i gotta be doing cattle wrong

[angie1]

yeah i keep wantin tio get up round 15 cows...but never got any closer than 12...and culled my butt off so im behind again

All this because of 12 or fewer cows :!:
Good thing you don't have a herd, say 100 or 200 or more.
Are you sure you want to be a cowman? Think about it. :nod:

If you have 12 head and sell 3 of them you have sold 25% of your herd. If you have 120 head and sell 30 of them, you have sold 25% of your herd. If being a "cowman" required you to have over 100 head, then only a handful on here earn the title. I love this "Go big or go home." attitude ~ especially from posters who, if they sold 25% of their beef, wouldn't have enough left over to make supper.

 

[ALACOWMAN]

ive been trying to go big for years.. it aint happened yet,,, if i could go back now to when i first started id be further ahead............i feel more comfortable with quailty now,, than quantity

 

[BILL CLAYLAND]

dieselbeef,
hang in there.

Yeah, i been ready to sell out a couple times.
lost a cow, sold another that had a bad udder and lost her calf.
I got 88 cents for the cull cow!!! :cowboy:

I just :cboy: up and went and bought a feeder steer and a bull calf, oh and a 216 lb hog. mmmmm mmmm. oh and grass is up to my ears now.

Bill

 

[bigbull338]

DB we all get hit hard in the cattle business thats the way it is.an we do what we have todo.even though your culling cattle you can always buy back.

 

[SSGenetics]

ive been trying to go big for years.. it aint happened yet,,, if i could go back now to when i first started id be further ahead............i feel more comfortable with quailty now,, than quantity

Smart man! Wish more thought like this.... our industry would be better for it. :tiphat:

DB, hang in there! You will have better peace of mind looking out at 15 cows you like, rather than 30 you cant stand... :nod:

Justin

 

[dieselbeef]

i like that way of thinkin....

 

[Ryder]

DB I got to thinking back years ago ( a lot of years) when I was a kid. I wanted to be a registered breeder. My "herd" consisted of two Hereford heifers.
Had horn weights on them and a thunderstorm came up and ligtning scorched one of them on the side and knocked the weights off the other. But neither was really hurt and I considered Lady Luck to be a friend of mine. :clap:

A short time later a bad storm came through one morning before daylight. When I went to feed my heifers I found that the barn had blown down on them and killed both of them. :cry2:
That is called a total loss.
I think Lady Luck is somewhat fickle.

I didn't have any kind of job to help me out,but fortunately I had other cattle to cushion the "blow".

Kind of like my rodeo days,
You win a few, lose a few, buck of a few, and a few get rained out.

 

[Caustic Burno]

yeah i keep wantin tio get up round 15 cows...but never got any closer than 12...and culled my butt off so im behind again

Don't fret....if your always behind you have a goal to shoot for. I culled to 28 from 120 over 3 years because of the dry weather...lost the last one to not get shipped to a breach birth...lost the calf and the cow on top of a 425 vet bill. Two more have calved since then and have come up with poor udders...everyone has stories to tell. Just dust yourself off and say DAM

This is a tough business that requires tough people, lot's try few make it.
Went from 37 to 10 over the same drought that is the way the game is played.
This isn't the first time I have had my pecker knocked into my watch pocket and won't be the last.
Haven't had anything beat bang's quarantine yet in the 70's and the guvment man branding a B on their jaw.
Haul a few of those to the salebarn you will have enough tears to float a canoe when you get that check.

 

[bigbull338]

well every1 knows being a cattlemen aint for the faint of heart,only the tough survive.after last years drought the pastures are full of waist deep grass an so is the hay meadows.

 

[dieselbeef]

an no cows to eat it left....

 

[bigbull338]

an no cows to eat it left....

we still have plenty of cows to eat it.but they just cant make a dent in it as it grew so fast.we are 1 of the few that didnt have to sell most of the cows to survive the drought.

