Ran across an interesting concept this weekend. What is your opnions?

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and all this is assuming you get a live calf at the end.
time and work is worth more than what you and friends would be getting out of it. the dairy is basically getting rid of the headaches, worry, and labor in exchange for you & friends getting a few calves of questionable/unknown value..
 
Valued quite generously, a weaned Holstein is worth less than $300. The Jerseys and Guernseys might be worth $100. Beef cross calves bring a premium of 50-100. You'd be looking at raising a heifer for 20-24 months to get $700 worth of calves at best. I'd be insulted that the dairy would even propose that deal.

Edit: I noticed they don't even have Holsteins. It's not worth considering for a second.

Lord no, they wouldn't want a Holstein anywhere near that place! ( They told my buddies they did have one red Holstein cow, but they breed it to a Guernsey, and this is its last year. Her daughters they kept they just say they are Guernsey) Nothing to even remotely appear as a commercial dairy. If they did, they couldn't sell you these shares in the cows, and charge $3.50 a quart, $6 a half gallon, and $10 a gallon to milk your cows, and bottle your milk! Same as the free-range, organic eggs...no Leghorns or any other breed that lays white eggs. The free -range turkeys they sell are bronze..no white ones.

<My friends will do a little better than that on those dairy steer calves. The people have been keeping them a little longer, about 5 months or so, and getting them on grass when they had pasture. At the sweet spot, 400 lbs or so, they had a man that would come get them for $300 each. They told my buddies they would put them in contact with him. On their own half breed calves, if they use a Brangus bull, their calves will bring whatever any other black calves will sell for at 400-500lbs. If they use a Brahma, the steers won't bring as much, but if they keep those heifers til they are open, long yearlings, they will get $1200 or more for them. But that is about 30 months from the time they get their mommas to raise up and breed to get them.
 
and all this is assuming you get a live calf at the end.
time and work is worth more than what you and friends would be getting out of it. the dairy is basically getting rid of the headaches, worry, and labor in exchange for you & friends getting a few calves of questionable/unknown value..
Oh, I have no part in this at all, other than selling them some hay and finding them a bull. But yeah, you are right about the possible loss of their calves, especially if they breed to a Brahma. I asked them what happens if the dairy's heifers die on their place, or if their calf dies at the dairy before they get it. or if the heifer dies trying to birth a Brahma calf. They told me the dairy folks told them they were not responsible for the dairy heifer getting sick, injured or dying on their place or in giving birth, but they didn't say what would happen if their calf died or had problems those 2 months before they get it.

There won't be a lot of work handling them as, these calves will get there after being hand-raised for 2-3 months, both the full bloods and their half bloods. And they wont be dealing with calving these heifers, either. They will have to spend some money on fertilizer and herbicide on their 15 acre pasture. Right now they don't, with just 4 geldings on it With horses you don t want lush knee deep green pastures, Horses developed to continuously graze on marginal. low quality forage. With their 4 horses, they let a man that sells to hydro-seeders bale it. But if they do this, they will be buying hay to feed year round. And yes, it will be time consuming, There will be full dairy heifers from 2 months old to 24 months old there at any given time, plus their dairy bull calves for ever how long they keep them, plus their half-blood heifers and steers from 2 months to ever how long they keep them, all eating different kinds and amounts of feed. They need to tell those folks with the dairy, that they need to provide the hay and grain ( this dairy has a place, about 300 acres, where they raise corn, wheat, oats, rye and barley, and has a 40 acre bermuda hay filed on it) or either charge them so much per head per month.
 
Lord no, they wouldn't want a Holstein anywhere near that place! ( They told my buddies they did have one red Holstein cow, but they breed it to a Guernsey, and this is its last year. Her daughters they kept they just say they are Guernsey) Nothing to even remotely appear as a commercial dairy. If they did, they couldn't sell you these shares in the cows, and charge $3.50 a quart, $6 a half gallon, and $10 a gallon to milk your cows, and bottle your milk! Same as the free-range, organic eggs...no Leghorns or any other breed that lays white eggs. The free -range turkeys they sell are bronze..no white ones.

