Maximize! (Advice/ideas)

[MurraysMutts]

2nd place about 44 acres
16 cows/heifers
1 bull
2 calves
19

Home place about 45 acres
13 cows/heifers
12 calves
2 bulls
1 feeder steer
28

So....
I'm trying to maximize the potential here for sale day.
I dont have the acreage to pull all calves and wean and then grow to a higher weight.
Question one. Do cow-calf folks just wean and sell pretty much immediately? Or do most folks move em to a different place and let em grow a while after weaning?

The only way I see right now, that i can do that, would be to pull my bull from the 44 acre place. Then wean my calves from the home and move em to the other place til next early spring.
This does a couple things for me.
It keeps the bull away from my heifers that I may or may not want to keep. But definitely dont want em bred yet.
It also let's this group of calves graze and grow til either late fall or early spring when I will need to sell my calf crop.
It should also tighten my calving window at the other place. I have a couple summer calvers and would like to move them to calve with the other cows. Long story but I would like to keep them, as opposed to sell and buy something else and end up with more potential problems.
Anything that turns up open or hasn't calved in the late winter-early spring I will ponder selling. Or should sell!
Seems like a lot of work, but it makes sense to me.
May lose some time on the summer calvers, but it is what it is, on that part.
I'd love to lease another small place for this purpose but unfortunately that hasn't become an option right now.

Hopefully I've remembered to put everything in this post that I wanted to.

What's everyone think?

 

[kenny thomas]

No matter if you keep them a few days or a few months selling all the calves at once sure makes things easy . Easier to feed cows without calves. Easier to feed calves without cows. Bigger groups bring more money.

 

[wbvs58]

Around here most people calve the middle of winter. The calves are just the right age to take advantage of the spring growth of grass. They are taken off their mothers in autumn straight onto the truck to special weaner sales. Backgrounders pay a premium for the calves at these special weaner sales and usually put them onto winter crops like oats. If you keep they will go backwards as the winter feed deteriorates unless you feed them.

Ken

 

[Ebenezer]

Do you primarily want to make money or do you primarily want "easy"? And neither the twain shall meet unless you get management tightened up.

What is your target animal for the market where you sell? Frame, weight range, look, type and do not discount the time of year. Don't know, ask the local folks or go to the barns and see.

I don't like split season breeding but you'd be money ahead with one bull in one place for 3 months, then move him to the other place for the rest of the year and get all heifers back at the first place. If you have a good market for calves beyond weaning weights or for preconditioned calves then they could go to and fro to get away from mama and keep growing. A lot of variables that cannot be known from a distant computer.

 

[TCRanch]

At least here it's definitely better to sell calves in a group, especially if they are uniform. I now have a defined spring calving and they're weaned late Sept/early Oct. I pull the bulls at least 6 weeks prior to weaning but heifers still get a shot of lute. Calves are weaned in a separate pasture across the road from their mama's (so not true fence line weaning) and I keep them a minimum of 45 days but generally longer, contingent on the market, our tax situation (whether we should apply the income current year or next) and forage (they generally graze the brome field). Fully vaccinated, weaned calves & guaranteed open heifers bring a premium here.

 

[MurraysMutts]

No matter if you keep them a few days or a few months selling all the calves at once sure makes things easy . Easier to feed cows without calves. Easier to feed calves without cows. Bigger groups bring more money.

That is what I would like to work towards. This gathering 4 or 5 calves at a time seems really inefficient. And it's a pain in the neck.

 

[MurraysMutts]

Around here most people calve the middle of winter. The calves are just the right age to take advantage of the spring growth of grass. They are taken off their mothers in autumn straight onto the truck to special weaner sales. Backgrounders pay a premium for the calves at these special weaner sales and usually put them onto winter crops like oats. If you keep they will go backwards as the winter feed deteriorates unless you feed them.

Ken

So my plan may actually work as long as I sell em in the fall. I was fortunate to have graze out wheat last year and that allowed them to grow a bit more.

 

[MurraysMutts]

Do you primarily want to make money or do you primarily want "easy"? And neither the twain shall meet unless you get management tightened up.

What is your target animal for the market where you sell? Frame, weight range, look, type and do not discount the time of year. Don't know, ask the local folks or go to the barns and see.

I don't like split season breeding but you'd be money ahead with one bull in one place for 3 months, then move him to the other place for the rest of the year and get all heifers back at the first place. If you have a good market for calves beyond weaning weights or for preconditioned calves then they could go to and fro to get away from mama and keep growing. A lot of variables that cannot be known from a distant computer.

I'm trying to figure out my target animal. That's why I was wondering how other people do it. A friend keeps a bunch of his and grows them over the winter but he has the acreage to do it.
Right now I think I may have to sell weaned calves and let someone else do the growing unless I can find some winter pasture of some sort eh?

 

[MurraysMutts]

At least here it's definitely better to sell calves in a group, especially if they are uniform. I now have a defined spring calving and they're weaned late Sept/early Oct. I pull the bulls at least 6 weeks prior to weaning but heifers still get a shot of lute. Calves are weaned in a separate pasture across the road from their mama's (so not true fence line weaning) and I keep them a minimum of 45 days but generally longer, contingent on the market, our tax situation (whether we should apply the income current year or next) and forage (they generally graze the brome field). Fully vaccinated, weaned calves & guaranteed open heifers bring a premium here.

Also thinking that's what I want to do. It would be nice to have 1 calving season but I would have to wait a long time to make that happen. I have bulls so 2 2 calving seasons my work for me. But then I have 2 groups a year to try and shuffle around. I reckon that beats doing it 4 or 5 times a year tho!
The weaned vaccinated open etc do better here as well. So I definitely want to do that.

