How many calves to pay for a cow

[509brangus]

I just watched part of the Toppenish sale on the computer. There was some guy selling out 150 or so good looking angus cows. Fall pairs with small calves brought $1,300 to $1,625. Bred cows (Feb-Mar calves) sold in groups of 4 to 16 brought $1,050 to $1,600. There was a unrelated group of 5 bred heifers (4 black, 1 char cross with Feb-Mar calves in them) that averaged weighing 888 pounds that only brought $625.

This is interesting I was at this sale

 

[farmerjan]

With the current trend of falling prices of calves, you will have to buy cows for less than $800.00 in the not very distant future... ouch...

 

[Ojp6]

I left a sprinklin of bull calves bulls this spring (did that even make sense?). Thought I'd pick me out one or two to keep. Had one of my better cows wean off a march calf, that weighed 795 pounds straight off the tit (over night stand to btw). Brought 72 cents. I'm not sure, if somebody loaned you a cow you could make any money.

Was that at the Thursday sale?

Yes. May have been the first time in my life, I took cattle on a Wednesday night. I was taking some over for another man, and caught this one standing in my trap. It was wild, a Di saw a chance to lose the problem.

Be glad you sold him last week, he may have only brought in the .60s this week.

I bought the graded black 7 weight steers yesterday for .95 and the colored ones off for .86