How do you farm?

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sim.-ang.king":23oaid7p said:
ALACOWMAN":23oaid7p said:
sim.-ang.king":23oaid7p said:
It's simple I wean calves at 4-6months and they weigh 100-300lbs. I put them in a feedlot and feed them to 400-500 lbs then send them to the sale barn.
I don't get where people are coming up with that I have cows raise 400-500 pound calves or raising them on cow to anywhere near that weight.
If you can't figure out what i'm saying when I say "Our weaned calves go to a small dirt...lot...We raise them to 400-500 pounds then send them off to the sale barn." Then skip it!
I didn't intend for this to be focused on if I raise super cows or not. I wanted to here how people around the world run their farm, and I was using my farm as a starting point.
no what i cant figure out is how you cant get above 300 ib in 6 months,... i think today should mark a new beginning for you.... no more running down other breeds :cowboy:
Well most aren't 6 months.
The last time I check most of the time my breed was under attack thank you very much. :cowboy:
well it wasnt me,, i like simmental.. but if you keep belting out numbers like those im likely to join in :cowboy:
 
Alright some are crappy and i've been selling them off, I started the year with 35 and i'm down to 25. Most of my calves are weaned at 4 month and I like to keep it that way, but did you want me to lie and say i'm weaning 500-600 pound calve like some people do on this site, or did you want me to say I have 1000 pound steers at 10 months when I don't. I said 100-300lb calves at 4-6months cause some only weight that at 6months, but I ain't rich and I can't afford to sell off every cow and only buy super cows. When you all can wean all your calves at 400 pounds at 6month, no matter sickness or how hard the winter,or even drought, and not have one less, then i'll eat my hat, but I highly don't that everyone of your calves all break par( unless you only have 2 head) .
If you have anymore to say please give me a pm and we will talk and i'll listen, but this threads main point was for people to tell how they run their farm for their area. Cause some of us aren't rich and can't just take a trip there.
Thank you
 
nope aint rich,, far from it.... just a few things ""farm wise"" i dont skimp on,, chiefly my cattle.. but my equipment is twice as old as you :cowboy:
 
I farm 180 acres, 140 tillable land with the remaining being wooded. Currently I have 30 head mostly Hereford with a few Hereford/Limo and Hereford/Simm crosses left. I also have a few Jerseys that I raise for hamburger. I am in the process of weeding out the "black", I prefer Herefords and they do better in my grass based operation and their temperments are ten times better and since I sell all of the animals off the farm to locals as freezer beef they don't care about a "black" hide they simply want quality meat. I have my herd split so 1/2 calve in the spring and the other 1/2 in the fall, this allows me to accomadate my customers better. I raise my own replacement heifers and band bull calves day one ( I have one I left intact but the jury is still out on him). I cull hard for temperment and all are halter broke and named, neighbors say their spoiled. I respect them and they respect me.I also raise goats,Boer(meat) and Alpine(milk) they were a natural choice to clean up many areas of the farm that had not been farmed in 30+ years.I have around 100 laying hens that keep cash coming in all year. Lastly I raise 10-15 hogs each year. I have 5 horses the boys and I use to work cattle and trail ride.

I do rotational grazing throughout the summer (May-Oct depending on the year), during the winter they are all brought up to the barn and fed hay. I raise all of my own hay between my farm and another 180 acres I lease. Since much of the farm had been untouched for many years (grandparents quit farming in the 70's a few feilds were still hayed but had not had any improvements) I choose one feild a year to "rejuvinate", some get plowed and reseeded (the really rough ones) the others I no-till drill. I spread manure on the feilds and in the fall run the cows on the feild I'll work the next year. Feilds are planted with grass/alfalfa mixes (generally orchard and timothy) which gives me versatile hay for horses/cows/goats.

I refuse to buy anything that I don't have the cash for so things are slowly progressing, but it is all paid for. I still use many of the old tractors and equipment that my grandparents had, for the last few years I have been able to "upgrade" at least one peice of machinery a year. Hopefully in the end I'll have a nice operation to pass on to the boys, thankfully they all have an interest in farming!
 
Up north here in Canada I farm 320 acres all arable, 160 into hay, 160 of tame grass in paddocks. I run 50 angus cows just kicked them out into pasture which is a little early for my area but my pasture is very healthy. I start calving pretty early by mid January and as of the last couple years because of my bull situation I have 3 left to calve. I sell my early calves last week in aug to the auction with calves weighing 600-750. That's also when I pick the best heifers and keep them in the corral. All the later calves get sold later in the fall. Pasture season is usually done around hunting season in november and I start feeding hay to the herd in the field and when the snow flies usually in november sometime they get moved in the corral. I work full time and away from home so I cannot do my own hay with my older equip so I get it custom done. I usually get straw for free to bale from my neighbours for bedding but with last years flooding nobody got any crop in and straw was scarce. Now me trying to get bigger,,, I'm not sure if that is possible with my neighbour getting $30/acre rent for bushland/native pasture for cows to run on and my other neighbour just sold his land for $2,200.00/ Acre I can't seem to make that much money in cattle to justify high priced land and newer equipment.
 