<My friends will do a little better than that on those dairy steer calves. The people have been keeping them a little longer, about 5 months or so, and getting them on grass when they had pasture. At the sweet spot, 400 lbs or so, they had a man that would come get them for $300 each. They told my buddies they would put them in contact with him. On their own half breed calves, if they use a Brangus bull, their calves will bring whatever any other black calves will sell for at 400-500lbs. If they use a Brahma, the steers won't bring as much, but if they keep those heifers til they are open, long yearlings, they will get $1200 or more for them. But that is about 30 months from the time they get their mommas to raise up and breed to get them.
It's comical, what the public perception is about commercial breeds vs heritage breeds. They don't realize Jerseys have been bred over the years to maximize milk production the same way Holsteins have, though there is still a breed difference in quantity and butterfat content.
We got into that egg color thing selling at the farmers market, we started out with Leghorns and white eggs, the next year got heritage breed brown egg layers.
This year, I threw some caveats in, black Minorcas that lay white eggs, and Amber Stars ( white or predominantly white commercial strain of layer chickens) that lay brown eggs, and a couple other heritage breeds for egg variety.
 
Yesterday this couple came to get some square bales for their horses, and told me about this "deal" they ran across. They have some friends...or aquaintances ,,, that have one of those boutiqe dairy farms that are getting popular around the Atlanta suburbs. Last 3 generations it was a dairy, now the great-grandsons have turned it into one of those places where you can buy free-range chickens and turkeys, grass-fed beef and mutton, ( but gonna stop the beef, which is how this situation developed) yard-eggs, and raw milk.,.kinda-sorta. In Ga you can't sell raw milk, but you can drink it yourself...give it to friends, etc. So some of these places have come up with a deal to sell you a cow, or shares in a cow, and they board it for you and milk it for you, for a fee.

So they tell me this place has stared doing a pumpkin patch, corn maze, sunflower field for sunflower festivals, and have planted vines to start a winery, taking up pastures they used to run grass fed beef on. They told me this place has about 20 cows they milk..Jeresy, Brown Swiss, Guernsey, a couple of milking shorthorns and something by friends called "Shires) . Shire is a draft horse, so I am guessing these are Ayrshire. Basically, any milk breed tother than Holstein. Now that so much pasture is gone for the tourist things, , they will AI these cows to a sire of the same breed to freshen them. They used to breed the heifers to an Angus back when they sold grass-fed beef. Now, they don't have the room to raise their heifers or raise steers to slaughter. They usually wean the calves at 2 months or so,, I guess when they get them eating calf feed good.

So here is what they want to offer my friends: When the calves get weaned, 2 or 3 mos old, they want to take them to my friends' place. Gonna give them the all-dairy bull calves, and they want my buddies to raise the heifers to breeding age then my friends can breed them to a beef bull, keep them to right before they calve, then give them back to the dairy folks. They will birth out my friends' calves and give them back to them at 2 months or so at weaning. The dairy owners will send them a months supply of the calf feed they have weaned them to. My buddies can buy more from them, or use that month's supply to mix with whatever feed they wanna use. They remembered back in the 2010's I was getting in these 4 x4 x8 Alfalfa bales and wanted to see if I could still get them, to feed these calves with. And they said they wanted to breed them with a Brahma bull, or maybe Brangus, and wanted to know if Iwould I find them one when the time came.

I dunno..what do y'all think? Get these 2-3 month old heifers, feed them for a year til it is time to breed them, then feed them 9 more months before they calve That is 2 years before you get a calf off of them, that you gonna have to feed for 4-5 months til you sell it or it gets old enough to live off hay and pasture?!! If they decide to keep the crossbred heifers, then it is another 2 years before they get a calf off of it to sell. The dairy is going to take care of all vet costs like vaccinations, etc, and will have banded these full dairy bull calves they gonna give you. First thing that I thought of, was the dairy can screw them by using sexed semen, too.

Dunno what those dairy steers will sell for at about 500 lbs..I am sure well less than beef steer would. Right now, 1/2 Brahma and 1/2 Jeresy or Brown Swiss heifers will bring $1200-$1500. Dunno about the 1/2 Guernsey, Shorthorn or Aryshires will bring. If he uses Brangus bulls, his steers would bring what black steers do now..more than 1/2 Brahma steers would, but the 1/2 Brangus heifers would probably bring less than 1/2 Brahmas. This dairy calves year round, so he won't have 20 of their purebred calves, or the 20 1/2 breds they will get back, at the same age at the same time.

