Herd Direction

[Chiolis Ranch]

I'm in the process of deciding what direction I want to go with my herd. Most of my cows are Red Angus, I do have a few oddballs. I'm trying to decide whether I should retain my heifers and, sell them as bred heifers. Or, breed all my cows to a more terminal type bull and sell all the calves. What would you do, and why?

 

[sstterry]

I'm in the process of deciding what direction I want to go with my herd. Most of my cows are Red Angus, I do have a few oddballs. I'm trying to decide whether I should retain my heifers and, sell them as bred heifers. Or, breed all my cows to a more terminal type bull and sell all the calves. What would you do, and why?

I think everyone's situation is different and people also have different goals for their herd and what direction they want it to take. What are you looking for as an end result?

 

[WinterSpringsFarm]

Depends on the herd I suppose. Are your cattle fancy enough that your breds will sell for enough money to turn a profit? Is there enough demand for your cattle to sell all the heifers? My experience is this, I find that a lot of times bred heifers don't sell for enough money to really make much when you figure what you truly have in them.

How would you sell bred heifers? Word of mouth? Consignment?

 

[Chiolis Ranch]

I'm in the process of deciding what direction I want to go with my herd. Most of my cows are Red Angus, I do have a few oddballs. I'm trying to decide whether I should retain my heifers and, sell them as bred heifers. Or, breed all my cows to a more terminal type bull and sell all the calves. What would you do, and why?

I think everyone's situation is different and people also have different goals for their herd and what direction they want it to take. What are you looking for as an end result?

My ultimate goal is to raise all of my own replacements, and sell the excess as breeds.

 

[Chiolis Ranch]

Depends on the herd I suppose. Are your cattle fancy enough that your breds will sell for enough money to turn a profit? Is there enough demand for your cattle to sell all the heifers? My experience is this, I find that a lot of times bred heifers don't sell for enough money to really make much when you figure what you truly have in them.

How would you sell bred heifers? Word of mouth? Consignment?

I can raise my animals cheaply enough at this point that I could sell my heifers for $1300 and make a nice profit. That won't be the case for ever probably, but I'd like to take advantage of it while I can.

 

[Nesikep]

just from my own herd I'm finding I'm struggling to have any excess of heifers I'm really proud of, I do have some once in a while that are decent animals just don't fit into my program but might be good for someone else..

I have a hard time really getting at what your real question is.. because we really can't answer your question for you! If you have a lot of animals that are sub par (by your own standards) then you might be able to improve your herd faster by buying them and keeping their heifers as replacements, eventually culling out everything else... How's the price of a heifer you sell going to compare to the one you buy?

 

[Stocker Steve]

Selling replacements from an unkown herd can pay well during the price increase part of the cattle cycle. Otherwise, most years, it is very difficult unless you have access to alot of inexpensive leased pasture. Do you have a profit goal?

If you really like complexity - - you can sort females into multiple breeding herds like maternal cow or terminal cow or heifer. Having 3 or 4 breeding herds means you should lay this out on paper to get a better handle on the cost and the bull power involved.

A current craze is to retain almost all your heifers and sell bred cows. You still have most of the breeding complexity (no terminal bulls) but less cow depreciation.

 

[Stocker Steve]

just from my own herd I'm finding I'm struggling to have any excess of heifers I'm really proud of, I do have some once in a while that are decent animals just don't fit into my program but might be good for someone else

Same here. I think I have several internal options - - only use prepotent bulls, flush select cows, or just ignore the looks of plain heifers and see if they are fertile.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

Depends on the herd I suppose. Are your cattle fancy enough that your breds will sell for enough money to turn a profit? Is there enough demand for your cattle to sell all the heifers? My experience is this, I find that a lot of times bred heifers don't sell for enough money to really make much when you figure what you truly have in them.

How would you sell bred heifers? Word of mouth? Consignment?

I can raise my animals cheaply enough at this point that I could sell my heifers for $1300 and make a nice profit. That won't be the case for ever probably, but I'd like to take advantage of it while I can.

Are you saying you can sell your weaned heifers for $1300 and make a profit - or sell bred heifers for $1300??
I know I am promoting my own breed, but if I had a herd of RA cows, I would breed them to Simmental. Your 1/2 bloods will be heavier weaning weights, will be better replacements and you can register them if you want to. SimAngus is a very popular combination. Great feedlot calves and super dams.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

BTW - :welcome:

 

[Chiolis Ranch]

Depends on the herd I suppose. Are your cattle fancy enough that your breds will sell for enough money to turn a profit? Is there enough demand for your cattle to sell all the heifers? My experience is this, I find that a lot of times bred heifers don't sell for enough money to really make much when you figure what you truly have in them.

How would you sell bred heifers? Word of mouth? Consignment?

I can raise my animals cheaply enough at this point that I could sell my heifers for $1300 and make a nice profit. That won't be the case for ever probably, but I'd like to take advantage of it while I can.

