rocket2222
Well-known member
Just watching the sale on RFDTV. Any body who can sell such poor performing bulls, one, I seen had a 440lb adjusted WW, many of them were below 500lbs AWW, for around $2000 is a marketing genius.
leachman sale
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Julian
Well-known member
I watched through lot #511 and didn't see anything sell for less than $1,750.
Anguscollegekid
Well-known member
Do you remember any lot numbers? I'd like to look them up. What breeds/sires? Were they born late?
Julian
Well-known member
Anguscollegekid":1r1ducy8 said:
There were 683 listed lots of bulls, and although some were dropped out, I can't remember which ones sold for $1,750. If you ask me a lot number I can tell you what it brought.
DOC HARRIS
Well-known member
rocket2222 -rocket2222":174vcp8x said:
Have you studied Leachman's philosophy of today's Beef Cattle Breeding? Have you watched his "No Better Bull" program on Thursday nights? Do you understand his "Cow Math" principles? Have you ever heard Lee's discussion seminar's, and had a chance to personally question him regarding your reservations and critcisims? Have you ever seen his cattle and observed how they function?
Can you refute these facts with your own prima facie evidence? Can you endorse these scientifically and real-life proven facts?
Smaller cows eat less, so you can run more of them on the same feed resource.
Smaller cows wean a higher percentage of their body weight.
Calves out of smaller cows weigh less per head, but sell for more per pound.
Smaller cows have better fertility.
For these reasons, they are putting a great deal of emphasis on cow size. Their math shows that you will make $30.00 per cow per year for every 100# that you lower cow size. They feel that optimal cow size is beteen 1150 and 1350 pounds depending on your conditions.
Just as an aside, I have advocated that 1250 pound cows make more money than heavier one's since I taught Agriculture in the early 1950's. But Leachman has the math and the facts to justify that assumption. If you care to discuss it with him, I am sure that he will be glad to accomodate you!
None of the above is meant to obviate the fact that low weaning weights are obtained occasionally. In a group of 1350 sale animals, a less-than-desirable individual will appear once in a while. We can't ALL have perfect progeny - in spite of all our efforts. The first ten bulls in his sale, for example, averaged 726 pounds WW. And these were ALL unregistered Stabilizers, which, by the way, averaged $5325 per head - the highest bringing $8000 and the lowest bringing $3250. Pretty consistent. And not due to high pressure salesmanship. Can you do as well? If so, perhaps you two can get together and compare notes. You might both learn something!
Condemnation before Investigation is seldom expedient to one's benefit.
DOC HARRIS
houstoncutter
Well-known member
rocket2222 -DOC HARRIS":1gxblgj0 said:
Have you studied Leachman's philosophy of today's Beef Cattle Breeding? Have you watched his "No Better Bull" program on Thursday nights? Do you understand his "Cow Math" principles? Have you ever heard Lee's discussion seminar's, and had a chance to personally question him regarding your reservations and critcisims? Have you ever seen his cattle and observed how they function?
Can you refute these facts with your own prima facie evidence? Can you endorse these scientifically and real-life proven facts?
Smaller cows eat less, so you can run more of them on the same feed resource.
Smaller cows wean a higher percentage of their body weight.
Calves out of smaller cows weigh less per head, but sell for more per pound.
Smaller cows have better fertility.
For these reasons, they are putting a great deal of emphasis on cow size. Their math shows that you will make $30.00 per cow per year for every 100# that you lower cow size. They feel that optimal cow size is beteen 1150 and 1350 pounds depending on your conditions.
Just as an aside, I have advocated that 1250 pound cows make more money than heavier one's since I taught Agriculture in the early 1950's. But Leachman has the math and the facts to justify that assumption. If you care to discuss it with him, I am sure that he will be glad to accomodate you!
