rocfarm
Well-known member
Good info for a newb.
EPDs - Just Out
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rocfarm
Well-known member
Don't want hard milkers myself. Have a Hereford that doesn't milk, though. Her calf looked dinky for 12 months, then blew up on good grass… that's leaving too much on the table for the feed yard in my opinion. Long term I want just below average milkers for my place.
But for a herd my size, EPDs don't make sense unless I go for a 4 or 5 year old bull that's discounted. Interested in understanding EPDs for just that reason-buying a second hand bull.
Moderation in all things is good. Less doesn't pay, more costs money. You just have to weigh what works best for you.
If you are considering older bulls, I would ask seller if you could look at the calves he sired.
rocfarm
Well-known member
Less might pay if you have a really small operation
. It seemed like those with less than 20 head shouldn't hardly ever spend on a more expensive bull with good EPDs. Small herds simply can't provide the number of exposures one needs to get the money back.
So for me, I'm going to stay cheap for now. Bought a medium-framed untested yearling bull to keep on my cows for two breeding seasons. I'm hoping to get some good heifers out of him.
Since I plan on trying to retain some heifers, I'm keeping a little red angus bull out of a medium-framed red angus dam that I bought bred at auction. He looks decent and has had good growth so far and he had a lower birth weight, so I figure I can use him until I get my heifers bred. He was a lucky break. His mom cost me 450 because she was limping, but it just turned out she's skittish. She healed up and dropped this little red angus. So far, he's pretty calm. Anyway, I won't keep any heifers out of him because I don't want crazy in my herd for the long term and his frame is a bit too small.
After I have around 10 to 12 cows, I hope to get a decent herd bull and maybe make enough money each year to just buy a few replacement cows when I sell my calves. At that point I'll look for 4-year-olds, probably.
But going to stay cheap for now.
Of course, if my current bull throws dinks, I'll have to change my plans. Won't keep his heifers if they don't look like they have any quality.
BTW, the man in the video says that to use birth weights to determine if a bull is calving ease is misguided. Says the CED EPDs are better. I suspect he's right, but, like I said, for me cheaper with a bit risk is better at this point. It'll be interesting to see how taking perhaps a few too many risks turns out for me
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wbvs58
Well-known member
That is correct. I want a higher calving ease bull for my heifers but their calves still average 70-75 lbs at birth.
That is an extremely misguided theory and the math does not support it.Less might pay if you have a really small operation
It seemed like those with less than 20 head shouldn't hardly ever spend on a more expensive bull with good EPDs. Small herds simply can't provide the number of exposures one needs to get the money back.
So for me, I'm going to stay cheap for now. Bought a medium-framed untested yearling bull to keep on my cows for two breeding seasons. I'm hoping to get some good heifers out of him.
Since I plan on trying to retain some heifers, I'm keeping a little red angus bull out of a medium-framed red angus dam that I bought bred at auction. He looks decent and has had good growth so far and he had a lower birth weight, so I figure I can use him until I get my heifers bred. He was a lucky break. His mom cost me 450 because she was limping, but it just turned out she's skittish. She healed up and dropped this little red angus. So far, he's pretty calm. Anyway, I won't keep any heifers out of him because I don't want crazy in my herd for the long term and his frame is a bit too small.
After I have around 10 to 12 cows, I hope to get a decent herd bull and maybe make enough money each year to just buy a few replacement cows when I sell my calves. At that point I'll look for 4-year-olds, probably.
But going to stay cheap for now.
Of course, if my current bull throws dinks, I'll have to change my plans. Won't keep his heifers if they don't look like they have any quality.
BTW, the man in the video says that to use birth weights to determine if a bull is calving ease is misguided. Says the CED EPDs are better. I suspect he's right, but, like I said, for me cheaper with a bit risk is better at this point. It'll be interesting to see how taking perhaps a few too many risks turns out for me
SBMF 2015
Well-known member
Numbers to your environment are key. I like milk numbers in the mid twenties, but we have more feed. BW, WW, YW, HP, SC are where I look first.
The aggressive thread has inspired me to examine the way I respond so I will try again.
@rocfarm You may consider running some math on a bull of a certain price vs a bull of another price. Not sure how far back you can search on here but you will find some of my early posts where I talk about not spending over $2K on a bull, even bough a $1600 one. At that time, our calves generally brought around the avg on market report. I was convinced I need more pounds and head to make more money.