We have 100 acres dryland with a creek running right through the middle around 70 acres is usable. Currently we're running a mix of registered stud Highland cows, Murray Grey x, Angus x cows & dairy cows, our carrying capacity at the moment is 12 cows + calves, 2 bulls & 10 heifers. Cows will wean calves around 300 - 400kg (660 - 880lbs) on grass alone we're understocked but we won't have to be buying any winter feed for them this year we've been able to make hay & store it in the shed.
 
250 acres with 25 being in hay that I cut three times a year. I rotationally graze but only dabble with MIG. I have 50, mostly angus cows and one balancer bull.

You can probably guess what a cluster &^%$ my calving season is. :lol2:
 
sim.-ang.king":aw6ua7k1 said:
It's simple I wean calves at 4-6months and they weigh 100-300lbs. I put them in a feedlot and feed them to 400-500 lbs then send them to the sale barn.
I don't get where people are coming up with that I have cows raise 400-500 pound calves or raising them on cow to anywhere near that weight.
If you can't figure out what i'm saying when I say "Our weaned calves go to a small dirt...lot...We raise them to 400-500 pounds then send them off to the sale barn." Then skip it!
I didn't intend for this to be focused on if I raise super cows or not. I wanted to here how people around the world run their farm, and I was using my farm as a starting point.

That is pretty light for crossbred cattle, something is seriously wrong with how you are doing things. My angus were raising 430 to 520 pound calves when I first started, and the cows were extremely thin at weaning time(205 days). Now that they have plenty of grass, quality hay in the winter, and mineral available all year, the cows are in great condition and wean 590 to 740 pound calves last year. That is with no feed for either the cow or the calf. Sometimes we feed the heifers and the bulls at weaning just to help them out for a week or two, but that is pretty much it. I have a new bull calf that isn't even two months old that will go over 200 pounds.
 
sim.-ang.king":1xk1baze said:
Alright some are crappy and i've been selling them off, I started the year with 35 and i'm down to 25. Most of my calves are weaned at 4 month and I like to keep it that way, but did you want me to lie and say i'm weaning 500-600 pound calve like some people do on this site, or did you want me to say I have 1000 pound steers at 10 months when I don't. I said 100-300lb calves at 4-6months cause some only weight that at 6months, but I ain't rich and I can't afford to sell off every cow and only buy super cows. When you all can wean all your calves at 400 pounds at 6month, no matter sickness or how hard the winter,or even drought, and not have one less, then i'll eat my hat, but I highly don't that everyone of your calves all break par( unless you only have 2 head) .
If you have anymore to say please give me a pm and we will talk and i'll listen, but this threads main point was for people to tell how they run their farm for their area. Cause some of us aren't rich and can't just take a trip there.
Thank you

They aren't making up the weights, if they are good cows and have plenty to eat, they can easily raise a 600 pound calf. Good cows don't always cost allot of money either. Don't forget the bull, he can make a big difference.
 
Personally I'm more interested in listening to farming from around the country than I am in beating up Sim.ang.king over weaning weights. When I came to the board I saw him doing some breed bashing and it apears to have stopped so I'm inclined to offer help rather than beat him up over it. If his calves are light then lets help him get them up to weight but that's not the purpose of this thread. Tell us about farming in your corner of the universe instead so that we can learn a little more and as cowmen we can all figure out how local farming applies to weaning weights in various parts of the country.
 
I own 275 acres in South Central Oklahoma and lease another 120 down the road. I run brangus and brangus baldy cows with Char bulls. Sold some calves last week straight off mama at 4- 7 months old no creep, never owned a creep feeder. Steers averaged 663 heifers averaged 532. I do implant once at around two months old. Sold the last Char bull last week and have moved to Angus to hold back heifers.
 
We currently run 60 cows, mostly registered Galloways. We have a few registered Angus and a few Galloway X Angus females.
I have had cattle all of my life.

We both work off the farm 5 days a week.

We are mainly seedstock producers (US and Canada). We have sold Galloway breeding stock, semen, all over the world. We sell some embryos. The bottom end of our cattle get sold directly to meat customers.

We currently rent 160 acres that we graze, as well as hay parts of it. We rent 50 acres of other grass hay meadows.