None of the above is meant to obviate the fact that low weaning weights are obtained occasionally. In a group of 1350 sale animals, a less-than-desirable individual will appear once in a while. We can't ALL have perfect progeny - in spite of all our efforts. The first ten bulls in his sale, for example, averaged 726 pounds WW. And these were ALL unregistered Stabilizers, which, by the way, averaged $5325 per head - the highest bringing $8000 and the lowest bringing $3250. Pretty consistent. And not due to high pressure salesmanship. Can you do as well? If so, perhaps you two can get together and compare notes. You might both learn something!
Condemnation before Investigation is seldom expedient to one's benefit.
DOC HARRIS[/quot
Well stated :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:
rocket2222
Well-known member
No no no no and nope! Only thing I know of him, is what I read on this forum.
Your way over my head here Doc. I should have stayed in collage that last year?
I'm back in the huddle now, I know this one.
You got me beat there, few credits short of engineering degree [see post above] I'll talk farming with anybody, try to learn something new every day.
Now you got to my point. Here's a guy who as done his homework. He's got some numbers to back it up, got a bunch of people believing in his philosphy, throws in a 440lb runt in his sale, AND STILL GETS $2000 for that sucker. Like I said, the guys a genius. Pounds is still the name of the game for most folks, its what pays the bills, there's no way in hell I could sell anybody I know a bull that weaned off at 440lbs for breeding stock, period. In fact I don't know anyone round here who would be smart enough to buy him, seeing his genetic protential for growth and all.
My little footnote,
Whats next? IMO. Well in a few more years after most everybody has down sized the size of there cows, and more land goes to developers, and more land goes to corn crops, and theres more people to feed, and fewer farmers, you going to have to produce more pounds of feed. The livestock will allready be small [and hopefully thick] so to get more pounds are't they going to have to get larger framed. It may not be the frame race of a few years back, but is it not how the frame race started, we wanted more pounds of beef per animal.
PS
I HAVE been wrong before, so please give me a little leway here. or is it leeway or leaway, whatever.
vs_cattle
Well-known member
I Think We All Worry About Open Land For Cattle But New Things Are Helping Like The Conservation Easement That Can Never Be Developed This Is Helping Certain Areas Not To Be Developed And I Think The GOV. Pays Some # of $ For The Easement. Maybe in the future 20-55+ Yrs There Will Be Tech. To Clone Animals To Larger Form Skip The Calving Process Like Copy Them When There 500+ lbs And They Come Out Of A Machine 500+ lbs But That Just In My Dreams Maybe One Day
Anguscollegekid
Well-known member
I sure hope not! I'd prefer to raise them myself than push a button, and think of not having any genetic progress if we just cloned what we had. Think if cloning had started in the 50's and that was it-we'd still have little short, 900 pound cattle.
You'll need adequate growth and fast growth, but it is still far less efficient to feed an animal to 1400+ pounds than one that will finish at 12-1300, and you don't get paid for daylight under the belly anyway. The moderate framed animals can begin finishing sooner and there's less bone, hide, etc. to throw away which decreases cutability anyway.
You'll need adequate growth and fast growth, but it is still far less efficient to feed an animal to 1400+ pounds than one that will finish at 12-1300, and you don't get paid for daylight under the belly anyway. The moderate framed animals can begin finishing sooner and there's less bone, hide, etc. to throw away which decreases cutability anyway.
DOC HARRIS
Well-known member
rocket2222-rocket2222":70srgr53 said:
The essence of the subject matter of this post, in my opinion, has been expressed substantively and somewhat expressly - however - I can see the rhetoric becoming combative, therefore, to preclude any further lurching into oblivion, and misunderstandings being perceived, I am asking Lee Leachman to clarify his principles and philosophys, and respond to these threads directly. And, yes, rocket 2222, in answer to your last query - I perceive that it is - - "Lee-Way"!