Fast forward to now, we are running less head and generating more revenue. Part of that is due to better grass management, culling cows harder, but it's mostly due to upgrading bulls. Due to retaining it brought the calf crop and cow herd up.
In my experience, $5K bull gets us to the level we need in our operating. Any more we are buy paperwork that the AB doesn't care about and any less we are leaving some growth on the table. I buy bulls that calve in the #70 range and wean over #600 with the lowest actual weight I can get. Dropping the price usually means making a consession on one if those.
That upgrade took us from avg prices to topping the market. Here that can be a 30-50 cent spread.
$0.30 × (15 head @ #500) = $2250 addition dollars off one calf crop
With that said, I have an awesome little meat wagon that we paid $3K for that may not put the size on a calf like the others but will definitely upgrade some cows and produce some really nice calves.
The great thing about a good BA bull like that is the resale. For the last 5 or 6 years or so I have been able to purchase a 14mo old bull for 5K, use him to 5 or 6 years old and sell him for 3K. My neighbor has taken every bull that age for the last 2 or 3 years.
That's an extremely good value for that caliber of bull no matter if you are running 10 head or 30 head.
My neighbor, is buying that bull at 3K and selling it for 2K to the AB 2 years later. That may even be a better deal.
The problem with spending more on bulls is the exposure to that amount of cash if there is a straight up loss. It's not if the bull will add value.
Now, of your going to raise cows on dirt and buy them to name them the bull won't matter.
@rocfarm You may consider running some math on a bull of a certain price vs a bull of another price. Not sure how far back you can search on here but you will find some of my early posts where I talk about not spending over $2K on a bull, even bough a $1600 one. At that time, our calves generally brought around the avg on market report. I was convinced I need more pounds and head to make more money.
Fast forward to now, we are running less head and generating more revenue. Part of that is due to better grass management, culling cows harder, but it's mostly due to upgrading bulls. Due to retaining it brought the calf crop and cow herd up.
In my experience, $5K bull gets us to the level we need in our operating. Any more we are buy paperwork that the AB doesn't care about and any less we are leaving some growth on the table. I buy bulls that calve in the #70 range and wean over #600 with the lowest actual weight I can get. Dropping the price usually means making a consession on one if those.
That upgrade took us from avg prices to topping the market. Here that can be a 30-50 cent spread.
$0.30 × (15 head @ #500) = $2250 addition dollars off one calf crop
With that said, I have an awesome little meat wagon that we paid $3K for that may not put the size on a calf like the others but will definitely upgrade some cows and produce some really nice calves.
The great thing about a good BA bull like that is the resale. For the last 5 or 6 years or so I have been able to purchase a 14mo old bull for 5K, use him to 5 or 6 years old and sell him for 3K. My neighbor has taken every bull that age for the last 2 or 3 years.
That's an extremely good value for that caliber of bull no matter if you are running 10 head or 30 head.
My neighbor, is buying that bull at 3K and selling it for 2K to the AB 2 years later. That may even be a better deal.
The problem with spending more on bulls is the exposure to that amount of cash if there is a straight up loss. It's not if the bull will add value.
Now, of your going to raise cows on dirt and buy them to name them the bull won't matter.
simme
Old Dumb Guy
A person needs to look at the whole picture when selecting a bull (or cow) for purchase. Actual BW and performance, EPD's, ratio's, phenotype, cow family, sire information, how the calf, dam and herd were managed, and reputation of the breeder are things to look at. Not just the epd value. A bull may have great CE or BW epd numbers. But a young bull will have low accuracy on the epd - maybe 20%. If the fuel gauge on your truck is 20% accurate, you would still use the information, but might fill up a little sooner. If the forecast is 20% chance of rain, will it rain or not? If his CE and BW epd's are great, but his actual BW was 112 and was jacked out, one set of data should over ride the other. If he weaned at 800# and the other bulls in the pen weaned at 875#, is he a high growth bull or was he well fed? In herd ratio's may be more important than low accuracy epd's or actual weights. But consider all the information.
If you are selecting between high accuracy epd bulls (generally AI bulls that have sired hundreds or thousands of calves), the actual epd numbers are more reliable.
If you are selecting between high accuracy epd bulls (generally AI bulls that have sired hundreds or thousands of calves), the actual epd numbers are more reliable.
Son of Butch
Well-known member
Depends on each breed and which breed they are being crossed with ie Breed average for Angus is 26 milk and Hereford 15 according to angus association information.
Learned something today, was more concerned with Angus.