 

[1982vett]

No matter if you keep them a few days or a few months selling all the calves at once sure makes things easy . Easier to feed cows without calves. Easier to feed calves without cows. Bigger groups bring more money.

That is what I would like to work towards. This gathering 4 or 5 calves at a time seems really inefficient. And it's a pain in the neck.

No. Not really... :2cents:

 

[MurraysMutts]

I'll have to get a picture of my facilities.... lol
I will say tho, that selling several times a year sometimes helps.

 

[elkwc]

We have started pulling bulls and trying to go to around 75 spring calvers and 25 fall calvers. We try to wean at least 40 days but many times it is 60-90 days or longer. With the larger fall group we only had wheat for the steers. Ran the heifers on grass and kept out wheat and alfalfa hay and caked every other day. They didn't grow as well. Was going to run on graze out wheat when the Roma hit snd decided to sell.

 

[Ky hills]

We have tried to tighten up our calving to avoid certain months. We are not very big going for around 55-60 cows. We have been retaining several heifers and so that has made for two different groups out with bulls. I agree that it is easier to wean once or twice a year than to have to deal with it often and a few at a time. Weaned our cows calves a couple weeks ago and today pulled off and worked the heifers calves. We have been weaning and holding our calves for around 60 -90 or more days then selling them. I know it's not the right thing to say but I don't mind having calves at different times of the year just as long as they are somewhat consolidated enough to get at least a small group of similar size. That way all the eggs aren't in one basket so to speak.

 

[callmefence]

Cow /calf, stocker calves and feeders are 3 separate businesses. For most it's better to do one good than to try to do all.

 

[MurraysMutts]

The idea of all the eggs in one basket is a confounded one. One one hand u run a chance of getting a marketupswing during the sale of one of the small groups. On the other hand, the larger group may bring more just because it's a larger group.
I guess we just have to play what we are dealt sometimes...

I like the cow/calf operation myself. Even with all the pitfalls that can come with it. I imagine there are just as many issues with the other 2 operations as well tho.

It sounds like I need to focus on tightening the calving window. Most likely 2 seperate calving windows.
Ideally I would like to only have one bull to mess with. Just use him at one place for 3 months and then move him to the other place for 3 months. Probly have to pick a place to winter him tho.
Another focus I think should be getting calves weaned and holding til grass falls off I think.
That should put all the weight on them that I'm capable of, and make for a good animal for the next guy to grow.
Unless I get lucky and have winter grazing made available again...

 

[Ky hills]

The idea of all the eggs in one basket is a confounded one. One one hand u run a chance of getting a marketupswing during the sale of one of the small groups. On the other hand, the larger group may bring more just because it's a larger group.
I guess we just have to play what we are dealt sometimes...

I like the cow/calf operation myself. Even with all the pitfalls that can come with it. I imagine there are just as many issues with the other 2 operations as well tho.

It sounds like I need to focus on tightening the calving window. Most likely 2 seperate calving windows.
Ideally I would like to only have one bull to mess with. Just use him at one place for 3 months and then move him to the other place for 3 months. Probly have to pick a place to winter him tho.
Another focus I think should be getting calves weaned and holding til grass falls off I think.
That should put all the weight on them that I'm capable of, and make for a good animal for the next guy to grow.
Unless I get lucky and have winter grazing made available again...

We have been having a majority of calves in 2 more defined calving times. We try to run the bull with ones that are presumably bred after pulling from another group. When we have multiple bulls it makes it more complicated but can work out if they can be ran together when not needed.
I have run stocker cattle, that's what my parents did too instead of cow/calf. I prefer cow/calf but there are some good points to stockers. You can have some problems in the first few weeks with them, and have some losses and a lot of money in medicine like Drazzin or Nuflor. Usually once they get started they are pretty well hands off. The problems I see with them is the markets don't seem to be cyclical in the sense that they used to be based on supply and demand. There are so many external factors that affect the markets that the investment in them is harder to get a profit from due to things affecting the markets so quickly.

 

[Stocker Steve]

Cow /calf, stocker calves and feeders are 3 separate businesses. For most it's better to do one good than to try to do all.

A business approach is to ID your first limitation - - land or capital or labor. Then optimize around that. Many on CT are limited by land, so then you will want to estimate return/acre for each of the 3 businesses, and re on the highest return/ACRE.

 

[callmefence]

Cow /calf, stocker calves and feeders are 3 separate businesses. For most it's better to do one good than to try to do all.

A business approach is to ID your first limitation - - land or capital or labor. Then optimize around that. Many on CT are limited by land, so then you will want to estimate return/acre for each of the 3 businesses, and re on the highest return/ACRE.

You forget location.
Stocker calves have a strong market here. Small calves very available and a good market , close to west Texas and panhandle feedlots for moving all classes of stockers. Feeder operations not so much unless you're out west. Also good winter pastures allows big stocker calf groups to be pastured without ever feeding a bale of hay all winter long. ... location, location, location.

 

[Stocker Steve]

No.

Location is factored into each of your costs, and the value of what you chose to produce. For example - - labor is U$S 2 per hour and pasture is free after you fire some more rain forest. Then you should have a high return per with cow/calf.

Return per, return per, return per.

 

[callmefence]

No.

Location is factored into each of your costs, and the value of what you chose to produce. For example - - labor is U$S 2 per hour and pasture is free after you fire some more rain forest. Then you should have a high return per with cow/calf.

Return per, return per, return per.

Best return per acre = deer and hogs... :hat: