Sale barn chances

[Jrebyank]

Raised with cattle but a few years back I got back into the business and bout 10 open heifers. At least half of these heifers are late calving (15-17 month turn around)and when they do they don't hold up well to weaning age of calves plus they wean at several lbs lighter than the others. My question is is this about the normal success rate for heifers making good Moma's. This is new to me being that we had the same string of cows for 50 years ( closed heard ). This sucks!

 

[Buck Randall]

They should be doing better than that, but sale barn cattle are always a gamble. Have a veterinarian and nutritionist look at your program to make sure it isn't something you're doing, but odds are that you just bought some duds.

 

[Son of Butch]

Random chance says 1/2 will be average to below and 1/2 average to above.
But sale barn heifers aren't random... the best heifers most often stay home.
I'd estimate 1/3 'success rate' from random young heifers from a sale barn.

3 of 9 good... 3 barely acceptable and 3 flat out duds.

 

[Jrebyank]

That sounds about par for what I gotten so far. I'm trying to build up to about 40 head of momas. I've been in four years now and I'm up to 12 so by the time I'm 80 I should be set! Haha

 

[Texas Gal]

If you're serious about increasing your herd with some good doing females, you might try buying some heifers from a neighbor or friend. That way you at least know a bit about the herd they come from, conditions where they were raised, etc. I rarely sell heifers at the sale barn unless it's a special replacement sale. We keep 'em ourselves or sell them straight off the farm to neighbors or friends.

 

[Stocker Steve]

Random chance says 1/2 will be average to below and 1/2 average to above.
But sale barn heifers aren't random... the best heifers most often stay home.

There are reputation heifers at a sales barn, but most are a crap shoot.
Some folks like to buy the biggest fattest blackest ones. Not my thing.
Going RA, or better yet wf, will improve your odds of a good Momma.

Buying cows out of dispersals is the lowest risk approach. Just say no to heifers. :cowboy:

 

[Bcompton53]

We rebuilt a herd from the sale barn a few years back. Bought 16 head I think. We had very poor success with red and white heifers. They were either stupid...I mean STUPID. Like one would run you over, one would kick, and one would run straight into a fence for no reason at all. And these came from a couple different farms. We of course had a couple angus cross heifers that ended up being wild. I don't tolerate wild at all. Our best heifers were black white face. This was the mix
3 Shorthorn X
3 BWF
6 angus X
2 Hereford X
1 UNK black and white heifer
1 RWF

Of those we culled/or....died
2 Shorthorn X (one wouldn't breed, one died of unknown causes after having a dink calf, and would have been culled)
1 bwf came up open
1 angus X didn't breed, and was NUTS
2 Hereford X One was just stupid, and one didn't breed back (and kicked.....badly)
1 unk black and white heifer, she jumped fences, and came up open

So we kept the rest, that's a 44% cull rate. However, now we have a pretty good set of cows. We did get 3 calves from the culled cows

As you can see, the angus did the best, but this is a pretty small sample size.
I've always heard to buy in groups. Most of the angus were from 1 bunch for what it's worth. Personally I would try to time the heifer purchase so you can breed and preg check before putting tons of winter feed into the ones you end up culling.

 

[Ky hills]

To me buying cows or heifers either one at a regular sale is a roll of the dice, but I'm am doing it currently as well. I'm also not convinced that buying off a farm is always problem free either. I will say that in my opinion heifers stand a better chance of turning out well over a cow. The cows are usually there for a reason. It's true, a lot of folks keep their best heifers, but still can get some pretty good ones, if careful. I have bought several cows and heifers through the ring this year, 2 with calves and the others bred. One I should have not bought, I resold, the others that have had calves are doing well.
We have gone a different route than most, in that we prefer Hereford, and I have a hard time letting a well behaved cow or heifer with some "ear" get by, so we have a few of them. Have had far less disposition issues with the Herefords and even the ear crosses than anything else, I try to watch very carefully while they are coming in as well as how they act in the ring.
It just depends on what happens to be at the sale on a given day, we got a hold of several nice Angus type heifers in 500 weight groups last fall, they are now bred, 2 were bred young before we bought them, and have calved and are doing fine with their calves.

 

[Lucky_P]

Never bought a cow at the salebarn, but I've sold almost everything at one over the last 35 years. Occasionally, there was a 'gem' that I sent to town, but most of the time, if it was a heifer, she'd performed in the bottom 50% at weaning, we didn't like her dam or family line, or there was some other reason that she wasn't regarded as replacement worth keeping here.
Generally, if it's my cow at the salebarn, there's a reason she's there - and it's usually 'cause she's open. Haven't sent one for disposition in years.

