To Buy or Not to Buy

[randiliana]

That is the question. We are about 40 head short for our various pastures next year. We must have enough to fill our Community Pasture quota, or we will lose it, and we got increased this year by 20 head.

Anyways, there is a herd dispersal of mostly younger cow coming up this Friday. We are seriously considering buying some of them, and they likely will sell for around canner prices, maybe $100 more. Problem is, they are 2 months later calving than our herd. They will likely be in poorer condition as well (as they never see an overabundance of feed), and we are unsure of how much growth we will get out of the calves (is it feed or genetics??). Now, these could be some pretty good cows, that just need to be fed well enough to live up to their potential.

Now, I would think, that if these cows are fed reasonably well, they should put a lot of weight on, after all they will not hit the third trimester until Feburary and March. They should also be able to raise a reasonably good calf if they have lots to eat during the summer (they have usually been on extremely overgrazed pasture, and never fed very well).

But, the biggest problem in my mind is their calving dates. We pull our bulls a week AFTER they put their bulls out. I am not really looking forward to a 4-5 month calving season. Plus, it will be difficult to move these cows up into our breeding season. I know it can be done, but I am not sure that I want to spend 3 years with a 90-120 day calving season. If we pull bulls too early we run the risk of having a LOT of cows come in open.

Now, on the positive side, I am thinking that 70%-80% of these cows should calve within their first cycle. These cows, should be relatively easy to move up to calve in April. Next year we may have to run a 90 day season but I think I can get over that. As to what to do with the other 20-30% we could run the bulls on them (separately) for an extra month, and then sell them as breds in the fall. Or, we could sell them as pairs during the summer, or if all else fails, we could just say the heck with it and breed for 90 days, then pull bulls and can whatever comes up open.

Or, we could calve them out, and then just sell the entire works as either pairs, or breed them, wait until fall, and sell the calves and then the cows as breds.

The biggest reason we are considering these cows is because they will likely sell for under $600, and they are close to home. We wouldn't have a big trucking bill to get them here.

Now, if this were you, would you buy these cows? What other options am I missing.[/list]

 

[Angus In Texas]

If I could buy young bred cows for under $600 I sure wouldn't pass up the opportunity unless they are just horrible cows. If nothing else you calve them out breed them back and turn them over in the spring as three in ones. If I had enough land and hay and could find them cheap enough here I would do it....but cattle have been pretty high with all the rain we had this past summer. Everyone had plenty of pasture and now they have plenty of hay....replacements are hard to come by.

 

[bigbull338]

ok you say you have a community pasture.an that you got oked for 40 more head of cows.an that if you dont add cows youll lose that part of the pasture.so yes id buy some of those cows.an feed them an get emm in shape.an add them to your herd.next fall you could cull the cows that didnt work for you.an you can work on getting them in your calvng season.bottomline is if you dont add cows youll lose some pasture.$600 isnt a bad price if you can get them for that or less.you can pretty well pay for them by selling their next years calves.

 

[Avalon]

Let me see, Cheap cows, Plenty of pasture and potential.
Buy ! Buy ! Buy !
Settle the breeding season issue later. maybe even trade up for some cows scheduled to calve in your window.
Sounds like an oppurtunity to me.

 

[JMichal]

For that price I do't think you will be out anything. Even if you sell them all. But I bet you will like 50% or more. The calves will pay for the feed momma eats easily, this winter.

Buy em, cull em.

 

[backhoeboogie]

Buy em, cull em.

What he said, and everyone else. Cull the late ones and replace them with something that suits you. Keep the ones that are close to your existing cycle. In the meanwhile, you met the quota, got some calves etc.

It sounds like a win win situation at that price.

 

[BC]

Take the opportunity to expand. We swap cows off here in East Texas on a regular basis. If they don't fit your situation let them change zipcodes. Be married to your spouse not your cows.

 

[mbangus]

Watch what you buy when buying thin underfed cows
we bought 76 pairs in nov 2005 they were under fed we thought that some tender loving care they would be not bad cows out of the 76 i think we have only 20 +or - left out if the calves not one made it into the replacement pen we run 200+ cows and thought we knew what we were doing we where very wrong. About the price on Friday all cows in canada including complete herd disp. are not avg much and there a sale pretty much everyday people are sick of the bussiness of selling calves for less then the cost of keeping the cows and getting out including us! my herds been for sale since sept. but iam not going to give them away

 

[hgfarmer]

Watch what you buy when buying thin underfed cows
we bought 76 pairs in nov 2005 they were under fed we thought that some tender loving care they would be not bad cows out of the 76 i think we have only 20 +or - left out if the calves not one made it into the replacement pen we run 200+ cows and thought we knew what we were doing we where very wrong. About the price on Friday all cows in canada including complete herd disp. are not avg much and there a sale pretty much everyday people are sick of the bussiness of selling calves for less then the cost of keeping the cows and getting out including us! my herds been for sale since sept. but iam not going to give them away

You just said everyone in your area is getting out of the bussiness, so who do you propose you are going to sell your herd to and not have to give them away?

