Trusting you guys

[Jafruech]

No as the retained heifer has no value, she is only a liability eating inputs. If she craps out calving your 401 took a dump.
If I sell my heifer and buy yours I have no negative impact to my 401. If my heifer dies I can write off her cost, now it's like she is FDIC insured.

There's a lot of ways to mitigate that risk though. Retained heifers should have calving ease built in. If they don't they shouldn't be retained.

If there is an issue and she doesn't die then sell her as meat.

My agribusiness policy that covers the ranch comes with livestock mortality insurance built in...if one dies while calving I get that payment plus I will get out there fast, and out to be processed. There's a USDA certified guy out here with a mobile unit that will come out and take them on the spot.

There are two ways that you can count retained heifers for taxes. Either as a part of your inventory or as capital assets. For the most part it makes more sense to keep them as inventory since you don't have a cost basis for them. If she dies then you offset any sold inventory you have that year.

 

[gcreekrch]

There's a lot of ways to mitigate that risk though. Retained heifers should have calving ease built in. If they don't they shouldn't be retained.

If there is an issue and she doesn't die then sell her as meat.

My agribusiness policy that covers the ranch comes with livestock mortality insurance built in...if one dies while calving I get that payment plus I will get out there fast, and out to be processed. There's a USDA certified guy out here with a mobile unit that will come out and take them on the spot.

There are two ways that you can count retained heifers for taxes. Either as a part of your inventory or as capital assets. For the most part it makes more sense to keep them as inventory since you don't have a cost basis for them. If she dies then you offset any sold inventory you have that year.

In Canada we don't eat cows that have been dead overnight.

I would also hazard to guess your insurance premiums must be quite large as most won't insure commercial cattle for death loss. Feeder and breeder associations have insurance policies but they are 3/4 % of borrowed money and have a large deductible.

 

[farmerjan]

I know that there is a mortality clause of some sort on our farm insurance.... but it is in case of death from certain causes.... lightning, drowning, some other things. I don't keep up with it as my son does all the farm related insurance and taxes and such. He was the one that wanted to get bigger, and I said I was not going to get into all that being a "business" entailed. So, he does all that and I am not sorry. I do know that we lost 12 at a pasture several years ago, and had the vet out, they went over the pastures looking for possible poisoning, tested the water.... you name it. Posted 2 cows that looked the "freshest" of the ones that died, and in over 700 things tested for the cause was not definitely determined. So they were turned in as lightning loss.... we had had a bad storm the night before and they could not determine it was not lightning.... and I know he got paid about the value of a cull cow.... but that was still better than nothing.

 

[Jafruech]

In Canada we don't eat cows that have been dead overnight.

I would also hazard to guess your insurance premiums must be quite large as most won't insure commercial cattle for death loss. Feeder and breeder associations have insurance policies but they are 3/4 % of borrowed money and have a large deductible.

I know that there is a mortality clause of some sort on our farm insurance.... but it is in case of death from certain causes.... lightning, drowning, some other things. I don't keep up with it as my son does all the farm related insurance and taxes and such. He was the one that wanted to get bigger, and I said I was not going to get into all that being a "business" entailed. So, he does all that and I am not sorry. I do know that we lost 12 at a pasture several years ago, and had the vet out, they went over the pastures looking for possible poisoning, tested the water.... you name it. Posted 2 cows that looked the "freshest" of the ones that died, and in over 700 things tested for the cause was not definitely determined. So they were turned in as lightning loss.... we had had a bad storm the night before and they could not determine it was not lightning.... and I know he got paid about the value of a cull cow.... but that was still better than nothing.

Gc-actually it was cheaper to go with this policy than most other options for just coverage on the ranch and liability. It was a pretty affordable option.

Farmerjan-mine specifically covers loss during calving, all of the above you mentioned as well as any loss from being killed by someone else (like the people who have been going out shooting cattle and horses and driving away). It does not cover disease or natural causes, but that's not something I'm really concerned about

 

[Brute 23]

I find it a little strange that people assume because you have commercial cattle that you are not trying to genetically better your herd.

 

[Dave]

I find it strange that this thread started out with a title, "Trusting You Guys." I am not nearly that brave. There is only a few on here that I would actually trust. And even that only goes so far.