Feeding Cost?

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Well you know, there is that whole group of people that want "organic" veggies, " free range" eggs, etc. And grass -fed beef. They pay double the price for beef like that, and I imagine the lack of marbling is marketed as leaner and healthier, etc. I saw a dude on FB in the town next to mine, advertising pork for sale from "100% grass-fed hogs"!!! I just don't think a hog is much of a grazer, and doubt they'd eat enough `grass to survive. I also think they'd root up a pasture before they'd graze it much. But, he is selling his sausage, bacon, hams etc, for about twice the price other people who sell home grown and processed pork is.

I saw the videos on Instagram, but I think I saw on there that he had a Tik-Tok, and yes, it was fireandsalt.
Kune-Kune hogs will graze well and they generally don't root, in fact if you feed them much grain they just become mostly lard and not much muscle. They're a smaller breed of hog, finish around 200 lbs. They've about been ruined by people breeding them for pets, there are many groups now trying to preserve their true heritage as a homestead hog. I plan to get some myself eventually.
 
The cows were all bought anywhere from $200-$400 each...or given to us. He puts a Corr cleanup bull in after we pull the bulls, and they usually have maybe 10 Corr calves. Last year they had 9, and 4 were heifers. so he gets about that many every year, and I dunno how to figure what they cost. The mjature Corss will go 700lbs or more, and a few are Corr x LH and will weigh 800. He doesn;t feed them anything. In October,after the 1st dove season, we moved them down the road to the dove field I talked about... peanuts, sunflowers, millet and corn. That field is on about 400 acres of row crop land...all fenced in. He plants soybeans, cotton and peanuts on it. And every time he harvested one of those crops in Oct-Nov, he;d open the gates to those fields and let them have them, too. Since I sold 36 of the 120 to people on here, we have 84 and 4 heifers, that we gonna round up on that 400 acres, and drive them back across the road to the Kuszu field. They start calving next week. ( Not the heifers) Only money he spends feed wise, is just for about a dozen salt blacks and a dozen mineral blocks a year. Only time they might see a bale of hay, is when we get them up and sort the calves to take to the sale in AUg or so. If we leave them penned overnight, we will put a round bale in the corral. So, I guess with the salt and 1 bale of hay a year, it is about $1 or 2 per head a year to feed them?
A 10 year old, 9 mos bred Corriente brought $3000.00 Saturday morning!!!!

Well, I left out early Saturday morning, because I wanted to get down there about 6 AM. I carried my horse and one for Scott, and 3 Corriente cows/heifers we had in our practice herd up here. Plan was to bring back the 5 yearling Corrr steers we had down there bring back my SSH I had left there for hunting season, and leave Scott the other QH I took. We were gonna hunt the setters Saturday morning while it was cold (been too hot to hunt them much this season), making sure to ride the efence line as we did, then early afternoon bring the Corriente herd back over to the infamous Kudzu pasture, then go rabbit hunt the land they had been on since October..the row crop and dove field pastures. Then we'd go back over there Sunday and bird hunt it, til early afternoon. Then I'd load my horse, and my SSH., and the 5 steers up and get on back home Sunday before it got too late.
So, it didn't take nowhere near as long to load those horses and CVorr cows as I thought, but I decided to go ahead and leave for south Ga, and just take my time and ease on down there. Well, I have never seen I 75 that empty, even going through Atlanta. I don't think I touched my brakes til I got to me south GA exit. I ended up pulling in the gate to the Kudzu pasture about 4:30 AM. I figured I'd just take a nap in my truck til about 6 or so...whenever someone else got there. So, I turned the cows in the corral and was putting the 2 horses in when I heard a rifle shot across and down the road, where is row crops were and our herd was!! I saddled up right quick, put my coach gun in the scabbard, and took off to see what it was. Called Scotty who was feeding the dogs, and told him what happened....to come on down. I got to the gate and saw where the chain had been cut next to the lock, and some beer cans thrown down by the gate. I went inside the gate, got the key from where we hide it, and locked the gate back with me inside. I could see the tracks of a 4 wheeler or side by side or golf-cart, headed down toward the area where he had picked his cotton. Scotty pulled up and soon as he did, we heard them coming back. They had one of those 4 wd electric golf carts, and there were three of them....18, 20 and 22 years old...and all drunk as Cooter Brown.

I rode around and got behind them, and they had all 3 got off the cart and went to the gate to ask Scott if he could open it for them. I took the keys out of it, and the rifle, and about that time the deputy got there. 2 minutes later the game warden got there. They cuffed the boys and started questioning them, and I got back on my horse and started back-tracking the cart to see if I could find a blood trail where they had shot the deer. What I found was one of our cows, shot almost dead-center between her eyes. She was gonna calve this week, too, probably. I went back told the game warden and deputy where she was.

Deputy had them charged with criminal trespass, criminal damage to property of others, animal cruelty, the 22 year old for buying alcohol for minor, and the 2 young uns for under-age drinking. Game warden charged them with spot-lighting and possessing firearms while drinking. One of the boy's daddy came up, and was asking Scotty what he would take to drop the charges!! Scotty told him that about $3k ought to cover the cow and the gate chain, He went to his truck and got the money and paid him. Deputy said: "That's all well and good if the landowner doesn't want to press trespassing and destruction of property charges, but I am not dropping the drinking alcohol and animal cruelty charges!". Game Warden impounded the golf cart and of course, the gun. Dumb kids told the LE they THOUGHT they were shooting at a deer!

