Farm expansion

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A little of both. Buy breds and retain your top heifers. Just be sure that the breds you buy are the type of cow that will produce the heifers of good enough quality to keep as replacements
 
Since it's fenced and large enough to maintain another herd....maybe buy some older, less expensive bred cows needing a little Tlc. Add some lbs to the cow, get a calf and trade both in for a better cow.
 
Congratulations hope everything works outs on the purchase. From what I've seen I'd come to northeast Florida and buy a couple of loads of thin bred cows and bring them back. I saw plenty of good young bred thin cows sell for less than $800. and a few went as low as $650. There's some money to be made down here right now...if you have the grass.
 
TennesseeTuxedo":2zxihgry said:
Lazy M":2zxihgry said:
Sorry if the pic isn't too clear

Where in Kentucky are you located?

Lazy M is near Richmond in Madison County.

Congratulations.

Lazy M, on retaining heifers, consult with Caustic Burno.

Seriously, Caustic made some good points about buying versus retaining. If I were in your exact situation, I would go to Rocking P and buy their commercial bred heifers. Buy this summer and they would have calves on the ground this fall. Their commercial tier of bred heifers are Simangus.
 
Rather than running out and getting yourself into more debt with extra cows this year, I would take the cows you already have and do more rotational grazing with them. Give your own pastures a break and see what the carrying capacity of the new pastures is. Buy more cows next year. Replace any poor fences this year - much easier to do with less cows.
 
Aaron":r3pfu3kt said:
Rather than running out and getting yourself into more debt with extra cows this year, I would take the cows you already have and do more rotational grazing with them. Give your own pastures a break and see what the carrying capacity of the new pastures is. Buy more cows next year. Replace any poor fences this year - much easier to do with less cows.

Sound advice.
 
I agree with Aaron. Rotate your grazing, fix fences, and see what kind of grasses you have and get rid of weeds, rosebushes and unwanted junk plants, clean up the pastures. Get a feel for what has better grass,
when. In the process you can retain a few heifers, and keep your eyes open for some cheap thin bred cows, or old cows with calves that won't break the bank. Get them calved out, put weight on them, be able to turn them over for better animals and make a little back from the extra grass. I wouldn't go into any more debt to increase your numbers, but don't throw away a deal on some less than perfect animals that would benefit from feed and a place to turn around. Some times the sorry cows are that way from bad conditions and you might get a few good heifers out of them or they can just help cash flow things. We are buying breds here for 650 to 900. They are a risk, but you can make a bit if they raise a halfway decent calf and then sell them with good condition in the pound pen.

Congratulations on the future purchase. Don't blame you a bit for wanting to buy it.
 
Thanks all for the ideas. After down payment I won't have much free $ this year to purchase cattle. So if I'm going to do it this year I'd have to roll it into the loan. The last 4-5 yrs I've made it a point to save and ai my best 15-25 best heifers, and culled the cows hard at weaning. I saved 24 from last year's crop and ai'ed them last week. I may just relax my culling criteria a bit (age, temperment, questionable udders and feet) until my herd size is closer to capacity. It's kind of a slippery slope though..
Haven't completely made up my mind, but that's where I'm leaning.
 
If the interest rate is REAL GOOD, then you might want to add in 10-15 thousand extra. Use as a cushion to do work on it, or pick up some extras, or to help you along with less sales by you retaining more of your own animals. I wouldn't go too much more in debt, but I think you keeping more of what you have, is more in line with what you want to do by the sounds of it.
 
All good sound advice , maybe look into a LOC, then the funds would be there for the smokin deals you come across, and only interest on what you actually use.
 
Looks like a usefull addition to your block. Hope it all proceeds smoothly for you.

I am always concerned about the biosecurity risk with bringing outside cows in, Pestivirus in particular.

Ken
 
Congratulations on the new farm addition! Sounds like you have a pretty good handle on what you want to do with it, I wish you the best of luck.
 
wbvs58":w7ph9w7m said:
Looks like a usefull addition to your block. Hope it all proceeds smoothly for you.

I am always concerned about the biosecurity risk with bringing outside cows in, Pestivirus in particular.

Ken

That is a good point. That never gets mentioned enough in our retained heifer debates. I guarantee you bring blackleg, trich, or any of that other junk in to your herd because you were chasing imaginary tax breaks and you will be sorry.
 
Loan got approved today! I feel equal parts happy and nauseous..
 
congrats man.. looks like a really nice farm, especially those front (south) pastures. They look really nice sized and flat.

if you already have 500+ lb heifers I'd keep them. if not I'd buy bred cows.
 

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