 

[rockridgecattle]

i know i will get blastedfor this from everyone but I would not

First in Canada, there are alot of cows to be bought.
If they need food to get in better shape, what will the colostruum be like what will the calves be like at weaning

Vaccinations...are they up to date? I know yours are, unless you are willing to keep them totaly separate until after they calve and yours are at least 6 weeks old...
this means separate water trough, feed last etc..everything for conplete isolation

Gotta worry about scours, bvb ibr etc.
In Canada we have been through alot. Alot of guys/gals have cut corners this year and last with herd health.
If you have yours up to date and theirs are not it's undue immunity stress on your animals.

Been there done that. Brought in heifers, even vaccinated heifers. They came in January, Calved a month after us.
Most expensive, worst case of scours we ever had...never again.
Scours may be the same and yet a different strain that what is on your farm...look out.

Vet here says if you want a relatively disease trouble free calving season, bring in new when it's time to pre breed vaccinate. Calves are old enough to handle the immunity stress and they are around long enough for everyone to get used to the disease variances, and you have control on the herd health. She says last date for brining in new stuff should be no later than early fall after weaning.

edit....before weaning

 

[mbangus]

to hgfarmer heres a thought when your hfr calves are around .60 to .90 cents a pound for 4 + years how long are you going to stay in the business. Yes there are guys buying but there's alot not (fact FCC news Letter states that over 40 % of (canadian) cattle producer arn't going to be here next year)
to rockridgecattle
u hit the nail on right on the head

 

[randiliana]

Watch what you buy when buying thin underfed cows
we bought 76 pairs in nov 2005 they were under fed we thought that some tender loving care they would be not bad cows out of the 76 i think we have only 20 +or - left out if the calves not one made it into the replacement pen we run 200+ cows and thought we knew what we were doing we where very wrong. About the price on Friday all cows in canada including complete herd disp. are not avg much and there a sale pretty much everyday people are sick of the bussiness of selling calves for less then the cost of keeping the cows and getting out including us! my herds been for sale since sept. but iam not going to give them away

I am not too concerned about whether we will get any replacements out of these cows. I am just looking at a way to make a bit of money. I am going at this with the intention of culling out a fair # of the cows by next fall. I know prices are low, but I expect these cows to sell even lower. There was a dispersal of 2-3 year old cows in Assiniboia recently that averaged $876. I don't imagine these cows will go over $600. We will see.

 

[randiliana]

i know i will get blastedfor this from everyone but I would not

First in Canada, there are alot of cows to be bought.
If they need food to get in better shape, what will the colostruum be like what will the calves be like at weaning

Yes, there are a lot of cows for sale. I am not too concerned about the colostrum quality, as these cows won't calve til May/June, and the last 6 weeks is when they start to produce the majority of the colostrum. We have lots of time to get them in condition.

Vaccinations...are they up to date? I know yours are, unless you are willing to keep them totaly separate until after they calve and yours are at least 6 weeks old...
this means separate water trough, feed last etc..everything for conplete isolation

Not sure on the vaccinations. Ours are vaccinated, so these cows don't really concern me. Plus, the fact is these cows WOULD be separated from any of our calves as they pretty much don't start calving until our herd is DONE. As for complete isolation, I am not worried about it. Our cows are vaccinated, and no matter how 'closed' you think your herd is, it isn't. If you have neighbours with cattle they are always exposed.

Gotta worry about scours, bvb ibr etc.
In Canada we have been through alot. Alot of guys/gals have cut corners this year and last with herd health.
If you have yours up to date and theirs are not it's undue immunity stress on your animals.

Again, with the difference in calving times, most of this doesn't worry me. It is a valid enough point, but the reason we vaccinate is to prevent this stuff if the animals are exposed.

Been there done that. Brought in heifers, even vaccinated heifers. They came in January, Calved a month after us.
Most expensive, worst case of scours we ever had...never again.
Scours may be the same and yet a different strain that what is on your farm...look out.

Vet here says if you want a relatively disease trouble free calving season, bring in new when it's time to pre breed vaccinate. Calves are old enough to handle the immunity stress and they are around long enough for everyone to get used to the disease variances, and you have control on the herd health. She says last date for brining in new stuff should be no later than early fall after weaning.

