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Well , nothing puts growth on calves like Charolais. I think you are thinking right.
Red Charolais
- Thread starter Warren Allison
- Start date
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clarkmorefarm
Well-known member
My heifers are 50% south poll, I'm not sure they'd be a good candidate for any Charolais breeding to start. I'm a little worried about the moderate size of them, but I think they can raise good calves. Cows are bred to South Poll bull, if I'm not happy with the claves, it would be easy enough for me to change course now.
I do like my red Angus cow, I think she would do what I want.
crossbreed
Well-known member
I went with a red gelbveih this year to put on my char and black. As good as the char grow I'd entertain red char heifers.
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J Bar Stenberg has a great red Charolais program.
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That's what my friend Clay wants to do...produce red Char replacement heifers. He has had his cows down here for 7-8 months. and he could sell 100 right now if he had them. I need to buy about $200k worth of cattle before Dec 31st, and was trying to get 400 more Black Corriente. But, the price point on them is making it too difficult to get what we need by then. I am thinking about just buying the red Char cows for Clay ( he will pay me back ,of course) with about half of that money.. I could find 40-50 of them pretty easily. It would be 18 months or more, though, before he had any replacements for sale. I talked with him about that the other day, and the trader in me came out. My thought is why buy those cows, breed them for heifer calves, and grow those heifers up to sell to those people he has that are wanting them? Just buy those cows and haul them straight to those people at a profit! So, I am going to look at it as a loan, not a business partnership, if we do it. And just bite my lip and stay out of it!
Travlr
Well-known member
Somewhere I heard you were trying to retire or buy less cattle or something along those lines. I could swear I've heard that like ten times over the last year or so.That's what my friend Clay wants to do...produce red Char replacement heifers. He has had his cows down here for 7-8 months. and he could sell 100 right now if he had them. I need to buy about $200k worth of cattle before Dec 31st, and was trying to get 400 more Black Corriente. But, the price point on them is making it too difficult to get what we need by then. I am thinking about just buying the red Char cows for Clay ( he will pay me back ,of course) with about half of that money.. I could find 40-50 of them pretty easily. It would be 18 months or more, though, before he had any replacements for sale. I talked with him about that the other day, and the trader in me came out. My thought is why buy those cows, breed them for heifer calves, and grow those heifers up to sell to those people he has that are wanting them? Just buy those cows and haul them straight to those people at a profit! So, I am going to look at it as a loan, not a business partnership, if we do it. And just bite my lip and stay out of it!
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Four times since 2022 for real! But things just keep turning up. When Scott decided to cut back on row crops, and put those 400 acres across the road from the Kudzu place in pasture, we thought about pursuing his and my dream of raising some f1 Brahma heifers. I had bought up 12 registered cows and we have five 1/2 Brahma heifers of the 5 dairy nurse cows. each year. But Mike made us this proposition to use that land to buy 400 more Corrs, and he'd buy all of those calves too. Those 17 1/2 Brahmas will just have to be enough, and I may actually sell the 12 Brahma cows, if someone wants them bad enough. Scott is cutting way back on his row-cropping, so we put his 400 acres across the road in to World Feeder/Bulldog Alfalfa. Grants bought the fertilizer, paid for the sprigging, and paid for the cross fencing, so we just about had to do it. Then when that 273 acres went up for sale beside the Kudzu Place, I'd have been a fool not to buy it. 250 acres or so of it is planted pines, past ready to harvest. That gives us 496 acres on that side of the road, and 455 acres where his row crops and our dove field were. Last week, we went and fenced in another 265 acres that was one of his peanut fields this year. It is 6 miles down the road form Scott's house, and the land belongs to his mother. It is irrigated, so water was available. It was already fenced on 3 sides...we just had to fence about 1/4 mile by the road. When he dug the peanuts in August, he sowed small grains on it for a cover crop, but he decided if I could help him fence it and put in a water line for the waterers, we'd just make it a pasture, too. He will get a grant to sprig it and cross fence it, too. I went down there last week stayed in my camper, and pulled Zeke and his buddy off the pulp wood cutting and had them fence it. They had all the poles in the first day, while I ran about 50 feet of water line from the irrigation well to where I wanted to put the waterers. Finished the 5-strand fence by lunch the next day. This gives us about 1200 acres of pasture.
I have a little over 150 of the 400 Corrs I wanted to buy, bought now. Here lately, the price point on Corrientes, especially solid colored and most especially solid blacks, has sky-rocketed to the point that I can no longer buy up the reds and the blacks, and sell the reds for enough to get the blacks for nothing or next to nothing. Found a great set of 33 solid back Corrs, 2 and 1/2 years old, any where from 8 mos bred to nursing a month old calf. These calves are *&^$#% Char calves, so I was going to pass ( $950 each if all taken), but Mike said he'd buy the calves anyhow for his butcher shop. His wife and daughter -in-law have started selling beef out of their little butcher shop there on Mike's place. They are not selling wholes or half or quarters...they just sell steaks, prime ribs, and ground beef to people, and a few local restaurants. He told me he'd give me $950 at weaning for steers or heifers either one, so I sent my grandson after them.
