With as small a group as you have, the logistics of keeping replacements heifers separate as a group, forgetting hay feeding, dictate selling all heifers and buying in replacement bred cows to fit your preferred calving season. Herds with large numbers of heifers who are run in a separate stocker enterprise, and bred for a very short period, 21-30 days, may be able to take advantage of the genetic improvements of well selected maternal bulls. When you consider needing a calving ease bull for a handful of heifers, supplementing them through winter better than even dry cows, providing better spring nutrition than calving cows, getting them bred in a tight window, carrying them on a better plane of nutrition than a cow for the next year, watching like a hawk as the calve, assisting when necessary, correcting those that won't take their calf and then supplementing them better than cows to get them bred back, the hardest thing to do in the cattle business, retained heifers are not worth it for small producers. Buy good quality bred cows, sell the heifers. Buy growth bulls. Be a terminal herd. You will be money ahead.
Keeping/Separating fall heifers
- Thread starter Pineywoods230
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Well, you found good Brangus cows to start your herd with, There ought to be a good amount of Brangus in your area. A lot of people do very well producing the calves that you are. A lot more do it the other way...Braford or f1 Brah x Herf cows and Angus bulls, for some reason. Probably less chance in getting horns, but I don't know. As a whole, braford cows may cost a little less, but I wouldn't think by all of that much. If you did keep those Super Baldy heifers, what kind of bull do you think you would breed them to?
Pineywoods230
Well-known member
Probably a brangus or angus depending on what I found to swap/buy. Any black would sell at a premium with super baldies dams. But yeah I think I'll just wait and buy some heavy bread when prices come down a bit. I'd honestly like a dozen or so more but thankfully I can wait on expansion
Do what?
.... stick to horses.
@Pineywoods230 you just let a cattle trader with no cows, and that types nonsense like above, talk you out of it.
Yes, either of those 2 would be a good choice of bull on super black baldies. I went last week to look at a bass boat, and the man had super black baldies he was breeding to a homozygous black Simmental. He had some calves about ready to wean, and I bet the smallest ones were 500+.
The Seminoles have sold Salacoa Valley to two Brangus operations located in Alabama and Louisiana. I noticed their website was down, but there are still cattle on it. The original owners had sold Salacoa to the Seminoles, but di d not sell the 4500 acres to them, just leased it. It is my guess the owners are doing what every one else here is doing...selling the land to the commercial developers. I suspect the new owners are moving the cattle to their respective farms. Salacoa maintained a commercial Brangus herd as well. I was planning on dropping by this week to talk to the guys there, and see what is left on the place and what the plans are for them. Might be some bred or open cows left for sale at a good price. If there are, you can bet there are no finer Brangus in the US . They are in Fairmount, GA, is you want to see how far it is from you. I will let you know what I find out about what is over trhere and how much they want. When the Seminoles bought it, they left all the crew in place, and I wanna find out whether those boys are going to Ala or LA, or if they are out of a job anyway.
ROFLMFAO!! The goal of a "cow trader" is to never own any cows, at least not for more than a few days!!! Right now I own 112....113 if I count Gail, Zeke's Jersey. But, by tomorrow or Wednesday I will only own 14...15 with that Jeresy. I will admit, I have owned these for a couple of weeks, but I didn't buy them to sell originally. Through "trading" I ended up with $19.20 a head in those 112, and sold 98 of them for $115k, but I guess you are right...I don't know much about cattle. And I am not alone on here in thinking that "nonsense" about super black baldies being good cattle. All of us just can't be as wise as you are, Skippy. Now, this is really gonna get your panties in a wad: 4 of those 112 were heifers I had retained from our 2021 herd!Do what?
.... stick to horses.
@Pineywoods230 you just let a cattle trader with no cows, and that types nonsense like above, talk you out of it.
The other 108 I got with a corporate line of credit!! I know you said it coudn't be done...that it was unethical, etc, to use OPM for buying cows. But dumb ole me did it anyway! Will I ever learn?!!! RDFF
Well-known member
3% of body weight/day
Let the people who actually have experience with this stuff tell their story. They don't need you to middle man the info and screwing it up all the time.ROFLMFAO!! The goal of a "cow trader" is to never own any cows, at least not for more than a few days!!! Right now I own 112....113 if I count Gail, Zeke's Jersey. But, by tomorrow or Wednesday I will only own 14...15 with that Jeresy. I will admit, I have owned these for a couple of weeks, but I didn't buy them to sell originally. Through "trading" I ended up with $19.20 a head in those 112, and sold 98 of them for $115k, but I guess you are right...I don't know much about cattle. And I am not alone on here in thinking that "nonsense" about super black baldies being good cattle. All of us just can't be as wise as you are, Skippy. Now, this is really gonna get your panties in a wad: 4 of those 112 were heifers I had retained from our 2021 herd!
No one is impressed. I think you have a bigger line of bs than credit.
simme
Old Dumb Guy
Fred R. Barnard said "Pictures speak louder than words". I don't know if he had cattle or not or if he was popular on internet forums. But I do know that @MurraysMutts follows his advice very well. Some others here, not so much.
@Pineywoods230 . do you ever look on the J & J website? I was looking last night, and they have several groups of Brangus heifers up to 16 mos old. They also had a group of f1 Brah c Angus, and a group of black Beefmasters. The prices on these were from $1350 to $1550, and you can pick and choose. If you sold your heifers for the $1100+ That most everyone agreed they wood bring, you could replace each one with a breeding age Brangus for a couple hundred dollars each. J & J has a pretty good reputation as far as quality of the stock they sell. How far are you from Bryan, Texas?
Pineywoods230
Well-known member
J&J in Bryan? I've never heard of them. And I'm 4.5 hours from them
J&J Cattle Co
www.jjcattleco.com
I like to keep a few of my heifers. They have a separate lot and I feed them part of a round bale each day. A little more labor, but not a big deal. My bull has his on lot until January 1st.
I usually try to AI the heifers.
I like keeping my own, because I know there bloodline and they will know me.
Just my thoughts, though I still might buy some bred heifers sometimes.
I also run a small herd of 25.
I usually try to AI the heifers.
I like keeping my own, because I know there bloodline and they will know me.
Just my thoughts, though I still might buy some bred heifers sometimes.
I also run a small herd of 25.
