seed stock sales

[xbred]

what percentage of their calf crop do you think typical seed stock producers sell each year? I think they sell every calf they can, but seldom sell the best...I usually have about 10-20% of a calf crop that i think are worth keeping for breeding...i know i don't have the best stock by a long shot, but i can't believe that seedstock producers have 100% worth selling each year..I would sure like to know how many bull calves they cut and heifers they send to market...

 

[Aaron]

Locally, about 50% of a calf crop, on a real good year, is worth keeping for area seed stock producers. On an average year, I would say closer to 30%, and on a poor year, about 20%. Anyone who raises purebred/seedstock and keeps 100% is looking for a quick buck and not worth buying from. :cowboy:

 

[Avalon]

I think it depends on the integrity or barn blindness of the producer. None of them has a 100% herd improving calf crop every year at least when it comes to seed stock. I'm embarrased to tell you how few I regsitered this year. Some of my females did however go unregistered into commercial herds as replacements. I have one friend that tells me he hasnt had a cull in many a years. I say yeah let me roll up my pant legs and find a shovel. There are a few that are so barn blind that they really do think that just because the pedigree or ancestral epds are good that the offspring is good. I highly doubt that any of the big boys would "officially" tell us how many culls hey have on average. If I were a bettin man I would say that at least 25% do not measure up to the standards that they would have in their production sales. JMO

 

[bigbull338]

a good honest seedstock producer will only sale the very best of his bull an heifer calves private treaty.as well as selling the very best of his bulls an cows.i only keep the very best of my bulls an heifer calves.all of my cows calves an bulls are for sale if you want to pay my price.

 

[Brandonm22]

If I were a bettin man I would say that at least 25% do not measure up to the standards that they would have in their production sales. JMO

That is probably a pretty good guess. Just making guesses by the math.....In any mating, you would guess that ~25% of the time the progeny are better than the parents (ie they got the best genes from both parents), ~half the time the offspring are ~as good phenotypically as the parents(~ the average of the parents), and ~25% would be noticably not as good as the parents (they inherited the least desirable mix of genes from the parents). Of course if you are carrying a bunch of cows that phenotypically aren't good enough to be in a production sale themselves then the percentage of calves that aren't marketable increases noticably. "Theoretically" it would be difficult to go higher than 75% of a calf crop or your offering is going to be noticably less productive than the herd from which they came as more of the bottom 1/4 are marketed.

 

[EAT BEEF]

If your cattle are all about the same quality and only 25% are worth keeping,how would any of them be worth keeping.

 

[dun]

If your cattle are all about the same quality and only 25% are worth keeping,how would any of them be worth keeping.

Those 25% would be the ones that were better then both parents. One of the larger RA herds I'm familiar with only markets aboue 15-20% of his bulls as bulls, the others are cut and sold as feeders. Same deal with the heifers except they aren;t cut, but they are sold in potload lots.

 

[EAT BEEF]

Yes I get that,but how certain can you be you picked the right 25% and how certian can you be that 25% will produce the way you think they will, if you can't get 75% of them to produce the way you want to start with.

If a cow had four heifers out of the same bull and only one was imo worth keeping,what are the chances she would produce with any more regularity than her mother?

 

[RD-Sam]

Yes I get that,but how certain can you be you picked the right 25% and how certian can you be that 25% will produce the way you think they will, if you can't get 75% of them to produce the way you want to start with.

If a cow had four heifers out of the same bull and only one was imo worth keeping,what are the chances she would produce with any more regularity than her mother?

I think the word you are looking for is consistancy. :lol: You could also look at that as trying to improve the herd even if the cow is not consistant, you just keep breeding to better stock with each go round, eventually you will get to the point where they are all quality if you select the correct ones. Might take a bit longer though. :lol2:

 

[CPL]

I don't know to what extent, but I'm sure in some of the larger herds most of the matings are planned for the best outcome. Cows are AI'd and Flushed to bulls that will complement them and then pasture exposed to the ones best suited for them. In other registered herds some just take their herd bull and breed to their cows. No AI or anything. I would think there would be a BIG difference between the percentage of good calves in the first herd and the second.

a good honest seedstock producer will only sale the very best of his bull an heifer calves private treaty.

I don't really buy into that comment. There is a difference between solid, quality animals and the "very best" of the herd. Take for instance yesterday I was at a Hereford Sale where a bull sold for 55k (highest of the sale). Well, many would say he was the best one there, but that doesn't mean that the heifers from 1.5k-3k weren't an important part of the sale. Sometimes there's juniors or others just starting out that can't really spend 8200 on a heifer, but they'll spend around 2k for a solid bred cow that they can start off with.

That doesn't mean that you shouldn't cull your bad cows, but you should try to improve your cowherd with each mating and then cull that ones that hold you back.

 

[EAT BEEF]

Yes I get that,but how certain can you be you picked the right 25% and how certian can you be that 25% will produce the way you think they will, if you can't get 75% of them to produce the way you want to start with.