We live in a very crop orientated part of the country, so pasture and hayland is marginal land. We graze our cows until the end of January on cornstalks if available. We get a lot of snow and are typically very cold during the winter, while our summers are warm and very humid.
 
Very little farming (as in tilling the soil) left in my area. We grow two things well; grass and trees. It is a terrible place to winter cows if you don't have them under a roof and on concrete. Rain nearly every day and temperatures in the upper 30's are tough on cows. I only winter 20-30 cows. In the late winter/early spring I pick up another 20-30 older broken mouth cows primarily from the high desert country. I baby them through to grass and then those old girls have never seen grass like this. In the fall the old cows and all the calves go to town. The cows will have gained enough that I generally get as much for them as a kill cow as I paid for them as a bred cow in the spring. And one thing about those old girls and where they come from, they didn't get to live that long by raising poor calves. My Feb/March calves average (steers and heifers) a little over 600 pounds when I sell the first week of October. No creep. Nothing but momma's milk and grass.
I buy all my hay mainly because I can buy it right down the road for almost the same price as making it myself. And I don't have to spend my summer making hay.
 
I raise a mixture of registered Gelbvieh cattle and commercial angus cross cows that I use a Gelbvieh bull on. I run 30 momma cows on 75 acres or so. My calves routinely wean from 600 to 750 lbs on just milk and grass. I have the occasional 800 pounder. This is usually 6 to 6.5 months of age. I have culled hard on the poor do'ers and light weaning mommas. Sim King......I am familiar with your neck of the woods. I spend allot of time up there in Pope and Johnson Counties and know tha S.I. produces some quality cattle. I would be really concerned if I had the weaning weights that you posted especially with Simi cattle which are no to be heavy rascals. PM me and maybe I can help you pin-point things that may help you increase your efficiency.
 
I only own 80 acres and lease whatever else I need. Grazing land is readily available in my area.
My numbers vary from 75-125 cow/calf pairs and as few as 10 to as many as 200 calves according to market conditions. These numbers vary sometimes weekly as I trade several cows also.
This has been a hard trading year because the cow numbers are way down in this area.
Oh and I buy several hundred calves each year for other people.

I started feeding hay March 10th this year. Fed until April 10th. Just cant seem to get past the 11 month grazing while still working full time. Think when I retire in a couple years I can rotate more and make it 12 months.
And I will cull any cow that raises a calf weaning less than 550. Yep im hard on them but in low price years they just dont pay their way.
 
Well at present I am out of the cattle biz... Some of the land I have purchased but the majority goes back to the orginal Spanish land grants and some is land that was given to soldiers of the Texas Revolution... Years ago some of it was in rice production. Today it is used for F1Brafords and F1 Brangus momma's covered with Limousin bulls... Most times I would get a calfs to 400 lbs and they went to town, uncut and unvacinated. I have at times depending on the market retained ownership of calves through the feedlot. Over the years I found for me it was more profitable to try to run more cattle per acre than most, but to sale calves at an early age. I have always purchased my hay to supplement annual ryegrass and clover. Have always tried to keep equipment to a minimum.
 
I own 40 acres and have access to 80 more acres of family land behind me. I have had a few 5-10 cows for the last 13 yrs and sold the yearlings to break even and keep everything running . up to last month I ran approx 40 head goats. just Sold the last 8. I bought 13 bred cows in march from a local guy at slaughter price. It brought my total to 19 head. I work a full time job and everything I own is paid for. I plan on keeping the heifers out of this bunch and to start culling some of the cows. I usually sell the calves at 400 to 500. I buy my hay or rent my bull out for hay.
 
We have three locations the home place where we started has 38 acres and we now use this for a bull development facility. The main farm is 400 acres this is where we maintain our cow calves then we lease another 120. The 120 is used for haying and our open heifers we move them as soon as they wean then they stay until we palpate. If they are pregnant they go to the farm if open they go to town. We do rotational grazing but need to get better at it. Next week we will wean our calves and give them their final shots. We run about 110 mamma cows but add in the bulls and heifers we usually have around 200 head.

Gizmom
 
Well I own 1.5 acres in a subdivision and have a 30 year lease renewable on a yearly basis on 100 acres of improved pasture where my recip cows are, I lease another 100 acres of hay and crop land. My donor cows live at my parent which I can see from my deck. In a normal year I market 30 to 50 yearling bulls and a solid dozen show prospects. And yes my calves weaning weights are higher than 300 lbs. The avg yearling weight on the bulls I market is in the neighborhood of 1400 not a fat 1400 but a well developed weight. In the past 6 years I have had only 5 bulls not pass their breeding soundness exams in my mind that ain't to bad.
 

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