Yes. EPDs are still based on human recordings. I think they are far more important to seedstock producers than average cattlemen like me.
If the seedstock producer you deal with is honest, he can guide you to cow families that are lower bw for several generations. The operation we have dealt with for 30 years calves heifers no bigger than ours and knows what we want. Every four years we retire the old bulls and he sends us more.
The aggressive thread has inspired me to examine the way I respond so I will try again.
@rocfarm You may consider running some math on a bull of a certain price vs a bull of another price. Not sure how far back you can search on here but you will find some of my early posts where I talk about not spending over $2K on a bull, even bough a $1600 one. At that time, our calves generally brought around the avg on market report. I was convinced I need more pounds and head to make more money.
Fast forward to now, we are running less head and generating more revenue. Part of that is due to better grass management, culling cows harder, but it's mostly due to upgrading bulls. Due to retaining it brought the calf crop and cow herd up.
In my experience, $5K bull gets us to the level we need in our operating. Any more we are buy paperwork that the AB doesn't care about and any less we are leaving some growth on the table. I buy bulls that calve in the #70 range and wean over #600 with the lowest actual weight I can get. Dropping the price usually means making a consession on one if those.
That upgrade took us from avg prices to topping the market. Here that can be a 30-50 cent spread.
$0.30 × (15 head @ #500) = $2250 addition dollars off one calf crop
With that said, I have an awesome little meat wagon that we paid $3K for that may not put the size on a calf like the others but will definitely upgrade some cows and produce some really nice calves.
The great thing about a good BA bull like that is the resale. For the last 5 or 6 years or so I have been able to purchase a 14mo old bull for 5K, use him to 5 or 6 years old and sell him for 3K. My neighbor has taken every bull that age for the last 2 or 3 years.
That's an extremely good value for that caliber of bull no matter if you are running 10 head or 30 head.
My neighbor, is buying that bull at 3K and selling it for 2K to the AB 2 years later. That may even be a better deal.
The problem with spending more on bulls is the exposure to that amount of cash if there is a straight up loss. It's not if the bull will add value.
Now, of your going to raise cows on dirt and buy them to name them the bull won't matter.
You didn't mention the probability of added lbs that a more expensive bull will usually sire.The aggressive thread has inspired me to examine the way I respond so I will try again.
@rocfarm You may consider running some math on a bull of a certain price vs a bull of another price. Not sure how far back you can search on here but you will find some of my early posts where I talk about not spending over $2K on a bull, even bough a $1600 one. At that time, our calves generally brought around the avg on market report. I was convinced I need more pounds and head to make more money.
Fast forward to now, we are running less head and generating more revenue. Part of that is due to better grass management, culling cows harder, but it's mostly due to upgrading bulls. Due to retaining it brought the calf crop and cow herd up.
In my experience, $5K bull gets us to the level we need in our operating. Any more we are buy paperwork that the AB doesn't care about and any less we are leaving some growth on the table. I buy bulls that calve in the #70 range and wean over #600 with the lowest actual weight I can get. Dropping the price usually means making a consession on one if those.
That upgrade took us from avg prices to topping the market. Here that can be a 30-50 cent spread.
$0.30 × (15 head @ #500) = $2250 addition dollars off one calf crop
With that said, I have an awesome little meat wagon that we paid $3K for that may not put the size on a calf like the others but will definitely upgrade some cows and produce some really nice calves.
The great thing about a good BA bull like that is the resale. For the last 5 or 6 years or so I have been able to purchase a 14mo old bull for 5K, use him to 5 or 6 years old and sell him for 3K. My neighbor has taken every bull that age for the last 2 or 3 years.
That's an extremely good value for that caliber of bull no matter if you are running 10 head or 30 head.
My neighbor, is buying that bull at 3K and selling it for 2K to the AB 2 years later. That may even be a better deal.
The problem with spending more on bulls is the exposure to that amount of cash if there is a straight up loss. It's not if the bull will add value.