Made us sick, as this calf was alive and probably suffocated in the womb after the cow was shot, But, Scott got enough money to buy 8-10 more to replace them.

Other than that it was good weekend. Dogs did good, hunting horses did good, plenty of birds. and plenty of rabbits. Cows were no problem to round up and drive back to the Kudzu pasture.
 
Found a guy in the panhandle that raises Fla Cracker and Pineywoods cattle. Last few years he has been breeding some to black angus or Brangus bulls, too. Saw where he was selling his spotted cows...just wants to keep solids, preferably black ones. So, we went down there Saturday, and bought 12. 8 Fla Scrubs and 4 Pineywoods. They are 10-12 years old and are bred to start calving in March, so they will fit in our program. Gave $250 each, so that poacher's $3k bought 12 to replace the one he shot!! These cows are bigger than the Corrs..800 to 900 or so, about the size of a longhorn. But,they don't have no where near the horns a LH does. The Fla Cracker/Scrub cows have horns that are narrow but stick up high, The Pineywoods have horns about like a Corr does.

We got back Saturday night, and put them in the corral on the Kudzu farm. Sunday morning the Corr herd was milling around the outside of the pen, 34 out of 83 cows had little black calves with them. Probably the 15 or so we didn't count were off in the thickets with brand new ones. They ought to all be done by next weekend.

Scott took me Sunday to see the bulls he wants to use on them this year, and I am not entirely sure about it. His brother has been breeding some of his Brahma cows to a Chi-Angus bull and some to a black Simm bull...supposed to be homozygous for polled and black. ( and so far the calves have been). He sells a lot of these F1 Br x Black Simm and F1 Br x Chi-Angus heifers, but the ones he keeps, he breeds them to the other kind of bulls. :Like F1 Br x Ch-Ang is bred to the black Simm, etc. Those 3=-way cross heifers are selling extremely well, but he kept a couple of bull calves of both crosses, and Scott wants to try them. The Simm blood has me worried a little. I told him when we put the bulls in the last of april, that we need to pull those 4 Corrienite heifers out..they will only be 16 mos old by then.... and just go ahead and put them with the Corr clean-up bull in March.

He also has been breeding Brangus cows to Chi-Angus and black Simm bulls... developing a sort of Super Ultra Black. Those heifers are all sold before they are weaned as well, and some people are buying bulls, too, Scott is bringing one of each...a Brangus x Chi-angus bull and a Brangus x black Simm bull as well. The calves were all by ultra black bulls last year, and all the calves were 500-554 when weaned at 6 mos. But, those bulls were actual ultrablacks, Ang x Brangus. Dunno about the Chi-Angus and black Simm blood getting in this woodpile, though. I guess we will know next February.
 
Hey Warren, Do you have any pics of the Crackers, Pineywoods and Corrientes? I am curious to see the differences in them. I watched a YouTube video on those pineywoods cattle from Florida a while back and they seem hardy as can be.
 
Hey Warren, Do you have any pics of the Crackers, Pineywoods and Corrientes? I am curious to see the differences in them. I watched a YouTube video on those pineywoods cattle from Florida a while back and they seem hardy as can be.
You mean of ours? Or just in general? You can search for each breed, and their association sites have great pics of them. There are two Fla associations.. Friday Cracker and Florida Scrub. One of them doesn't register cattle with Brahma blood, but I forget which one. All through the 1800's, people turned out Hereford, Angus and Brahma bulls in Florida to try to improve these feral cattle herds. The brahmas got a little busier than the British bulls in that heat and humidity. I think it was 1949 when Fla stopped allowing free-range cattle, and people quit turning out bulls.

I am on my wife's laptop today, because my puter died last week. The guy that works on mine is going to retrieve my files...MY Documents and My Pictures... for me off the dead puter, and I will upload them on my new one when I go get it. I should have pics of all 5 Criollo types on it. Been trying to find a new one with Windows 10, but they all have 11 now. I will just go ahead and get one with 11 if I haven't found one with 10 by this week.

Honestly, all of these cattle look alike except for horns, and their size. Longhorns will be the biggest cows, Corriente the smallest, with the Fla cows and Pineywoods cows in between them on size. Most of the time, I can't tell a Fla Cracker from a Fla Scrub, or from a Pineywoods if the PW has horns that are narrow and high. Some Pineywoods have horns more like a typical roping-stock Corriente...wider and not as high. All of them are heat, disease, and parasite resistant, as well as surprisingly cold tolerant. They all thrive on marginal grazing...browsing as much as they graze....and are CHEAP to buy. They have no problems calving, plenty of milk, and are excellent mommas.
 
I wanted to see what you guys were buying. No worries though, I can check out some pics on the web. I definitely have some marginal grazing, but I've been working on it and it's a lot better than it was.
 
I wanted to see what you guys were buying. No worries though, I can check out some pics on the web. I definitely have some marginal grazing, but I've been working on it and it's a lot better than it was.
Let me see if the ad on FB Marketplace, where I found those 12, is still up. If it is, I will paste it here. You could see what those12 look like anyhow.
 
I wanted to see what you guys were buying. No worries though, I can check out some pics on the web. I definitely have some marginal grazing, but I've been working on it and it's a lot better than it was.
Floprida Cracker or Florida Scrub, are about the same size as Pineywoods, but their horns tend to grow narroww and straight up.1644966580104.png 1644966580104.png
 

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