DOC HARRIS
DOC HARRIS
Well-known member
For some strange, unknown reason, I received a beautiful answer from Lee regarding the current thread on this post, - - - and I guess the cat ate it before I could get it pasted into another post!! (yes, that's it - -the cat ate it!) Anyway, I shall continue to dig through some of the dumb things I do with this computer and see if I can find it, but in the meantime I have a BEAUTIFUL suggestion for all of you who have been reading this - Call or write "Leachman Cattle of Colorado" and ask them to send you their new "Cow Size Matters" private treaty Bull Catalog for 2007 and read the material inside! It is a textbook of what Lee's philosophy is and WHY, and that will answer ANY questions far better than I can, or than he can in a letter. It is a "KEEPER" in MY library!
(970) 568-3983
http://www.leachman.com
DOC HARRIS
(970) 568-3983
http://www.leachman.com
DOC HARRIS
DOC HARRIS
Well-known member
Okay, the cat just found Lee's letter for me, so here it is.
From: Lee Leachman
To: Doc Harris
Sent: Saturday, March 31, 2007 12:12 PM
Subject: RE: Cattle Forum & Cattle Discussion Boards at Cattle Today
Doc,
Thanks for the thread.
I fear that we made a fairly serious marketing mistake on our fall born embryo transplant bulls. These bulls were out of our very best donor cows. We placed the embryos into non-descript commercial cows in December of 2005 and sent them to Wichita Falls, TX to calve. They calved down and were raised by their recipient dams. Unfortunately, that area was in a serious drought. The resulting bulls had very low AWW's. Their AWW had little or nothing to do with their genetic potential -- since they were on commercial cows in a drought situation.
We assumed that our buyers would be able to understand that these were ET bulls and that they should look at the EPD's, not the adjusted weights. In fact, the buyers did not. It is my opinion that these bulls were some of the finest bulls that we offered in our sale. However, because of the low weights, they were discounted and some did not sell. I might add that the same fate was met by many of our ET females that sold on Wednesday.
Our average AWW in our sale was 679 pounds on our Spring born, non-ET, bulls. The bulls typically rank in the top 30% of their breeds on weaning EPD's. All this is still accomplished with a smaller than average cow. Here's another way to think about it.
My golfing handicap is 28 (sad, but true). The other day, I teed off with my driver and drove the ball 475 yards three times in a row. Am I good at golfing or not?
Answer: You don't have enough information, because you don't know the conditions under which I hit the ball 475 yards. In fact, it was on a frozen lake with a 70 mile per hour wind at my back. Aha.... looks like the environmental conditions mattered. The best bet is to look at my handicap. Handicaps are like EPD's. They take all of the historical information and make an estimate of your ability. Adjusted weights are like the distance of my drive -- everything depended on environment. Another simple example is to think of a cow/calf pair -- turn them out on the Nevada desert and wean the calf at 205 days vs. turn them out on an irrigated meadow of grazing alfalfa with a creep feeder for the calf -- will the weaning weight be different? Yes, of course it will, but the animals have the same genetics.
Most seedstock breeders go to great lengths to feed cattle well to make average genetics sell better. We tend to take the low cost approach and live with less performance because we are confident of our cattle's ability to grow.
All this said, we appreciate all of your comments about our sale. Here are the sale averages for those that are interested.
Bulls: Head Average
Stabilizers 304 $ 3,035
Red Angus 64 $ 2,949
Angus 192 $ 2,441
Simmental 25 $ 2,350
Charolais 76 $ 2,632
Bull Total: 661 $ 2,782
Females: Head Average
Angus Female 218 $ 1,458
Red Angus Female 105 $ 1,472
Charolais Females 8 $ 1,300
Simmental Females 11 $ 1,114
Stabilizer Females 127 $ 1,025
Total Seedstock Females 451 $ 1,386
791 Commercial heifers in load lots averaged $759.
Lee Leachman, Manager
Leachman Cattle of Colorado
5100 ECR 70
Wellington, CO 80549
PH: (970) 568-3983
From: Lee Leachman
To: Doc Harris
Sent: Saturday, March 31, 2007 12:12 PM
Subject: RE: Cattle Forum & Cattle Discussion Boards at Cattle Today
Doc,
Thanks for the thread.
