Sold my Plummer cows' calves .

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Well, I reckon we bought those 80 Brahma heifers in Florida. My Fla buddy called last night and said they would take $2250 if we got all 80. I thought that sure was a coincidence that they would take the exact amount my client wanted to spend, and made me wonder if maybe I shouldnt have told him what we wanted to spend. I didnt want to call my client and tell him they were $180k, exactly the amou8nt of his bonus check. Didn't want him to think that maybe I was just trying to get all the money. So, I called him this morning, and told him those heifers for $2500 each we could get all 80 for $2250, but I was gonna tell them $2000 tops..take it or leave it. He said that he had been thinking about what I told him about the f1 Brafords they were gonna calve, and he told me to go ahead and pay the $2250! So, I called my Fla buddy and told him we'd give #2200 each, take all 4, and bring them cash. He called me back within an hour and said SOLD!!! Saved my client $4000!! These are on one of the Seminole ranches in extreme south Fla so now I got to see the most economical way to get them here. I told y'all yesterday I was going to tell my client if he bought these 80, to just pay me $20 each, $1600, instead of the $5k he wanted to pay me for building this herd. I told him what I got them for, and that I saved him $4k, and he said "you just keep that, I am sending you the $180k, and you handle it all"!!! :)

The Seminole bought a HUGE Brangus operation up here..about 12 miles from me ..a few years back. Today at lunch I saw their head wrangler, a team penning and team roping partner of mine. He said they were going to be carrying 50 Brangus cows down to one of the Fla Seminole ranches in a few weeks, and they could haul 50-60 of them back for us for the fuel bill (going and coming). GREAT! Things just don't usually work out for me like this, Murphy's Law was written with me in mind! :) Me and my client's son will take a couple trailers down when they go and haul the rest of them
 
I hear you on that one. I had to rob my retirement account to keep my duplex in Colorado afloat during the divorce. Had to giver her half of that thing when it sold, she didn't deserve it, but she still got it. Things like divorce almost make me afraid of getting married again.
The divorce isn't what cost me it was getting remarried. When that happened the first one drug me to court, trying to claim I was an unfit father. She lost two emergency hearings, the second was rather lengthy.

If I'd have lost, I would have had very minimal contact with my daughters. Cost a poor man's fortune but it was worth it. It was four years of hell though.
 
Got my check today from selling those calves Saturday. I had gotten these 4 Plummer cows in on a trade 1st of the year. They were all bred to an Ultrablack bull. They calved last of April, 1st of May. 3 steers and a heifer. All solid black and polled, looked like Brangus calves. Heifer was 504 lbs and the steers from 521 to 543. Steers brought $1.87, 1.85 and 1.83. Heifer brought $1.79. They brought a little over $3800.

I was happy with what they brought. I had gotten these cows on a horse trade. I had a pretty decent head horse on consignment. The man wanted $5k for it, which meant I would get $500 for selling it and would give him $4500 when it sold. I had priced the horse to a couple of folks at $7500, and this one boy who is a rodeo judge and a stock contractor wanted it. He had these 4 Plummer cows he wanted $800 a piece for, bred to an Ultrablack. So, I told him he could get the horse for those cows and $4000.....$7200 for the horse. I gave the money and $500 of my own to the horse consigner, and put those cows in the Kudzu pasture with the Corriente herd. We sold the Corr herd and calves 1st of April, before these Plummer cows had calves, but the buyer didn't want the Plummers anyway. We never put the black bulls in because all we hade left were 4 Corr heifers from last year, and we were gonna breed them to our Corr bull any way. We always put the black bulls in at Easter and got them out Memorial Day, to have the Corrs calving in February. Memorial Day when we got them out, we'd put in our Corr bull to catch any that might have missed getting bred by the black bulls. This is where we'd get a handful of Corr calves each year.. keeping any heifers for replacements. Those 4 were all we got in 2021, and none in the 2022 crop. We had put 6 Ultrablack bulls in the herd in 2021, and they got them all! :)

Well while I was in the hospital 1st of May, Scott put the Corr bull in the pasture. He bred my Brahma x Chianina and Brahma x Chi-Angus heifers..damn it.. and also tagged the 4 Plummers. So, I am looking at getting four 1/2 Corr 1/4 Brahma 1/4 Longhorn calves that will have horns next Feb or March. I decided to load them up and carry them to the sale too. I told Scott that if I had to leave before they sold Saturday, to stand up and tell that they were 4-5 months bred to black Corriente bull, and if any didn't bring $500, to tell them to put them in the weigh pen. They were 1500 # cows.

