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wobbie1775
Member
I appreciate the details @Warren Allison . most of the Corrientes I bought were/are bred so we are gonna see how that calf check looks when it comes in. I think it will be a good experiment to show people on here "a way" (not 'the way') to start out with low upfront costs.I have been breeding Corr cows to Angus, Brangus, and Ultrablack bulls for 30 years or so. My partner and I bought 223 acres of cut-over pine in the early 80's. We have used it as our own hunting preserve...mostly rabbit and quail. The land is un- improved ....never seen a dozer to clean it up, We have never tried to sow grass there. Dove field or 2 from time to time, and food plots for both rabbit and quail some times. The 223 acres is probably over 100 acres of Kudzu. IYKYK about the Kudzu....key to our success. The place is never bushhogged. We hunt from horseback or mule-drawn wagon...don't allow motorized vehicles on it at all. There is about a 4 acre spot of flat ground just inside the front gate, where we have an arena, a pole barn, and a pond. It has Johnson Grass and broome sage on it. The rest of the place not covered in Kudzu, has honeysuckle, blackberries, bamboo ( cows LOVE it), buck wheat, and various patches of volunteer small grains, remnants of past dove fields or old food plots. A creek runs through the hardwood bottoms bordering the south side. My Corrs will never see a man on foot. We uses horses to round them up after calving to tag and band the calves, and again when they are 6 months old, when we trailer wean them and carry them to the sale. The ONLY inputs we have, is a couple hundred dollars in minerals/salt, We do not vaccinate. We do not worm., We do not feed, not even hay. We do not bush hog, lime or fertilize that place. We have run 100-120 head there since the mid 90's, and have never lost a cow or heifer, have never pulled a calf. In fact, I don't think we have ever seen a calf born, or one under a few days old. Corrientes always breed back, and always have plenty of milk.
I raised Corr for roping and dogging from the mid-80's til the mid-90's, when team penning took off like wild fire around here. Team penning you need pens of 30 head each uniform in size, color etc. I found that breeding these to pb Angus bulls, gave me the uniform black, polled cattle I needed to produce team pennings. A good sized penning you'd need 4 pens of 30 head in each pen. We would put enough bulls...6 for 120 cows, to get them all calving in February. When the recession hit in 2007, followed by the depression 2009-2011, team penning nearly died out. So, we'd sell the calves at weaning at the local sale barns. About that time, we started using pb Brangus and Ultrablack bulls instead of Angus. At that age, 6 mos, they brought the same price per pound as any other black Angus or part Angus calves brought. Up until a few years ago, that might be $1.50 or less for a steer, or around $1 or a little more for the heifers. 500 lb steers brought $700-$750, 450 heifers may be as little as $450, but they came from $200-$300 cows. Now, the steers are at $2.50 lb, but the cows may be $500 and up, $700-$750 for solid black ones. But, you get a $1250 steer out of that $700 cow. AND NO INPUTS!
Rabbit and quail season opens around Nov 15th. My partner has 400 acres of row crops fenced in, and we had a 50 something acre dove field, both down the road a piece. When hunting season opened, he'd have all the beans, peanuts, corn, cotton etc harvested by then, and we'd drive the herd over there and leave them on that crop residue, and dove field, til the season ended in February., then drive them back across and up the road to the Kudzu place.
I have said on here, and have been ridiculed for it, but there is no way you can make more profit from any other kind of cattle, even raising registered breed stock. May-July of 2022, I was in the hospital a lot with some heart problems, and my partner started having small heart attacks, so I sold that Corr herd. Last winter, I started buying back, and now have 175 cows on the place. However, we are no longer going for a 30-day window. We started getting calves in January and I think they all have finished now. No need to try to get "pot loads" of calves to take to sales down here. There are no "buyers" at these sales....never even see an 18 wheeler cattle hauler down here. When I carry 40, there may be anywhere from 20-40 different people buy them. Instead of one day a year roping, tagging and banding, this year we did it at the end of January, for calves born that month, end of Feb for the Feb calves, etc. May will finish this up on our calves. July, we round up and sell the January calves, and do this every month til November for the May calves. This is a lot easier on me and my partner, at our age and our health. There is an extra benefit for me, in hauling and using the horses 10 times a year vs two times. And, the younguns we sometimes use to help us,leran more and develop their skills a lot more by doing this multiple times. a year. Also we used to run 6 bulls in with them from Easter til Memorial day. Now, just having 2 or so in there from March til July or Aug will do it.
3 things that make this so profitable are:
1) NO INPUTS. NADA. And I don't think IF we fertilized pasture, sowed bermuda, fescue, orchard grass, alfalfa etc forage, and wormed vaxxed etc, that it would make one bit of difference in the price of the calves. We will see over this coming year.
2) We use top, registered, Brangus or Ultrablack bulls. ( This year a black Simm and a Simm/Chi/ Brangus composite as well, just to see how they'd do.) We have had 5 bulls costing over $30k, in with 100 Corrs that costs $20k before. Lots of people who do this try to use commercial shoddy, sale barn "angus bulls". And using red or white or any other color bulls will cut what your calves bring severely. And these are the ones that end up with horned, scurred, spotted, etc, calves. The bulls we use , any breeder on here would salivate to have one of these as their herd bulls. And I have seen good bulls, even some that the seed stock producers have, on here that I would not put out there with these cows. It is my opinion. that in any cattle operation, the bulls are the one area that you do not scimp on. And many experienced cattle men (and ladies) on here will argue the point, saying that the cow families are the most crucial point. And I see their point as well. But, we are using what many people consider to be the worst, sorriest cows you can have.
3) The Kudzu??? That most people view as an invasive weed???? The leaves are 25-26% protein.... stems, roots etc, 16-18%.They graze it from March til November.
The key for us, is the superior bull genetics and the high quality forage.... good ole Kudzu.
Starting this year, Scott is getting out of row crop farming, and we are going to sow the former fields with bermuda, warm-season alfalfa, and bahia, as each crop gets done this year. Still won't be worming, vaccinating, feeding etc,., but these pasture will be well maintained, fertilized and limed according to UGA specs. It is going to be interesting to see if this has an impact on the weaning weights, and if it does, see if the costs will out-weigh the increased weight yields. The initial seeding and fertilizing is covered by a grant, but I think additional fertilizing and lime will be our costs. We also got a grant to cross-fence these fields, and will end up with eight 50 acre pastures rather than four 100 acre pastures. The only other expense we will have , is building pole barns in the two interior 100 acre pastures, for shade. Scott already has irrigation systems in place for his crops, and we will utilize that if and when it is needed, so there will be costs for diesel fuel to run the pumps if needed.