Sounds like a better deal for that dairy than for my buddies. What do y'all think?
Would make a counter offer if I was interested, making sure I was paid the minimum it was worth for the use of my labor and land, then the possibility of a greater profit if it worked out for the longer term.

New business models fail at over a 90% rate. What is their liability if they fail? With they have to make your friend's side whole? Been involved in a few small ventures like this. Didn't turn out great, and learned to always have something to bring to the table where I could deal from a position of strength.
 
Seems like any "deal" this hard to explain just has to many weak points to be worth even a moderate risk. As mentioned, it's hard enough to make a more traditional beef operation work without trying to mix in some multi faceted conglomeration of breeds and swap options for it to benefit you friends or even to try to find a break even point.
 
Seems like any "deal" this hard to explain just has to many weak points to be worth even a moderate risk. As mentioned, it's hard enough to make a more traditional beef operation work without trying to mix in some multi faceted conglomeration of breeds and swap options for it to benefit you friends or even to try to find a break even point.
Pretty simple. A dairy gives you their 2-3 month old calves, that are weaned from milk and eating calf food. You do whatever you want with the bull calves. The heifer calves, you keep for 22 months and give them back, bred to whatever kind of bull you want, right before they calve. In 2-3 months, they give you back that calf.
 
It's comical, what the public perception is about commercial breeds vs heritage breeds. They don't realize Jerseys have been bred over the years to maximize milk production the same way Holsteins have, though there is still a breed difference in quantity and butterfat content.
We got into that egg color thing selling at the farmers market, we started out with Leghorns and white eggs, the next year got heritage breed brown egg layers.
This year, I threw some caveats in, black Minorcas that lay white eggs, and Amber Stars ( white or predominantly white commercial strain of layer chickens) that lay brown eggs, and a couple other heritage breeds for egg variety.
They advertise that their chickens and turkeys are fed the non-GMO grain they raise themselves, and the cows are fed the same plus their own hay they grow. Back when they kept thier own 1/2 Angus calves they were marketed as grass-fed, etc. All the animals are "hormone free". All of these are supposed to be on organic, herbicide and pesticide free pastures, etc. Everything that makes these Atlanta suburbanite, transplanted Yankees and Californians pay all of that extra money at the "health food" supermarkets. But on their place where they grow these grains and hay, they buy fertilizer by the train loads! LOL. Not a weed or insect anywhere in the fields. Two Hi-Boys for spraying the herbicides and pesticides!

There is another place I know of that does this with the ,milk cows, and they sell goat milk as well. They also sell grass fed beef and "mutton". There are a few sheep on the place, but you know what the leg of lamb. lamb chops and ground lamb they sell are? Carne de cabra!!! LOL
 
They advertise that their chickens and turkeys are fed the non-GMO grain they raise themselves, and the cows are fed the same plus their own hay they grow. Back when they kept thier own 1/2 Angus calves they were marketed as grass-fed, etc. All the animals are "hormone free". All of these are supposed to be on organic, herbicide and pesticide free pastures, etc. Everything that makes these Atlanta suburbanite, transplanted Yankees and Californians pay all of that extra money at the "health food" supermarkets. But on their place where they grow these grains and hay, they buy fertilizer by the train loads! LOL. Not a weed or insect anywhere in the fields. Two Hi-Boys for spraying the herbicides and pesticides!

There is another place I know of that does this with the ,milk cows, and they sell goat milk as well. They also sell grass fed beef and "mutton". There are a few sheep on the place, but you know what the leg of lamb. lamb chops and ground lamb they sell are? Carne de cabra!!! LOL
A lot of those city folks don't know the difference, only the buzzwords and catchphrases.
I'm not sure they would be supposed to feed that hay if they are advertising as organic. Doesn't make a difference to me and I don't know for sure, but may be some legal technicalities at play there if anybody ever pressed the issue.
Technically, the phrase no hormones is incorrect it is to be listed as no added hormones.
I'd actually just as soon have goat meat as sheep.
 