I fear that we made a fairly serious marketing mistake on our fall born embryo transplant bulls. These bulls were out of our very best donor cows. We placed the embryos into non-descript commercial cows in December of 2005 and sent them to Wichita Falls, TX to calve. They calved down and were raised by their recipient dams. Unfortunately, that area was in a serious drought. The resulting bulls had very low AWW's. Their AWW had little or nothing to do with their genetic potential -- since they were on commercial cows in a drought situation.
We assumed that our buyers would be able to understand that these were ET bulls and that they should look at the EPD's, not the adjusted weights. In fact, the buyers did not. It is my opinion that these bulls were some of the finest bulls that we offered in our sale. However, because of the low weights, they were discounted and some did not sell. I might add that the same fate was met by many of our ET females that sold on Wednesday.
Our average AWW in our sale was 679 pounds on our Spring born, non-ET, bulls. The bulls typically rank in the top 30% of their breeds on weaning EPD's. All this is still accomplished with a smaller than average cow. Here's another way to think about it.
My golfing handicap is 28 (sad, but true). The other day, I teed off with my driver and drove the ball 475 yards three times in a row. Am I good at golfing or not?
Answer: You don't have enough information, because you don't know the conditions under which I hit the ball 475 yards. In fact, it was on a frozen lake with a 70 mile per hour wind at my back. Aha.... looks like the environmental conditions mattered. The best bet is to look at my handicap. Handicaps are like EPD's. They take all of the historical information and make an estimate of your ability. Adjusted weights are like the distance of my drive -- everything depended on environment. Another simple example is to think of a cow/calf pair -- turn them out on the Nevada desert and wean the calf at 205 days vs. turn them out on an irrigated meadow of grazing alfalfa with a creep feeder for the calf -- will the weaning weight be different? Yes, of course it will, but the animals have the same genetics.
Most seedstock breeders go to great lengths to feed cattle well to make average genetics sell better. We tend to take the low cost approach and live with less performance because we are confident of our cattle's ability to grow.
All this said, we appreciate all of your comments about our sale. Here are the sale averages for those that are interested.
Bulls: Head Average
Stabilizers 304 $ 3,035
Red Angus 64 $ 2,949
Angus 192 $ 2,441
Simmental 25 $ 2,350
Charolais 76 $ 2,632
Bull Total: 661 $ 2,782
Females: Head Average
Angus Female 218 $ 1,458
Red Angus Female 105 $ 1,472
Charolais Females 8 $ 1,300
Simmental Females 11 $ 1,114
Stabilizer Females 127 $ 1,025
Total Seedstock Females 451 $ 1,386
791 Commercial heifers in load lots averaged $759.
Lee Leachman, Manager
Leachman Cattle of Colorado
5100 ECR 70
Wellington, CO 80549
PH: (970) 568-3983
DOC HARRIS
Well-known member
The above letter from Lee Leachman presents a PRIME exaample why Embryo Transfer Recipient Cows SHOULD be high quality cows - preferably of the same breed as the embryos. We all should learn a good lesson from this last year's drought situation. It proves that even with everything thought out as carefully as possible, you can't win all of the time. But you need to get as close as you can to perfection in management!
DOC HARRIS
DOC HARRIS
IL Rancher
Well-known member
NOt really and edit really but a world filter that turn he double hockey sticks into hell...
rocket2222
Well-known member
Doc, I'm definitely not being combative. I just have an opinion. This is a discussion forum, and I like to discuss. I look forward to hearing from Mr. Leachman. If you like, you could have him PM me, give me a time when best to call, his phone number, and I would call him and talk directly on my dime.