If a cow had four heifers out of the same bull and only one was imo worth keeping,what are the chances she would produce with any more regularity than her mother?

I think the word you are looking for is consistancy. :lol: You could also look at that as trying to improve the herd even if the cow is not consistant, you just keep breeding to better stock with each go round, eventually you will get to the point where they are all quality if you select the correct ones. Might take a bit longer though. :lol2:

Thats the word I was looking for,but I'm not smart enough to spell that.The point I was trying to make is that if you can't get your cows to reproduce with any consistancy ;-) you maybe shouldn't be selling seedstock to start with.Consistancy ;-) is easy to manage and easier to profit from.

 

[Aaron]

Well, the family I buy bulls from in Saskatchewan runs 700 cows and only sells their top 40 bulls and 30 bred heifers as 2 year olds each year. Much better than the guy who sells 100 bulls from 300 cows. I am sorry if I like to go to bull or heifer sale and know that I have a selection of the true best of their operation. In our operation, the main replacements are coming off of solid cow families and good bulls, so the guesswork is little. On 50 commercial and registered cows, 90% trace back to 6 cow families. A.I. is good in small doses, or when required. However, I think it leaves little experimentation to discovering genetics suited for your own area. I used to use A.I. heavily and very few A.I. bulls pan out in the sense of their offspring being suited for the local environment. One that did, for us, was MSU Optimum Z03....he did very well. :cowboy:

 

[xbred]

i think it would be pretty neat if a farm advertising a sale would say how they select the bulls, cows and heifers are selected for sale and how they are selected for staying in their herd, and how they are ultimately selected for sale barn or other comercial market...i'm nearly convinced they keep the best for themselves and sell the rest..maybe i need to ask the question to them myself before i buy...let the buyer beware

 

[dun]

I don't know to what extent, but I'm sure in some of the larger herds most of the matings are planned for the best outcome.

But then you get to the "what the heck happened". We've bred the same cow to the same bull for 7 years, 2 heifers 5 bulls/steers. One heifer was a dud, one steer was a sort of dud. All the others have been great. You never know which genes are going to line up. A flush is really a crap shoot. If you get 10 calves, probably only a couple of them will turn out to be worthy of breeding.

 

[CPL]

I don't know to what extent, but I'm sure in some of the larger herds most of the matings are planned for the best outcome.

But then you get to the "what the heck happened". We've bred the same cow to the same bull for 7 years, 2 heifers 5 bulls/steers. One heifer was a dud, one steer was a sort of dud. All the others have been great. You never know which genes are going to line up. A flush is really a crap shoot. If you get 10 calves, probably only a couple of them will turn out to be worthy of breeding.

I think that would always happen, but I'm thinking you'd have a greater chance of that not happening if you used a more intensive version of selective breeding.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is don't decided wether to buy from a sale based on the percentage of the seller's calf crop in the sale. I provided an example of why some herds may have a higher % of worthy calves than another. Focus on the physical and genetic quality of the calf, not wether you statistically believe it's superior than others.

 

[angus9259]

I think they do sell their best. They have to.

Producer 1 has to sell his top heifer in order to get $20,000 from producer 2 for it. Then with the $20k producer 1 got from producer 2, he goes to producer 3 and spends 20k on their top animal and so on. Many of times the animal only sells 1/2 interest so it never actually leaves the farm anyway!! That way no one is ever OUT a top animal and the producers keep their sales numbers looking high.

What I question is the REAL difference between a 20k animal and a 2k animal because unless you're in the circle of love, you'll never make that money back.

 

[dun]

don't decided wether to buy from a sale based on the percentage of the seller's calf crop in the sale. Focus on the physical and genetic quality of the calf, not wether you statistically believe it's superior than others.

BINGO, we have a winner!

 

[greenwillowhereford II]

I believe the successful line breeders after enough years have more consistently quality animals to offer than those who have chased every bull of the year for a decade. If I remember correctly, the best breeder I know sells his bottom half of bulls as feeders, and sells the bottom half of heifers as commercial females. They are linebred. The bottom half is not necessarily the lightest half, although that is taken into consideration, but the heaviest calf may be culled if he doesn't meet the phenotype; for instance he may have no thickness and be culled. Some fine heifers go commercial just for having a white spot the size of a quarter in the wrong place, ie too far back on their back. Such a heifer would typically have a lot of white elsewhere as well.

 

[JHH]

Some fine heifers go commercial just for having a white spot the size of a quarter in the wrong place, ie too far back on their back. Such a heifer would typically have a lot of white elsewhere as well.

I have three this year that have that problem and I am getting rid of them. One is a really nice one.

 

[Herefords.US]

How do you measure/judge which heifers to keep or sell as replacements and which ones to cull?

Phenotype? Weaning Weight? Parents? Combination?

George