@simme @Ebenezer yall both bring up some good points.
I've often questioned a lot of things that get told about why the regional price difference and have heard every example y'all gave as reasons.
I've seen a lot of changes over the years since I was young, in the cattle around here in KY.
It used to be most all calves were not weaned until they left on the truck to go to the stockyards, and no vaccinations. Back then 70's and 80's weaning weights were around 400 lbs. As much as I hate to say it because I love KY and the southeast states, but there was more so then than now a tendency to be a little behind the times at least in KY. Even into the early 90's you'd still see some herds of 900 or so pound Angus and Hereford cows and bulls maybe 1200 or around 1500 at the most for mature bulls.
But the continental influence was changing that at that time.
Another thing is few people back then had good working facilities.
The tobacco settlement money cost share programs did a lot to improve genetics and infrastructure. Of course some were doing it in their own too.
The extension and cattlemens meetings were recommending herd health vaccination programs and promoting weaning and backgrounding to f calves before marketing.
By now there are quite a few farmers that are meticulously following BQA guidelines and vaccination protocols. Genetics have also gotten more mainstream too. I'd venture to say average weaning weights are around 550 now.
Even though a majority are doing the value added stuff there's still some that don't and still a few that probably say they do but don't.
We've bought calves that were supposed to have been weaned and vaccinated per a certain type of sale and some were not.
I believe for the most part it's a regional stereotype that still persists.
I think if more people retained ownership through feeding out we might learn a few more details to get to the bottom of what's really at play.
Right now as cow calf producers we just market our calves and the knowledge ends there. Anything else that's told of beyond our farms we don't know for sure, all we have to go on is what little broad term talk that goes around.
All of my life, going to the local cattle sales, what you said was true, and still is,, about people trailer weaning 400 lb calves ( these days more like 500 lbs), and carrying them 1 - 10 at a time...whatever the pickup truck with cattle racks, or a 16' stock trailer would hold. I guess one
could have done the weaning and conditioning and vaccinating, etc, but there
was never, and
is still never, any "buyers" rolling up in 18 wheelers to buy "pot loads" of calves to carry to the mid-west feed lots. But, the biggest sale every week in north Ga
was (it is closed now) the one in Bartow County on Saturday. It had 4 owners..one was the high school ag teacher, I forgot what the 2nd partner did, and the other two owners had the big cattle trucks...like F750 size, and
they would buy the bulk of these calves. They'd have the vet that had to be at each sale back then, to do Bangs tests...to "work" these calves. that night or Sunday morning. Castrating, de-horning, worming vaccination etc. They'd then carry them back to their farms, and there they would condition them, and grow them to the optimum size for the feed lot markets at that time. When they had a "potload" ready to go, the buyers with the 18 wheelers came to their place to buy them. Or some people sent them to the western feed lots themselves, and fed them out, then sold them. The owner of the Wednesday sale in Rome, and the Monday sale in Carrollton, did the same thing. And they went to each other's sales as well. Of course they all wanted the best calves for their operation, and bid pretty heavily against each other til they had their truck loads bought.
If a farmer brought in a steer, that had been 90 days weaned, conditioned, vaccinated etc, they wouldn't bring much more than the trailer weaned, un-vaccinated bull calves. There was nothing left to do to them to make money on.
Now, when those people like the sale barn owners sent these conditioned calves west, they were every bit as good, most better, and brought as much or more, than any from other areas where the producers did all of this themselves. Every tract of open land back then, that wasn't a dairy ( 1990 we still had 39 dairies in the county, and 2001 the last one shut down.) was in cotton til the early 70's when beans took over. In the last 10-15 years, cotton started showing up again, and about the same amount of both are raised now. 90% of that land today in counties along the I-75 now, are sub-divisions, malls, or manufacturing plants. Most of the larger cattle producers were and are, retired cotton and bean farmers. (A few are business owners or doctors, lawyers etc,) When they got ready to quit farming, they'd fence in their land, sow grass, sell all of their equipment except 1 or 2 of their smaller 100 horse or so tractors, and bought round balers, conditioners, rakes. etc. Gold Kist Co-Ops would come and fertilize their pastures and hayfields. Raising calves til weaning, ,and taking them to the sale, was a lot less work than raising beans, and especially cotton. Fertilizer and lime, baling twine and fuel, was about all the expense there was/is. No way in hell you could have convinced them to put some of that land
back into corn, and feed out calves to get a few cents more a lb, after the work and expense of feeding them for 3 months. It just wouldn't pencil out. Still won't. The space for a conditioning lot or growing replacement heifers, is better utilized by buying more cows to wean and sell calves off of in 6 months.
I remember when I was a boy, asking my grandpa why we didn't keep a calf or two, and raise our own beef. He said "
Hell naw, I'd rather take them to the sell and stop by Wynn Dixie, take part of that sale barn check and just buy me some T-bones." He was the same way about raising replacement heifers. He would sell them at weaning, and when we needed another cow,, we'd buy one the day we hauled the calves.
Anytime we bought cows, or pairs, we'd pay for them, take the receipt over to the vet, and he'd get them out of the pens, and work them. Giving them the vaccinations, worming them, and we'd always get him to give them a preventative pennicillin shot, in case they had picked up something at the sale barn. And the same if we had bought pairs, including steering the calves. That is the one thing we did do with the bull claves we raised...we'd steer them before they went to the sale. Most everyone else did too, so every cow that left that sale had the exact same thing as any other cow you bought off any "full service producer" in other parts of the country.
The vet's station was right by the pen where they unloaded your sales cattle and tagged them. That pen opened into the vet pen. If you had cows you were selling by the head, you'd stop and tell him to sleeve the cows that were about to come through for the Bangs test, and he'd mark the months bred on them, if they were bred.
I spend a lot of time each week, watching online auctions form al over the country., From the east, the west, and all points in between. I watch a couple from KY, one from Tenn, 1 from Ga, 1 from VA, 1 from SC, 1 from NC, and one from Ala. Moving over a little, 2 from Arkansas and 3 from Missouri. . From there, midwestern sales in Oklahoma, Nebraska, S Dakota, N Dakota, and Minn. Further west, some in Texas, one in Arizona, 1 in New Mexico, and a southern Cali and a northern Cali sale. I watch mostly the head cattle, cows and bred heifers sell, because that is what I will be looking for, for some of my clients. I know about what time of day those type start selling ay each one, but sometimes I watch weigh calves sell, too, while I am waiting. The weigh cattle, steers and heifers that I see in the south eastern sales, are every bit as good quality if not better, than any I see anywhere else in the country. Yes, they bring less per pound than other areas, for the reasons you and I have stated, but it dang sure ain't from the lack of quality animals. Highest prices across the spectrum.... be they cows., bulls, steers, or heifers, are at the MO sales, with the Arkansas close behind. This is the part of the country to SELL at. I see some quality cows in both of these auctions, and if I wanted to get some out side of our part of the country, I'd buy there. Price is why I usually don't. They do sell more "cull" cows than at the SE sales, and the further west you go the higher percentage of the cows sold are NOT what I would buy. So, quality is definitely
not an issue in SE cattle, to include Arkansas and MO.
. I love RWF mommas. They are pretty. And they can have black calves.