 

[dieselbeef]

good problem

 

[rockridgecattle]

DB, I hear you on this. Some years it can be hard. But think of it this way. Cull now, less problems health related problems or calving related issues later. Example is a bad tempered cow post calving which has ice cream cones for teats and the calf can not suck. So you chase this mad cow to the mat pen, only to get your hand cranked serveral times by a wonderfully placed hoof and a calf which by now is too stupid to suck so you have to fight it and the cow. When looking at that picture, culling gets easier.
I read somewhere that heifers kept or bought can have a cull rate of 20% and sometimes 30%. It is amazing, some years of heifers are still in the herd today, but then some years heifers are culled out. Smaller herds like yours, I would think it would seem like more than 20% of the numbers you run.
You will get to your mark, and when you do you will be glad you were patient enough to cull out problems. Just like not every bull should be a bull, not every heifer should be a cow. Most should just be good steaks, roasts, grinding, stew, and ribs and what ever else choice cuts we like...it's why they are so tastey!
Now with that logic, how can you go wrong

 

[dieselbeef]

yeah its just one o them things ya know. just overwhelmed with crap ..some of what i thought were good cows are just not performing or got issues...

im in it for the long haul...just got me down loading half my herd to market..but on the bright side i got 11 hiefers to turn out in the fall. 8 of em pure blood beefmasters. its all gonna work out in the end.
i wanted to eventually be all beefmasters but i planned on doin it slower pace than this..

meh..whatever...ill keep pluggin away. it just seemed like i had alot going wrong all at the same time ya know?

gary

 

[tom4018]

It seems like we cull harder now than ever, some I hate to see go but you know its time. I have gotten to the point that I plan on keeping some heifer or buying some every year because we are culling some every year. Seems like one doesn't calf or something else comes up, maybe I cull too hard. Got a couple that need to go now, one her calving interval is way off and the other is too big a cow with a bag I don't like. Guess I am picky.

 

[bigbull338]

how hard a cattleman or women culls their herd is mostly due to murpheys law.like how meny die due to sickness calving or freak accadents.how meny are culled for temperment bad baggs not breeding back not weaning a calf.

 

[Victoria]

DB I got to thinking back years ago ( a lot of years) when I was a kid. I wanted to be a registered breeder. My "herd" consisted of two Hereford heifers.
Had horn weights on them and a thunderstorm came up and ligtning scorched one of them on the side and knocked the weights off the other. But neither was really hurt and I considered Lady Luck to be a friend of mine. :clap:

A short time later a bad storm came through one morning before daylight. When I went to feed my heifers I found that the barn had blown down on them and killed both of them. :cry2:
That is called a total loss.
I think Lady Luck is somewhat fickle.

I didn't have any kind of job to help me out,but fortunately I had other cattle to cushion the "blow".

Kind of like my rodeo days,
You win a few, lose a few, buck of a few, and a few get rained out.

When I was a kid I had the best luck in cows. For a long while I only had one cow but every year she had would have one of the biggest steers. I never had a dead calf even when my herd grew to two cows. I went that way for 20 years but I pay for it now - that barn story - that sounds like something that would happen to me now! :lol2: Laugh or cry those are the only choices. ;-)

 

[GMN]

Fact is thats farming-some old timer told me once, you got animals you got problems-I had never thought of it like that, but its true. Nothing runs so precise, problems happen all the time-you just have to either stick with it or hang it up. We started out from scratch this dairy about 18 years ago, redid our barn to grade A, had a great fieldman who helped us along-and I never once really thought about what could go wrong, but over the years, alot has gone wrong, and alot has changed, some for the better some not. Its just the way it is-I thought by now I would have my herd built up to where "it needed to be" whatever that magic number is- ;-) but every year, it seems I had to cull or sold replacements when I shouldn't have to make ends meet to keep on trucking along, decisions, I have made, some good sme bad, but thats part of it all, its a occupation that takes time and patience.

 

[dieselbeef]

well said..pretty dang close to what im thinkin..but ill keep on keepin on..cuz i like it

 

[ANAZAZI]

"By culling females that do not conceive you
may get rid of some good ones BUT you are sure to get rid of all the lemons."
(Tom lassater)