Helped preg check

[Dave]

I helped the neighbor today. It was a real good crew. Everyone knew and did their job and things clicked. We ran 227 head through the chute in less than 3 hours. It was a good day to keep things moving as it was in the low 20's with about a 15 mph breeze. Not a day to stand around a lot. About 100 of those pregged belong to the neighbor's son. They didn't preg up good at all 30 opens. They were mostly first calfers. They looked like they would be open. My guess is they weren't from this kind of country. Steep ground with sparse grass and some distance between water. Neighbor's cows pregged up much better and looked to be in much better shape. But they were cows who were raised in this country.

 

[Till-Hill]

Opens go to town or they give them another chance?

 

[Dave]

They go to town although he has a lot more cows to work so I am sure they will stick around until after the other cows have been checked. He has enough cows that the opens will be a couple potloads. Makes it a lot easier to deal direct with the plant rather than going to the sale barn. There was some discussion about putting weight on those younger cows but doing that also puts more money into them.

 

[Till-Hill]

Couple people around here feed some cows. If they claim they get 3# gain out of them maybe worth feeding them. Hard to believe that's possible. I'm at the stage of my life in cows there is no 2nd chances. Once her calf is weaned she goes same day as the calf. And direct is way better money. I wish we had more time at dairy farm to haul our culls. Guys that go to salebarn are paying the barn, a buyer, a trucker and the plant all to make money. Pretty easy to eliminate the middle men

 

[Chocolate Cow2]

If you're going to feed cows, it helps to implant them. It's not much fun implanting them but it makes a difference with the weight gain and feed conversion. I've used Revalor 200 on cows.

 

[W.B.]

If you're going to feed cows, it helps to implant them. It's not much fun implanting them but it makes a difference with the weight gain and feed conversion. I've used Revalor 200 on cows.

How many did you have in the pen. Was riding an issue? Did you feed mga?

 

[Dave]

I see on the market reports that those "young feeder cows" sell about ten cents over the top kill cows. A lot of the opens fit that description. I assume that this man has enough contacts that he will try to market the ones that will work that way.

 

[Cdcollett]

1st calf heifers usually have a better market as hefferettes. Someone would look to turn them into fall calvers. In a down market a guy might do that himself & sell them this summer hoping for a better market.

 

[Chocolate Cow2]

If you're going to feed cows, it helps to implant them. It's not much fun implanting them but it makes a difference with the weight gain and feed conversion. I've used Revalor 200 on cows.

How many did you have in the pen. Was riding an issue? Did you feed mga?

I had 40 in a pen with access to a small grass trap. There was no riding and I didn't feed MGA. I did this with my Veterinarians help and he never said anything about needing to do more than the actual implant. I did have a neighbors bull jump two fences to get in with them.

 

[Supa Dexta]

Would be interesting to know if they were bought as higher dollar heifers a couple yrs ago and brought in to that area.

 

[Dave]

Would be interesting to know if they were bought as higher dollar heifers a couple yrs ago and brought in to that area.

The son's were bought a little over a year ago as bred heifers or cows. I am sure they didn't all come from the same place as I saw a lot of different brands. I don't think they were really high dollar heifers at that point but certainly more that they are worth now as an open coming 3 or 4 year old. I don't know where they came from. The neighbor's? I know about 10 days ago he had a big bunch in and split them 3 ways by age. This was the young herd. I know that the neighbor bought 100 head out of Burns last winter. I helped sort the calves off them at weaning. Some of them could have been from that bunch but not too many. His young cows pregged up better than the son's and were mostly home raised.

 

[Lucky]

Were the 30 opens hiefers or had they had a calf and he tried to get them bred back? Heifers usually breed up pretty good but there's nothing harder to get bred than a wet 3 yr old. Be interesting to know how long they had to breed back too. I might be wrong but I'm thinking it's 90-120 days for a first calf heifer to start cycling again.