Nkline
Well-known member
The closer "working on it" is to 100+ the more questions I have and intent listening I'll do. Extra points if land, facilities, cattle and equipment had to be purchased at market value first hand too.
50 is very different than 20, 100 is different than 50 and 500 is different than 100 etc. Of the 8 calves I dragged in last night I had to back 2 extra cows off 2 of them. How does that get sorted out if I'm not around? How often do twins work out with no help and containment? I've seen wonderful mother cows follow one twin halfway across a pen and leave another laying there because they can't count very good - not their fault imo (we have 10 successful sets on the go right now).
Not much of what I do as a cattleman is written in stone so if there's a better way I become aware of I'll be sure to steal it. That's how I got to where I am. Looked at the few guys I know who make a living off cattle and adopted a lot of what they do. I didn't inherit any facilities so I calve a little later. I work for the 2nd largest cow/calf operation around here pretty much full time and do odd mechanical jobs for the largest so I see how things are being done. None of the big guys here run horned cattle or direct market much more than about 10 or 20 animals a year - I can't imagine trying to deal with 1000-2000 people a year trying to sell of 500+ animals by the 1/2 or 1/4. It was bad enough selling 60 pigs I raised a couple years ago.
I'm all ears though. The model is horned cattle, calving May/June, weaning and finishing calves for direct marketing? How do I get to zero dystocia?
Sounds like you need to spread your cows out a bit, close to zero dystocia shouldn't be too hard our pull rate is about 1:80 counting heifers, all presented wrong, all angus. Some cows will try to raise twins and some won't, but in that case you usually have a poorly cleaned bawling calf running around trying to steal milk to grab the next day.