Now, of your going to raise cows on dirt and buy them to name them the bull won't matter.
simme
Old Dumb Guy
Good point about epd's between breeds. There are charts for comparing epd's between breeds by adding or subtracting to get to the same basis. The D in epd is difference, meaning that there is no absolute value for bw or ww associated with the epd number. Compare the difference between the epd numbers for two bulls to forecast the difference in bw of calves of the two bulls. A bull with a bw epd of 1 is "expected" to sire a calf on average 2 pounds lighter than a bull with a bw epd of 3. The average of an epd within a breed will change over time as the average of the animals in the breed change. If angus breeders select for higher yearling weight over the years, then the average YW epd will increase over the years. Occasionally, the breed association will reset their averages (for instance, shift the bw epd for all animals in the registry by the same amount to force the average to a different numbe). Why would they do that? As the cattle and averages change over time, the average moves. If the average bw epd were to get to -4, an association might add 4 to all the bw epd's to force the average back to 0. When they make those step changes, it takes a while to get use to the new numbers and averages. I remember many years ago, the simmental association adjusted their average to new numbers. The AAA average bw epd number was several pounds lower than the average simmental bw epd number. This was the epd number, not the actual bw pounds. They decided that people were directly comparing the bw epd between angus and simmental and coming to the wrong conclusion. They lowered all the simmental bw epd numbers by an equal amount to lower the average. Remember that epd's numbers are for comparsion within a breed, so nothing changed within the breed. The numbers in the multi-breed epd comparison tables changed to still show the same difference between actuals of the angus and simmental. So nothing changed if people understood the numbers and understood how to use the multi-breed epd chart. But for those who thought you could directly compare the numbers between breeds, the simmental bulls suddenly looked better. This change was not done in secret. All published and explained including the reason for the change. Point of all that is to be sure you understand how to use the numbers and the systems.
You are correct. I've also seen our lbs per day go up. #3/day is my low cut off.
That bring up an interesting deal too. We are hitting the target weight for our market sooner. Use to it was not uncommon to leave a calf to 7 or 8 mo.
Every thing we do chain reacts through the whole operation. Its not just a bull. Its not just hay. Its not just grazing a little too long. The right move can change the whole operation, as can the wrong.
rocfarm
Well-known member
I can see how it might work, but I'd point out that you have a neighbor that pays a high price for what you'd probably only be able to sell for 1800 to 2000 (if that) at the sale barn. Also, the need to change out your bull more often if you retain heifers makes that math not work so well. And it's well known that bulls get hurt or die, so just one bust of a 5000 bull will set you back a lot assuming you buy another 5000 dollar bull to replace it.The aggressive thread has inspired me to examine the way I respond so I will try again.
@rocfarm You may consider running some math on a bull of a certain price vs a bull of another price. Not sure how far back you can search on here but you will find some of my early posts where I talk about not spending over $2K on a bull, even bough a $1600 one. At that time, our calves generally brought around the avg on market report. I was convinced I need more pounds and head to make more money.
Fast forward to now, we are running less head and generating more revenue. Part of that is due to better grass management, culling cows harder, but it's mostly due to upgrading bulls. Due to retaining it brought the calf crop and cow herd up.
In my experience, $5K bull gets us to the level we need in our operating. Any more we are buy paperwork that the AB doesn't care about and any less we are leaving some growth on the table. I buy bulls that calve in the #70 range and wean over #600 with the lowest actual weight I can get. Dropping the price usually means making a consession on one if those.
That upgrade took us from avg prices to topping the market. Here that can be a 30-50 cent spread.
$0.30 × (15 head @ #500) = $2250 addition dollars off one calf crop
With that said, I have an awesome little meat wagon that we paid $3K for that may not put the size on a calf like the others but will definitely upgrade some cows and produce some really nice calves.
The great thing about a good BA bull like that is the resale. For the last 5 or 6 years or so I have been able to purchase a 14mo old bull for 5K, use him to 5 or 6 years old and sell him for 3K. My neighbor has taken every bull that age for the last 2 or 3 years.
That's an extremely good value for that caliber of bull no matter if you are running 10 head or 30 head.
My neighbor, is buying that bull at 3K and selling it for 2K to the AB 2 years later. That may even be a better deal.
The problem with spending more on bulls is the exposure to that amount of cash if there is a straight up loss. It's not if the bull will add value.
Now, of your going to raise cows on dirt and buy them to name them the bull won't matter.
Business logic says there's a certain operational size you'd need to reach 'escape velocity' or reasonable easy profitability for an operation. It's really hard for herds of less than 20 to sustain that profitability based on these high bull costs. I'm in the cam that would say take less risk and more % returns, even it it means less overall dollar return than those higher risk/higher capital investment methods.
I liked how the professor said that the bull that will make money for me might not be the one that will make money for you on your operation. He even said it's a hard pill for many to swallow to accept that the cheaper bull that doesn't have the best epds is actually the logical choice to make for one's operation.