Are you saying you can sell your weaned heifers for $1300 and make a profit - or sell bred heifers for $1300??
I know I am promoting my own breed, but if I had a herd of RA cows, I would breed them to Simmental. Your 1/2 bloods will be heavier weaning weights, will be better replacements and you can register them if you want to. SimAngus is a very popular combination. Great feedlot calves and super dams.

In all honesty $1300 is the absolute low side, and yes bred heifers. Don't think for a second that crossing to Simmental bulls hasn't been considered. It's still being considered in fact. I actually quite like Simm cross animals. Red cows sell quite well where I'm at, whether they're pure or crossbred.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

Obviously, everyone knows my breed started off red (and white spotted). Black Simmentals were like hot cakes, everyone wanted them. I was very slow to breed to black bulls - finally found black bulls that I thought were good enough to breed to my cows. (snob) My top show cattle that were black brought the most. Now, RED is the new hot item. Especially, if I have white face markings.

 

[Chiolis Ranch]

Obviously, everyone knows my breed started off red (and white spotted). Black Simmentals were like hot cakes, everyone wanted them. I was very slow to breed to black bulls - finally found black bulls that I thought were good enough to breed to my cows. (snob) My top show cattle that were black brought the most. Now, RED is the new hot item. Especially, if I have white face markings.

Obviously, everyone knows my breed started off red (and white spotted). Black Simmentals were like hot cakes, everyone wanted them. I was very slow to breed to black bulls - finally found black bulls that I thought were good enough to breed to my cows. (snob) My top show cattle that were black brought the most. Now, RED is the new hot item. Especially, if I have white face markings.

I've actually considered using Fleckvieh bulls. I really like the "type" a lot of those animals possess. Finding bulls that aren't too extreme in size is a challenge though. I don't want my animals getting too big. That would be fine if I was selling all my calves as feeders, or even as replacements to people that want bigger animals. I don't want anything much over 1400 lbs.

 

[Ky hills]

If raising heifers to sell as replacements then the breeds are going to need to be more of a maternal breed I would think. Red Angus would be a fine base cow and would give a lot of flexibility for sire choices. If the market likes red cattle then a Hereford for red baldies works real well. Simmentals red or black would work well. I am not a fan of the old time red and white Sinmentals, they can make some good big cows that milk real well, but that translates to needing more inputs to maintain them. Big usually sells, but may not hold up long in a lot of environments, thus could affect repeat customer potential.

 

[southernultrablack]

Have you looked into crossing Gelbvieh over those RA? I really like the Balancer females I have, and they can sure raise a calf.

 

[JParrott]

I'm in the process of deciding what direction I want to go with my herd. Most of my cows are Red Angus, I do have a few oddballs. I'm trying to decide whether I should retain my heifers and, sell them as bred heifers. Or, breed all my cows to a more terminal type bull and sell all the calves. What would you do, and why?

We breed terminal and sell the calves. We only keep heifers to replace culls. Bloodline is changed up with a new bull or bull(s) every 4-6 years. The juice from a lot of heifer trouble isn't worth the squeeze. It wouldn't cost us much to keep the heifers and sell them as bred but we aren't willing to pay the cost for the vet certification so they'd sell as exposed. We prefer to keep the head count lower through the winter to extend grazing and let the grass rest by stretching out the hay longer. Depends on what it would cost you to keep them, how much more you'd get for bred, and how much enjoyment you'd get out of doing one way versus the other.

 

[Chiolis Ranch]

Have you looked into crossing Gelbvieh over those RA? I really like the Balancer females I have, and they can sure raise a calf.

I haven't really researched it much. Do you have any pictures? I'm kinda open to anything right now. I'm poised to go about any direction I like in the next year or two. I'm just weighing my options right now.

 

[Chiolis Ranch]

I'm in the process of deciding what direction I want to go with my herd. Most of my cows are Red Angus, I do have a few oddballs. I'm trying to decide whether I should retain my heifers and, sell them as bred heifers. Or, breed all my cows to a more terminal type bull and sell all the calves. What would you do, and why?

We breed terminal and sell the calves. We only keep heifers to replace culls. Bloodline is changed up with a new bull or bull(s) every 4-6 years. The juice from a lot of heifer trouble isn't worth the squeeze. It wouldn't cost us much to keep the heifers and sell them as bred but we aren't willing to pay the cost for the vet certification so they'd sell as exposed. We prefer to keep the head count lower through the winter to extend grazing and let the grass rest by stretching out the hay longer. Depends on what it would cost you to keep them, how much more you'd get for bred, and how much enjoyment you'd get out of doing one way versus the other.

I'm a pretty small operator at this point, so the enjoyment aspect of it is key. Of course, I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't enjoy it.

 

[southernultrablack]

Have you looked into crossing Gelbvieh over those RA? I really like the Balancer females I have, and they can sure raise a calf.

I haven't really researched it much. Do you have any pictures? I'm kinda open to anything right now. I'm poised to go about any direction I like in the next year or two. I'm just weighing my options right now.

While not red, this is a 50/50 Balancer and her 6 1/2 month old calf.

 

[JParrott]

I'll second the Balancer. I think we'll end up with primarily those and Beefmaster over the next 5-10 years with the odd Charolais here and there.