 

[Bigfoot]

An equally good question is how many heifers are still around to have say their 5th calf? If most producers are like me, the best won't be leaving here. The best also don't always workout over the long haul.

 

[backhoeboogie]

But then some gramps kicks the bucket and his whole lifetime work is dispersed at the sale barn. If you happen to be there, you cash in on it.

 

[Lucky_P]

Good point, BF.
20 of my 50 are in that 5th calf+ group... and you can count on those ol' gals to do it pretty much without any drama, and do it well. 7 or so of them are over 10 yrs. They've had quite a few contemporaries who washed out along the way. Bet if I sent 'em to the salebarn today, they'd stick 'em in the kill pen and somebody would miss out on a capital opportunity, 'cause they get the job DONE. Lots of good younger cows, but these old girls have a special place...

bhb - I haven't kicked the bucket yet, but I'm fixin' to disperse everything I've got, before T'giving... hopefully not just running 'em through the salebarn. Over 30 years of breeding this group, but it's time for 'em to go. If they went through the barns here... no one would know or have a care what they were or where they came from.

 

[CG1]

I once built a herd from auction cattle, didn't end well. I had 10 total, 5 got pregnant, 3 calves died, 2 born healthy. One of my heifers even had an issue where she had no holes in her teats. I ended up having to raise that calf on a bottle. A few more experiments later I decided to buy 10 dairy mix heifer calves from the local dairies. They are all Angus X Holstein, paid $80 each for them. I picked 6 of them after wean and raised them up and bred them just last year. They all calved exactly 9-10 months after they were in with the bull. I still have 1 of the cows that I bought from the sale barn in my herd and she gives me a calf every 11 months, exactly to the day this year.

We don't send our cows to auction anymore but when we did I only sold the ones there that I couldn't sell privately. So for that reason I no longer go to buy from the auction. I would though buy an orphan heifer calf from the sale barn and raise it for breeding.

 

[bird dog]

Its a risk reward thing. Example is my pre-conditioned heifers will weigh about 750 and bring $1.25 at one of the big sales in OKC. An average heifer coming through the sale barn weighing 800 and 3 to 6 months bred will sale for $800.

If you can get a live calf from the heifer, you have a good chance of having a decent cow that will have 7 or 8 more calves in her life with no trouble and you will have very little money in the cow after the calf sells. If she doesn't, she will sale back and get you most of your money back. Of course you have the risk that you will have calving problems and she can/might die.

The trick is to buy the ones that are the type of animal you might want and to stay away from the small frame ones under 800 lbs. I like the short bred ones so I have some time to add some size.

 

[gcreekrch]

Have bought hundreds through sale barns, raised just as many. The ones that wean two calves and breed back for a third usually stay until we cull for age at 9 or 10. Every new animal gets vaccinated on arrival with our full protocol. You can't expect the neighbors bugs to match your own.......

My motto for buying cows is they had better be young and undervalued. Ownership has a lot to do with quality.

 

[Jrebyank]

Thanks for all the replies! I really appreciate it! I believe I'm going to go with some know stock from now on till I get my type heard back.

 

[Katpau]

I have been seeing plenty of dispersals lately and there are some really good cows in some of them. These prices are causing a lot of good producers to retire and are simply breaking others. It reminds me of back in the mid 90's. 5 weight calves were bringing about 50 cents a pound and I bought young pairs with big calves for $300 a pair. I expect you could find some good cattle from reputation herds at great prices if you shop around. I would not mess around with the throw away cattle that are the majority of sale barn cows.

I have a herd of registered Angus cows that I run as a commercial herd. I personally bring only the problems to the sale barn. Opens, lame, poor producers, poor udders, bad attitudes, carriers of genetic defects and really old cows for example. Some of those problems might be obvious but others you may not see until you get them home. If I need to cut back on numbers, I sell the good cows private treaty and you won't pay much more than you would for that unknown pedigree cow you gamble on at the sale barn. I save commissions and transport costs, so I don't ask much more. I only keep about 1/4 of my heifers, so there are some really good heifers that get sold by the pound as calves too. That could be another way to go, but you will have more risk and time and money in them before you can sell a calf off them.

I am hoping this lawsuit R-calf and others have against the Packers for collusion might force them to share some of the wealth. If that happens, it could really turn this cattle market around. I want to believe that profitable prices for cattle are just around the corner, but nobody can say for sure. It could be a great time to buy cows, or maybe not.

 

[Stocker Steve]

Some implicit packer agreement that results in illegal "collusion" is a common theory on the web, but I am not sure they have any reason to. When there is only a couple buyers or sellers - - they can easily coordinate by just watching the market pricing of a leader and then refusing bid above that. :shock:

Kind of like when buddies sit together at the sales barn, and take turns bidding...