A lot of those city folks don't know the difference, only the buzzwords and catchphrases.
I'm not sure they would be supposed to feed that hay if they are advertising as organic. Doesn't make a difference to me and I don't know for sure, but may be some legal technicalities at play there if anybody ever pressed the issue.
Technically, the phrase no hormones is incorrect it is to be listed as no added hormones.
I'd actually just as soon have goat meat as sheep.
I am sure you are right about the hay. Same thing with the corn, oats, wheat, etc. as well. I got a friend that raises Boer goats and a meat sheep that sells to the public. I myself can; taste the difference in the goat and sheep myself. He feeds out the slaughter lambs and the kids on the same feed. The goat meat is cheaper, though. There was a guy at our dove shoot in south ga this time, that was talking about how he only feeds his family venison and wild hog meat from his n hunts. Don't want no store-bought meat raised with all the chemical and additives etc that beef and pork contain, he says. Hell, down there, deer's diets are 90% soybeans from the fields, and the wild hogs eat peanuts! Our half Corr calves from our Kudzu place is probably more "natural" than the deer and wild hogs. There hasn't been a spec of fertilizer or herbicide on it many years!
 
Around here, Some of the dairys have some of the Amish raise calves from day olds, until 500 pounds and if I'm remembering right the dairy provide the milk replacer, grain, meds and pay a $1.25 a day per calf.
That's in line with some I know. Providing all of the feed, meds, etc., prevents the raiser from trying to cut costs in a way that hurts your final product.
 
@Warren Allison Old boy, I've read enough of your posts to know that you're A. Too damn sharp an operator to not see the gap in this one
And
B. Too kind to let a friend get into this mess, even if there were some money on the bull side.

I've read a lot of your stories, you'll climb a tree to get a man to avoid a dumb move and only the dumb persist. I add one and only one caveat to the whole tale, and it's the only one that would even make me fool with it if I were your friends. There are folks that feed out them dairy steers and make enough of a goose off'n it to stash a little coffee can money away to take some off the top and have money to do it again. I'd either get to know somebody like that or see if they could, and if the answer was "no" then I'd do it like a dog on a privet tree.
 
That's in line with some I know. Providing all of the feed, meds, etc., prevents the raiser from trying to cut costs in a way that hurts your final product.
Around here, Some of the dairys have some of the Amish raise calves from day olds, until 500 pounds and if I'm remembering right the dairy provide the milk replacer, grain, meds and pay a $1.25 a day per calf.
@Warren Allison Old boy, I've read enough of your posts to know that you're A. Too damn sharp an operator to not see the gap in this one
And
B. Too kind to let a friend get into this mess, even if there were some money on the bull side.

I've read a lot of your stories, you'll climb a tree to get a man to avoid a dumb move and only the dumb persist. I add one and only one caveat to the whole tale, and it's the only one that would even make me fool with it if I were your friends. There are folks that feed out them dairy steers and make enough of a goose off'n it to stash a little coffee can money away to take some off the top and have money to do it again. I'd either get to know somebody like that or see if they could, and if the answer was "no" then I'd do it like a dog on a privet tree.
I agree with all of you on these points. I had decided if they asked me again about the deal, I was going to tell them the only way I could see it work was if the dairy bought all the feed. So tonight they called to invite me to a CMS match this weekend. ( And I am going to take the colt with me, too. Be good for him to be around the racket). The subject came up, and I told them only way I would do it was if the dairy bought the feed. He said " They are. That's why I asked you about getting the 4 x 4 x 8 alfalfa bales you used to get in". They are going to buy the alfalfa hay, and also send him their bermuda hay. So, that swings the pendulum the other way a little. So @kenny thomas I will get them in contact with you if they go through with it. And, I told them to re-think the Brahma bull thing. I said if these were going to be 20 Jersey, or 20 Brown Swiss, or whatever...all the same kind....and if they were all born in a close calving window, then yeah, I see those 1/2 Brahma heifers in bunches of 10 or 20 sell for $1500 all the time. But the way these are going to come 1, sometimes 2 a month, sometimes skip a month, etc, and being 5 different breed of dairy cow, I'd go Brangus. A more marketable heifer as a single, plus their steers would be worth more being black and polled. So, @bmm45bm , I might be getting them in touch with you, if you will have a yearling bull for sale next summer
 

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