Feeding calves

[Cross-7]

A buddy of mine calves in the spring and weans in the fall.
He holds them till spring to sell.
He feeds them free choice hay and a couple pounds a head of cotton seed everyday.
He averages around a couple pounds of gain a day.
He gets a around $300.00 more for his calves in the spring opposed to selling in the fall.

Based on that.
With cheap hay and cheap cottonseed it looks like a guy could buy big calves in the fall and feed them through winter and do pretty well.

My climate is pretty mild through winter, weather isn't an issue most times.
Might be easier than running cows year round.

Thoughts ?

 

[JMJ Farms]

Keep them healthy and half the battle is over. Feed prices and the market dictate the other half of the equation.

 

[Lucky]

JMJ is correct. Health is the main issue with buying calves. 1 shot of Draxxin can cut profits in half on a yearling. Only thing I'd add is they don't need hay, in my area it's cheaper just to feed them. You also need to have time to give a quick look over at least once a day, nothing goes down faster than a $700-800 yearling.

 

[5S Cattle]

I had zero luck just feeding cotton seed to calves. Had to add corn to get em to gain

 

[JMJ Farms]

I had zero luck just feeding cotton seed to calves. Had to add corn to get em to gain

I've fed WCS before to some of my own during preconditioning. Wonderful feed, but I think the reason they don't gain overly well on straight WCS is because of intake. I don't know what the limiter is, (the fat, fiber, etc) but they won't eat but so much of it. But using it with corn or pelleted feed is the ticket! That's just my observation, same as yours, I don't have any data to back it up. Got 37 head that I'm gonna sell this week. Avg weight should be about 550. They are on winter grazing and free choice good grass hay. In 48 hours, they ate 1500lbs of 13% pellets. Time for them to get off the payroll!

 

[snoopdog]

JMJ is correct. Health is the main issue with buying calves. 1 shot of Draxxin can cut profits in half on a yearling. Only thing I'd add is they don't need hay, in my area it's cheaper just to feed them. You also need to have time to give a quick look over at least once a day, nothing goes down faster than a $700-800 yearling.

That's true about the drax, but one death can put you in the red. And I'll take a potload of $700 yearlings, if they aint longhorns, or holstein.

 

[Lucky]

I've been backgrounding my calves for several years now and really enjoy doing so. If I had more time to check them I'd buy a couple loads to go with them. My problem is with my work schedule it might be 4-5 days before I see them in the daylight. I weighed mine twice this year and got 2#'s a day on 8-9#'s feed and no hay. Very little pickin in the pasture but hopefully that's fixin change.