I had my horse on the front of my trailer, and the calves on the back. I was gonna go by Scott's house on the way home and load the Br x Chi-Angus heifer I had sold to someone up here, and drop it off on my way home. Scott had the Plummer cows on his. While I was unloading the calves, I saw someone looking in Scott's trailer and Scott pointed at me, and he came walking over to my rig. He said Scott told him what they were bred to, and when they were due. . He said he supplied bulls for high school rodeo, and wanted bulls less than 1000 lbs, so he thought these calves next year may be just what he needs. Or the bull calves would be. He asked me what I wanted, and I said $750 each..$3k. He said he could pay $600 each, $2400. I said " Make it $2500 and you have a deal". He paid me and got in the truck with Scott, who took the cows to his place for him...about 5 miles away.

So, out of my $500 investment, I ended up with $6300..not bad at all. And ZERO inputs except for 3 bands for the bull calves. All we will have on those 200+ acres will be the 4 Corr heifers and Toro, the Corr bull. We gonna move the dove field over there next year. Scott is gonna put everything across the road, including our current dove field, in row crops next year. There is about 40-50 acres fairly open where we used to have a dove field years ago. so we will plant that. And there is a club of 8 guys that want to lease it for turkey next spring. They wanted a deer lease, too, but that would interfere with quail and rabbit season.

We talked about it, and as good as that Corriente operation has been for us the last 25 years or so, we decided we were too old to try to get out and find another 100+ Corr cows to start over. We just gonna enjoy the rabbit and quail hunting, and Scott and his kids and grandkids do deer hunt it. That running all over the country last year, building that 150 Braford cow herd for my client, is the reason I ended up in the hospital. Or a big part of it. I made nearly $40k from that endeavor, and my half of the Corriente herd was over $45k, but every bit of it has got gone in hospital bills, and I still owe $9700,, which will get that $6300 I made on the Plummers and their calves. Oh well, as they say : easy come...easy go, I guess. So far, I have yet to realize what is so golden about my Golden Years! LOL
im curious to why the weights you posted for the calves are uneven numbers like 504 and 521? everything ive ever sold is in increments of 5 pounds like 420 425 etc. thats the way the scales are
 
It's on the right side of market report. In blue

Pairs up to 2100
Cows up to 1450
It's on the right side of market report. In blue

Pairs up to 2100
Cows up to 1450
Yeah, I see that now. Not bad. They actually sold better than the regular cows and pairs. Less than we gave for the Florida herd.
 
im curious to why the weights you posted for the calves are uneven numbers like 504 and 521? everything ive ever sold is in increments of 5 pounds like 420 425 etc. thats the way the scales are
Different kind of scales maybe? I think all the digital display scales I have seen lately show actual weight.
 
I am wondering what Plummer cattle are and also Ultrablack bulls. I'm in the north and never heard of them.

Congratulations on your Successful horse trade. I love trading horses, have done a lot of it, but too old now. Yours sounded more complicated than the horse trading we did but it worked for you and that's the main thing.
Typical Plummer bull. 1/2 Longhorn 1/2 Brahma
 

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You actually breed those?
I don't. People breed them for bucking bulls, either like those or crossed with with a third breed. Plummer was the name of a man that did develope bucking bulls out of that cross, but a lot of folks call all LH X Br , Plummers. I never traded in bucking bulls, but I sure do like LH x Br cows.
 
Edited to add: Br x LH cows are excellent mothers, with plenty of milk. Both breeds are insect, parasite, disease and heat resistant, as well as cold tolerant from the LH side. Before the CAB, people mostly bred Char bulls to them. These cows had no birthing problems, and this was back in the days of the pallet-headed cow-killer Chars. You could damn near sit on the porch and watch these calves grow before your eyes. Disposition could be a problem, and thus the introduction of Char blood in today's bucking stock. Char put the athleticism into the rodeo bulls. If I had some today, I would probably use Chi-Angus or Black Simm bulls on them.
 

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