last year. He said they will be doing all of that. I sure hope he is right.
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What is the benefit from selling average cows on the rail?
 
Can't touch old breds here for under 1,000.... had about 20 at the sale on Friday where we took the steers... 2 real "wild ones" and they were in the 12-1400 range and the rest all brought 1500 and up to 2200 ... some had calves on the ground. Nothing special about any of them.
I sure would have bought that one you passed on @MurraysMutts ..... we will have plenty of grass even if it gets drier this year than last year since our numbers are down a bit plus we will not be keeping over very many heifers....
 
Lee VanRoss said:
Sometimes it's hard to quit.
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It was!!

@farmerjan ,

I think she had been out on wheat. Old toothless smokey/char cow. I just did NOT like what was coming out her rear end. She was covered in it. Pure liquid. Wasn't as green as I would expect either. Almost went to 300..

One other thing that threw me. Vet called an open cow 3 months bred. She lost her calf a couple weeks ago.
 
MurraysMutts said:
It was!!

@farmerjan ,

I think she had been out on wheat. Old toothless smokey/char cow. I just did NOT like what was coming out her rear end. She was covered in it. Pure liquid. Wasn't as green as I would expect either. Almost went to 300..

One other thing that threw me. Vet called an open cow 3 months bred. She lost her calf a couple weeks ago.
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You probably dodged a Johne's cow. If she were just thin and hungry someone else would have bid higher than that.

It sounds like there's money to be made from buying cheap open cows at that sale in the fall. You'll make money every time their vet is wrong...
 
I got one cheap yesterday. $1,200 for a 1,270 lb spread mouth black cow bred 8 months. I started her and figured I probably wouldn't get her. No one else bid. She leaves the ring and I am thinking what did I miss that everyone else saw. Turned out she has a bad eye.
A. the calf doesn't suck on the eye
B. She only needs one eye to walk around eating grass.
C. If all I have to do is treat an eye to get them $350 cheaper bring them on.
D. Not certain that it is pink eye, she may have just poked it with a stick or something.
 
Dave said:
I got one cheap yesterday. $1,200 for a 1,270 lb spread mouth black cow bred 8 months. I started her and figured I probably wouldn't get her. No one else bid. She leaves the ring and I am thinking what did I miss that everyone else saw. Turned out she has a bad eye.
A. the calf doesn't suck on the eye
B. She only needs one eye to walk around eating grass.
C. If all I have to do is treat an eye to get them $350 cheaper bring them on.
D. Not certain that it is pink eye, she may have just poked it with a stick or something.
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She's a good buy for someone like you. Anyone who sells their cull cows through the sale barn would lose that $350 discount (if not more) on the back end.
 
Dave said:
I got one cheap yesterday. $1,200 for a 1,270 lb spread mouth black cow bred 8 months. I started her and figured I probably wouldn't get her. No one else bid. She leaves the ring and I am thinking what did I miss that everyone else saw. Turned out she has a bad eye.
A. the calf doesn't suck on the eye
B. She only needs one eye to walk around eating grass.
C. If all I have to do is treat an eye to get them $350 cheaper bring them on.
D. Not certain that it is pink eye, she may have just poked it with a stick or something.
Click to expand...
I have had a couple cows that were blind in one eye, never worried about it. One was blind in the right and the other the left. One came open last fall, and she got sold; she was a very good mama. One year she had a calf that was crippled, and could not move around very well, the cow go over to the calf to nurse him. I still have one of those cows.
 
Dave said:
I got one cheap yesterday. $1,200 for a 1,270 lb spread mouth black cow bred 8 months. I started her and figured I probably wouldn't get her. No one else bid. She leaves the ring and I am thinking what did I miss that everyone else saw. Turned out she has a bad eye.
A. the calf doesn't suck on the eye
B. She only needs one eye to walk around eating grass.
C. If all I have to do is treat an eye to get them $350 cheaper bring them on.
D. Not certain that it is pink eye, she may have just poked it with a stick or something.
Click to expand...
I NEVER start a bid until the auctioneer is getting to the point of buying themselves.

But as you say, A, B, C, and D. Post a pic...
 
We have one now, born with one eye, kept her because she wouldn't have brought anything. Had raise 3 calves, then calf born dead.... got her a calf and grafted on,,,, without a hitch... had a big nice holstein steer weaned off over 600 lbs.... has a calf on her now... she'll be here until she has a problem... You just have to work carefully around her on the blind side and let her turn her head to see you and she is fine...comes right to the pen when called with a bucket... they aren't all that good but most we have had are fine if you just take a little extra time so they don't get upset with being crowded on the blind side....
 

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