The Best Way?

[novatech]

I'm not going to comment about the gerts as far as weather you should by them or not. The King Ranch developed them for this climate. Like the breed I raise the Gert. people are doing a lot toward improvement of the breed. I beleive you have already chosen them and it sounds like nobody is going to talk you out of it.
Since your goal is to make money on these. This is not a hobby but a business. As with any other other business you should do a market study.(where are you gona sell em, how you gonna sell em, what is the demand, etc. ). If you still decide to go forward develope a bisiness plan. These two elements are crutial to any prospective business.
Personally I,ve always liked them, And the only thing I know about them is the first one was named Monkey.
Good luck

 

[dun]

You have to believe in something. I believe "Barnum was right"

dun

 

[KenB]

;-) Why not raise Emu's I heard there is alot of money to be made with them. (Oh I guess that was a few years ago.) It may be better to go with Llamas they are the hot item now.

 

[mwj]

;-) Why not raise Emu's I heard there is alot of money to be made with them. (Oh I guess that was a few years ago.) It may be better to go with Llamas they are the hot item now.

Do not be giving out bad info :x I have heard from breeders in many states and on national tv that ALPACAS are the wave of the future 8) Low inputs high return and they hum to you when they are contented :cboy:

 

[novatech]

Drive around and check out how many gert cows and bulls you see. This ought to tell you a lot about what the market is.
What I have found is that most of the big money is being spent by breeders buying from each other and thats with any reg. breed. With most regesterd cattle the females are pretty easy to get rid of and you probably get more than most of the commericial cattle. You have to develope a rep. or some darn good contacts to sell within the reg. ring. There also maybe some annual sales you could sell at and get a little more money. Bulls are an entirely different story. Sometimes the little guy even has to take the best to the scales and they will not bring a dime more than any other bull. Sorry, but been there done that.
We all try to rationalize why we should have what we want.

 

[Crowderfarms]

This Ol' thread is like beating a dead Horse. The Man wants Gerts, let him have at em'. If you're gonna be Mule Headed, you better be tough.

Allenfarms, get back to us in a year or two, and I wish you the best of luck and sucess with your venture.

 

[VanC]

Santa Gertrudis .... and their momma cows are without a doubt the best any breed has to offer.

Pick just about any breed, go to their association's website, and you will see the same thing. I don't know anything about Gerts, good or bad, but I do know that if they were THAT good there would be a heckuva lot more of 'em out there. Folks in the cattle business to make money are going to use whatever gives them the best chance to make it.

 

[Wewild]

This Ol' thread is like beating a dead Horse. The Man wants Gerts, let him have at em'. If you're gonna be Mule Headed, you better be tough.

Allenfarms, get back to us in a year or two, and I wish you the best of luck and sucess with your venture.

Good post.

 

[JHH]

I think you should skip the cattle business and stay in the fertilizer business.

Not a chance, you know if "cattlemen" were aways as close minded as many of you about something new, we wouldn't even have cattle in this country. Many of the SG breeders use to run the "norm", and after a couple years of having a few SG's around for a while got rid of everything else. 3/4ths of the SG breed memberships are for farms under 30 head of cattle. FACT.

Hobby farmers!

Herfs would be a good choice.

How about murry greys.

I am a hobby farmer to I guess. I have a job in town and DONT MAKE THE COWS PAY FOR THEMSELVES.

Lots of good advice. Might want to listen.

 

[Beefy]

Ok, I have been watching this thread and the negative comments about Santa Gertrudis. We have no SGs or Beefmasters. From what I understand, here in Texas the Beefmasters are very popular. The SGs and Beefmasters are closely related in origin, genetically, right? How could one be highly sought after and the other not desireable? I don't know, that is why I am asking.

Thanks,
Farmgirl

Beef master is a 3 way cross with a lot better dispostion. than the other composite Brahman breeds.
You have Brafords , Brangus, Simbrahs,Cetified F-1's, Gert's and the Beefmaster.
IMO the F-1 is the best cow if you can take the heat.

gerts are well known for poor dispositions and fertility problems.
gerts are 3/8 brahman and 5/8 shorthorn.
beefmasters are 1/2 brahman 1/4 shorthorn and 1/4 hereford

 

[backhoeboogie]

gerts are 3/8 brahman and 5/8 shorthorn.
beefmasters are 1/2 brahman 1/4 shorthorn and 1/4 hereford

Thank you. I couldn't remember the exact mix.

 

[aplusmnt]

This is going to be a hobby for the man so, get the Gerts and have fun. Let the turkeys pay for the hobby and sit back and enjoy!

Thing is that his first sentence of the thread was asking what is best way to make money.

 

[dun]

Thing is that his first sentence of the thread was asking what is best way to make money.

I think were we screwed up was people were trying to explain how to make a profit. Making money is easy, just sell something. Doesn;t matter if you sell it cheaper then you bought it. You're still making money after a fashion.

dun

 

[aplusmnt]

Thing is that his first sentence of the thread was asking what is best way to make money.