Once we get to the point of producing 800 calves for Mike ( I figure I want to get about 825 head of cows), then the work is done! Just round them up once a month to ear tag and band the new ones for that month, and cut out the 6 month old ones to go back home with Mike. About 65-70 a month. Mike has brought a loading ramp down, so he will use his 18 wheeler cattle trailer to haul them back with. He will send his help (Clay and Mike's son) and his truck down each month to do this. I will haul their horses and mine down with my trailer. Joe and Lisa will help rounding up and sorting, too, since Scott is about done riding that long and that hard. If all 800 were steers at the contract price with Mike, we'd get $1.12mil a year. If all 800 were heifers at the contract price, we'd get about $950k. So , I figure if the calves are half and half that's a little over a $1.02 mil gross, and about a mil net each year. 825 Corrs on 1200 acres ... won't have to buy a thing but the mineral salt. 625 of those acres we will have to fertilize and spray herbicide on, though. This year that 265 acres of Scott's mom yielded the most pound of peanuts in 10 years.. He is going to look back and see what the highest price per pound he got was, and this is what we are going to pay her rent on. I just got about 250 Corrs more to go, and I am done.
Mike had 400 Corrs of his own, that we bought, and he contracted with some producers in Alabama and Florida and I think 1 in Mississippi, to buy another 600. He provides the bull for them to use. He feeds out 900+ a year that fit his program...4 mos on his growth mix, then sends them to a lot in Oklahoma to feed corn for 4 months. But since we bought his cows, he is planting all of that pasture in corn, and is going to finish them all there. He said once we get to the 800 mark, he was going to quit fooling with the other places, except for one in Alabama that raises 160 a year, and those are the best of the bunch. Most of them are Fla Srub or Fla Cracker, and some Pineywoods cows. He said those folks were getting old (they are the same age as me, Scott and Mike
) and they are thinking about retiring. So I told him to see if we could just buy those cows. That way with 985 cows, we could just be his sole supplier, and with 1200 acres we could do that. And, we will still be able to shut them out of the Kudzu Place and the 55 acre old dove field across the road, from in Nov til the end of February for quail and rabbit season.I know all that sounds like a lot of work, but once we are done buying cows, fencing, sprigging and planting, there really is nothing left to do but ear tags and banding the bulls once a month. And on the bermuda pastures, Scot will run his Hi-Boy over them in the early spring, with liquid Calcium, liquid Nitrogen, and the 24D in it, and, I will spread granular K and P when needed.
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clarkmorefarm
Well-known member
Glad I got everyone talking about red char again 
I would be very interested in a red char bull if they start coming down to the southeast, just not sure I would start one on heifers yet.
I would be very interested in a red char bull if they start coming down to the southeast, just not sure I would start one on heifers yet.
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Sutphin sold some last Saturday at his bull sale at the Seminole Livestock Exchange in Donaldsonville, Ga. The main ranch is in Colorado, but I think they have a place in Arkansas, too . Is AI not an option for you, @clarkmorefarm ?Glad I got everyone talking about red char again
I would be very interested in a red char bull if they start coming down to the southeast, just not sure I would start one on heifers yet.
clarkmorefarm
Well-known member
It could be, I have no facilities for AI right now and I have zero knowledge on AI either. Working for my grandad we always just had a bull. In a lot of ways, it probably makes the most sense for me to go with AI since I'm a very small herd.
I'm working on finishing paddocks for rotating pasture right now, my cows and heifers are just in two of them at the moment. I don't have a corral or chute yet. That is on my short list. I've applied for funding through TN's TAEP program for some cost sharing as a beginning farmer. I should have the funding decision for it in December (basically I should get the 50% match no problem), then I'm going to work on getting that setup. When I brought my 5 head home, I just turned them loose in the pasture from the trailer.
I still would like to own a red char bull in the long term, but will need more head to support that.
PS: I can also use TAEP for genetics for the 2026 year if I apply for it, it will fund for bull or AI as well I think up to $2,000 if the bull meets the EPD requirements. I chose livestock equipment for this year because I need a corral soon.
clarkmorefarm
Well-known member
Just looked over the Sutphin sale from last week, Lot 983 Suthpins Range Fire Red 0109 Char bull would have been a good fit for what I have currently in cows. I would guess his price was fair to at $3,900 but would have to look more into that. Thanks for the info on them.
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Yeah, you'd need a chute, head gate, etc, to AI them there at your place. But you'd use it for more than that....worming, vaccs, etc. Even if you had to haul them to a vote to do the AI for you, it would still be a lot cheaper than buying and keeping a bull.