It is a great sentiment, but rather hard to implement. We are going to buy cows sometime between now and March/April. We need to, and Bred cows are usually cheaper than pairs. We are looking for the most bang for our buck. This may be an opportune time to pick up some cows.

edit....before weaning

 

[DiamondSCattleCo]

Randi, I'm not sure how close you are to Tisdale, but Bruce Edwards is holding a herd dispersal for Gerald Briton tomorrow (Fri). Moderate framed Red Angus/Simm cross cows bred back to Simm. Just an EXCELLENT bunch of critters are going to cross the scale. Gerald really knew his stuff, and these cows would make anyone proud. If I had the extra cash around, I'd be snapping up as many as I could.

Rod

 

[randiliana]

Randi, I'm not sure how close you are to Tisdale, but Bruce Edwards is holding a herd dispersal for Gerald Briton tomorrow (Fri). Moderate framed Red Angus/Simm cross cows bred back to Simm. Just an EXCELLENT bunch of critters are going to cross the scale. Gerald really knew his stuff, and these cows would make anyone proud. If I had the extra cash around, I'd be snapping up as many as I could.

Rod

Rod, Tisdale, is a long way's away. We are 4 hours south of Saskatoon. The other thing with those cows is that we don't really want simmental in our mama cows.

We bought 13 critters today. Mostly 4-5 year old cows. Pretty good looking animals, although they are on the thinner side. Averaged $700. The cows sold a lot higher than most people expected.

 

[DiamondSCattleCo]

We bought 13 critters today. Mostly 4-5 year old cows. Pretty good looking animals, although they are on the thinner side. Averaged $700. The cows sold a lot higher than most people expected.

Same thing at Gerald's sale. Alot of people went expecting bargains, but the younger bred stuff was bringing more than a thousand. I guess some of his old stuff went cheaper, around 600 bucks.

As for the Simm stuff, I hear where you're coming from, but we've got a couple excellent breeders up here who don't subscribe to the "bigger is better" school of thought. They've got some animals that are beefy, short to the ground, and deep.

Rod

 

[randiliana]

Same thing at Gerald's sale. Alot of people went expecting bargains, but the younger bred stuff was bringing more than a thousand. I guess some of his old stuff went cheaper, around 600 bucks.

As for the Simm stuff, I hear where you're coming from, but we've got a couple excellent breeders up here who don't subscribe to the "bigger is better" school of thought. They've got some animals that are beefy, short to the ground, and deep.

Rod

Yeah, they averaged $775 from what I heard. Some of the 2-3 year olds were pretty thin (850 lbs) and they brought almost $900. Mind you, there is a long time to feed these girls up before they calve. I was happy for the producers, we coffee with them every morning. But was kinda hoping to pick up some cheap cows ;-)

I know that the Simm x makes a good cow, but for us right now the British crosses work for us best. Plus, it took me 10 years just to convince DH to let me get some Shorthorns so I think the Simm cows would be a pretty hard sell. On the other hand, though we are planning to pick up a couple of Simm x Angus bulls to put on the 'bottom end' cows for a terminal sire. So that is a big step right now for us.

 

[DiamondSCattleCo]

I know that the Simm x makes a good cow, but for us right now the British crosses work for us best. Plus, it took me 10 years just to convince DH to let me get some Shorthorns so I think the Simm cows would be a pretty hard sell. On the other hand, though we are planning to pick up a couple of Simm x Angus bulls to put on the 'bottom end' cows for a terminal sire. So that is a big step right now for us.

Yeah, you don't want to lose focus on what you're doing thats for sure, however if you ever get a chance to pick up some SimmX cows cheap, don't turn a blind eye to them. I bought some from a neighbor (SimmXShorthorn) who uses small -medium frame maternal Simm bulls, and they are among the best cows on the place, especially when you cross back to British.

Rod

 

[randiliana]

Yeah, you don't want to lose focus on what you're doing thats for sure, however if you ever get a chance to pick up some SimmX cows cheap, don't turn a blind eye to them. I bought some from a neighbor (SimmXShorthorn) who uses small -medium frame maternal Simm bulls, and they are among the best cows on the place, especially when you cross back to British.

Rod

The cows we have had on lease the last few years, are Simm/Angus cross, and bred back Angus. A good set of cows, but really flighty. We have had them for 4 years, and while they are better, they still take off if you go out to check them on foot or on horse. I really hate that. I am sure that they are not all that way, but that has been our experience with simm x for the most part.

I shouldn't say that all the herd is straight british, we have a few continental crossbreds kicking around. The best buy we have made so far this fall, I think is a 5 year old Tarentaise (or TT cross) cow for $530. We will see how she raises a calf, but I think we will see more than that out of her 1st calf ;-) .