I was actually quite surprised by your response to my first post, as I did actually call the guy a marketing genius. I believe that if Mr. Leachman had not had his own show on t.v., or wherever it is, and had not been so outspoken in his beliefs, that he would not have sold that 440 pound calf for $2,000.00. That's good marketing that sold that bull, not the bull's performance. I've seen this happen many, many times before. The farm, the business, whoever has the better marketing program, will typically get better prices or sell more of their product. It doesn't necessarily mean that the product is better or worse, but generally it's has to be a good product, but the company markets it better. I think this is especially true in the cattle business.
I was actually quite surprised by your response to my first post, as I did actually call the guy a marketing genius. I believe that if Mr. Leachman had not had his own show on t.v., or wherever it is, and had not been so outspoken in his beliefs, that he would not have sold that 440 pound calf for $2,000.00. That's good marketing that sold that bull, not the bull's performance. I've seen this happen many, many times before. The farm, the business, whoever has the better marketing program, will typically get better prices or sell more of their product. It doesn't necessarily mean that the product is better or worse, but generally it's has to be a good product, but the company markets it better. I think this is especially true in the cattle business.
Cowdirt
Well-known member
The essence of the subject matter of this post, in my opinion, has been expressed substantively and somewhat expressly - however - I can see the rhetoric becoming combative, therefore, to preclude any further lurching into oblivion, and misunderstandings being perceived, I am asking Lee Leachman to clarify his principles and philosophys, and respond to these threads directly. And, yes, rocket 2222, in answer to your last query - I perceive that it is - - "Lee-Way"!
DOC HARRIS[/quote]
Hold that thought Doc; going to get a dictionary, be right back! ;-)
DOC HARRIS[/quote]
Hold that thought Doc; going to get a dictionary, be right back! ;-)
While we are discussing Leachman and his way......whatever happened in Montana??? I don't follow the gossip and I still have never been to Montana; but one minute Leachman was selling Piedmontese beef, there were stories about dissension with the cooperators, and the creditors were attacking. Fast forward five years and Lee Leachman is in Colorado on TV with no Piedmontese on his web site and apparently with reputation still intact.
hillsdown
Well-known member
Is this the same Leachman who had VAA Leachman New Day GV Bull?
Anguscollegekid
Well-known member
Lee was a part of Leachman Cattle Company in Billings, who had the Piedmontease beef deal. Leachman's ended up with some debt due to lawsuits, business ventures that didn't quite go as planned, etc. and in September of 2003 they had a dispersal sale, selling the entire Leachman owned herd.
After that, Lee went to work for Dallas Horton, creating Leachman Cattle of Colorado. Jim and Seth partnered with Butch Black of Nebraska to form the Leachman Cattle Barons. Some cooperators went both ways. After a year, or perhaps a little longer, things fell through between Jim and Butch. Butch then created Nine Irons Seedstock, which consists of nine former Leachman cooperators who are having a sale this next week in Antioch, Nebraska. Jim and Seth still have the Leachman Cattle Barons and are back at the feedlot, I believe, and are also having a sale, I think the day after Easter.
I don't know what happened to the land, they had an auction, or two, but I don't believe got the asking price so I'm not sure if it sold or not. I believe they did have the New Day bull, along with a lot of other greats-Saugahatchee, New Standard, King Rob, Major League, 600U, etc.
After that, Lee went to work for Dallas Horton, creating Leachman Cattle of Colorado. Jim and Seth partnered with Butch Black of Nebraska to form the Leachman Cattle Barons. Some cooperators went both ways. After a year, or perhaps a little longer, things fell through between Jim and Butch. Butch then created Nine Irons Seedstock, which consists of nine former Leachman cooperators who are having a sale this next week in Antioch, Nebraska. Jim and Seth still have the Leachman Cattle Barons and are back at the feedlot, I believe, and are also having a sale, I think the day after Easter.
I don't know what happened to the land, they had an auction, or two, but I don't believe got the asking price so I'm not sure if it sold or not. I believe they did have the New Day bull, along with a lot of other greats-Saugahatchee, New Standard, King Rob, Major League, 600U, etc.
