Spring born calves will need some concentrate to keep them growing and gaining. Having enough hay is a big plus. We also have plenty of hay although some is not the best quality due to delayed making in the spring with all the cold and wet.
The best I can say is you need to decide if you have the time and facilities to keep them. Some of the feeder cattle sales offer better prices for weaned and vaccinated, bunk broke, calves. You need to get with a feeder assoc and see what they require. But these sales also cost more in commissions so sometimes it is a trade off. These sales do offer the opportunity for smaller farmers to get some of the advantages of bigger group lots that some of the buyers want.
Another consideration is do you have bills that have to be paid this fall? Sometimes holding them for a small gain might be counter productive to paying off or paying ahead on fertilizer bills for example.
The market is fairly flat. Steer calves are in the 1.35 to 1.65 range. 5-6 wts are bringing near what the smaller ones are. Heifers are in the 1.25 to 1.40 range for most all sizes up to 6 wts. Buyers I have talked to at the Staunton Market say they will remain fairly flat through the fall. With the droughts there are alot of smaller cattle going to market. That could mean that there will be a surplus on feed in the spring in the size that yours will be then and might hurt it, but that is not a given. It is a hard call.
The general talk is this will be a hard winter.... we have not had much snow in several years. It did get cold last year, and stayed cold late into the spring and was so wet, there were more cases of dead calves and some serious pnuemonia concerns with the cold and wet. We held some over til this spring and did not make any more than if we had sold them in the fall at lighter weights after we took off the cost of the feed. That's not counting our time, just actual out of pocket feed/silage/supplement costs.
I want fewer around if the winter is tough. And I don't want alot of 4wts needing alot of added grain or supplement into the winter. Just me. We are not well set up for holding over calves. Plus we calve both fall and spring and I would rather put my effort into fall born calves and their momma's than into feeders. We do keep some replacement heifers and they are enough for us to deal with the increased nutritional needs.
Hopes are that we are at the bottom of the cattle cycle and with droughts in Australia and European countries, beef may be in shorter supply in a couple of years. Even with some of the "tariff" talk, our beef is in demand, and I think we will see an uptick in feeder prices in the next 24 months. The dairy situation is bad and there will be more selling out and that will reduce the amount of dairy beef in a year or two also.
And alot of us are getting older and just getting smaller or getting out.
We are planning to sell most of our earlier spring born calves right off the cows this fall although we are going to leave some on the cows a little bit longer. We have the pasture and grass, and have sold down some on cows so have grazing available longer. The later born spring calves will probably be sold in January all according to how "pregnant" the cows are. Due to several things some places did not get bulls put in as early as we normally do, so the cows will be a little later calving next spring. The cows are all in good shape for the most part so it won't hurt them to have the calves stay on them a little longer.