I think were we screwed up was people were trying to explain how to make a profit. Making money is easy, just sell something. Doesn;t matter if you sell it cheaper then you bought it. You're still making money after a fashion.

dun

:lol: :lol: Good point!

 

[MoGal]

You can raise whatever you want.... you might want to look into longhorns if it suits your fancy, however there has to be a market for them in your area........ do you see SG's in pastures around your area??

Here, (and I imagine most other salebarns are similar) black hides, gold hides and black with white faced calves bring the higher dollar and you've had registered breeders already tell you they've had to sell some at the salebarn and you will too.

I'm sure you don't have a mixed breed of turkeys that you raise and there is probably a reason that you raise the type you do.... marketing/profitability........ cattle should be no different.
Unless they are a tax write-off and you don't care how much you spend or lose.

 

[Tealduck]

Probably alot of what I'm going to say has already been said but I'm going to condense it down to one single post. My husband I have raised gerts for a few years, I love them and there is no other breed I'd rather have. We have done well with them in our area.

The gerts have a bad rep for poor fertility, poor feet and poor disposition but I can't say that we've had those problems except for one cow that turns psycho for about 2 wks or so when she has a calf. Don't know if we've just been lucky or that we've just been very good at choosing our stock.

I don't know why you HAVE to have purebreds but if that is the route you are going to go with gerts then please take a few things into concideration. For one, get polled cattle, not only do you get docked at the sale barn but they learn how to use the horns against you and the other cattle. Another is, buy quality rather quantity. Not only look at conformation but at disposition. I don't want something in the pasture that I'll be taking my life in my hands just going out to look at them. Try to find gerts with cleaner lines and a little less leather than average. When you get your cattle you need to work hard to build a rep with people, it may take a long time. We cull hard on disposition and conformation. Just because a calf is capable of being registered doesn't mean it should. If it has attitude by the time it's weaned, it will only get worse so it needs to go to the sale barn. If it's not structured well, sale barn, ect. I'm not going to sell anyone junk.

Also, Gerts are late maturing. Our heifers generally start cycling at 23-25 months meaning that you won't get your first calf off of them till they are nearly 3 yrs. We had one that cycled at 18 mon but that's neen the earliest.

Ok, after saying all that, crossing gert cows with say a simmi or hereford works well. They usually throw some nice heavy calves. They are generally more marketable that purebreds.

Duck

 

[allenfarms]

Look to be honest I appriciate all the info good...and bad CB! haha ;-) I mean as far as the first statement goes, it wasn't quite worded correctly... Not so much MAKE money like get rich, I mean we are talkin like 20 head so make some money or just pay for my hobby would be fine. Turkeys are my JOB and my money. I am lookin to have some fun with a few Registered Cattle, maybe get the kids involved when their old enough, they might wanna show or whatever.

I do want Registered Cattle
I wasn't so much set on SG's, and still havn't bought anything, but I mentioned brangus and Beefmaster and that brought some bad comments too!! I can't catch a break.

Brangus have ear too and in my part of the country it is generally OK but not the Ideal! Up north arkansas I know brangus breeders that get docked at the sale.

And Beefmaster, (which some of you have suggested), I know nothing about.

I am just lookin for some fun with Bovine and temperment is definetly something I will consider on any breed TealDuck. I don't wanna have to always be afraid to walk across the pasture or for my wife and kids to either. My folks have had Char Bulls real bad about that. :shock:

 

[novatech]

Ok.not going to be a business. Just a hobby that you hope someday you can break even on or maybe break even on. Sounds like about like 80 percent of the people in my area.
Unless you need a large tax right off you still need to always try and make money. For then you may be able to limit the amount you have to write off.
If you want to be able to sell them, you need to pick a breed that sells. Find out what people want in your area. I suspect that you could do better without any ear, cooler weather cattle.
If you want to show its going to take some extra bucks. Maybe even one of those 34,000 dollar trailers that seems to be the trend these days. Or better yet less expensive reg. cattle that you can sell to cross breeders. Or you get a dif breed bull and sell your own crosses. There are just to many questons to answer. Sounds like what you need to do is figure out what you want to do then come back with some questions.
If you know where you are going you can help to arrive at your destination. Without a destination we can only lead you in circles. That may explain why this thread is going and going and going

 

[aplusmnt]

I am just lookin for some fun with Bovine and temperment is definetly something I will consider on any breed TealDuck. I don't wanna have to always be afraid to walk across the pasture or for my wife and kids to either. My folks have had Char Bulls real bad about that. :shock: [/b]

I say Murray Greys then, get a hold of springer on here he has 5 nice heifers for sale. They seem to have a reputation just the opposite of the breeds you are currently considering. Springer is down in your area.

 

[backhoeboogie]

I am just lookin for some fun with Bovine and temperment is definetly something I will consider on any breed TealDuck. I don't wanna have to always be afraid to walk across the pasture or for my wife and kids to either. My folks have had Char Bulls real bad about that. :shock: [/b]

I say Murray Greys then, get a hold of springer on here he has 5 nice heifers for sale. They seem to have a reputation just the opposite of the breeds you are currently considering. Springer is down in your area.

Who has Murray's crossed with Brahman or Brangus?