What age do you sell your calves?

[Pineywoods230]

I just want to compare what others do vs what I've been doing but what age are you hauling your calves to auction?

Location - East Texas
I keep no calves, everything goes to auction and I've been buying replacements as I find them and want to expand.
I currently calve Sept-Nov and sell in May-June depending on market/grass. Couple of people around me recommended grazing my calves through the summer and selling closer to yearling age late summer or early fall.
This has been working for me but I've only been doing in a few years so always curious if I might be missing out on better returns.

 

[Lucky]

13-16 months

 

[mwj]

See what that fall market looks like and go from there. If you change your marketing plan drastically there will be a lot of changes that are not very obvious till they occur. It is always good to evaluate your operation with an open mind.

 

[chevytaHOE5674]

Either sell after weaning at ~9 months. Or hold them until ~14 months. Depends on markets and grass.

 

[Silver]

Last several years I haven't sold through the ring, instead have sold mid summer for October delivery at which time the calves average quite close to 210 days. This allows time for the cattle to filter in off range and take a a second cut off the hay fields without me burning any diesel. Seems to work for this situation. I like not selling in the middle of the fall run.

 

[BC]

If you have the forage, you could graze until mid July or early August. Before we lost so many cows due to drought, you saw a little bump in the market right after the 4th of July and then a downward trend onto the fall. October is the WORST month to sell calves. Why? - too many calves at one time and hot days and cool nights are a set up to respiratory problems. That is the reason order buyers refer to October as National Dead Calf Month. If you have available forage and a little added protein, there is some growth left in the calves that you can take advantage. You may like to look at a fat, bloomy calf, but the buyers prefer one that has lost the baby fat.

 

[chevytaHOE5674]

October is the WORST month to sell calves.

I've done best selling in October and November. As always every area and market is different.

 

[EasTex]

I calve Nov-Dec and trailer wean at 5-7 months depending on grass. Where I am located, I want them gone before August, most times before July 4. The rains are infrequent and we are at 100+ degrees by then. I took on a lease place, cows and all last May. Most of the 18 cows there are calving Jun-Jul and I will be taking them to the sale barn Feb.8 so those are 7-8 months old. I did not start feeding hay on that place until Dec.7 and have plenty of good hay so kept them a month longer, plus I just didn't have the time to take them in sooner.

 

[gcreekrch]

Born April and early May, forward contracted when I see favourable market conditions and deliver in late October. If you have a proper herd health protocol your calves shouldn't be getting sick after delivery and induction to feedlot.

 

[Warren Allison]

Trailer wean in 6 months.

 

[GoWyo]

Calve March 1 to sometime in April. Usually wean and sell all the steers and the heifers that don't make the replacement pen during the first couple weeks in October, making them 6-7 months. We wean on Saturday and Sunday and haul to sale barn Sunday afternoon for Monday "calf special" sale Torrington Livestock puts on all through October. Any droopy ears or high temp calf stays home. I go sale day to make sure any calves that get singled out and pulled out of the bunch in the ring get a fair price or I will take them back home for rehab to sell later. We used to keep them and background for 45 days, but it just wasn't paying any better than selling bawlers right off the cow and seemed like one always tried to die on us.

 

[farmerjan]

We do several different strategies according to what the markets are looking like... and what we need to retain to put on pastures. Some get sold off the cows but more get weaned and fed for 45-60 days...
Looking like we might be selling some off the cows here real quick with the prices being as high as they have been..... But... mostly our markets here will bring a little better prices for weaned, bunk broke, and calves with some sort of vaccination program behind them. On top of that , we buy some of these odd bull calves, and bring them home, castrate and give some shots and then can mix them in with others, and ours, if they match, to make bigger groups. It's a crap shoot though now to buy any and then you worry about losing a bucket full of money on one if it dies.... even the "cheap ones" are pretty expensive to bury.
Last year we did not keep one steer to go out on a place we usually run steers at, so we retained more heifers and pastured them. It might be that way here this year again.. holding back more heifers to graze at leased places where we have to put something out on the grass.

We also have 2 basic calving seasons, spring and fall... Mar-May and Oct-Dec... 90 days each but most calves are born in the first 60. Since we also buy a few cows here and there, the lines get blurred on calving seasons and we will hold a cow over if she calves in the summer, to go with the fall group, and have had a couple calve here this month and they will get held over to go with the "spring calving " group... so their calves will be a little bit bigger and older... Gives us the flexibility to match some up... and cows that calve outside of our window, will get a chance to get bred back as soon as the bull goes in and therefore get right on track. Anyone that doesn't get with it and gets bred back to fit in the group, does not stay now.
There have been a couple of old cows that have had phenomenal calves and calved regularly, that have gotten a break and got held back if we are trying to get another heifer out of them... but they have been few and far between over the years....and right now I don't think there are any like that on the place. Even shipped 2 old cows that were less than 60 days bred, in good flesh, and ornery dispositioned...they always raised a calf but were way behind this year and decided it was time to go while they were up and healthy and walking and in good flesh. If they had been bred along with the rest would not have thought twice and kept them again... This one place it is not feasible to get the bull out at 90 days so occasionally there will be a few that are shorter bred.... then it is a judgement call with all factors taken into consideration.

 

[littletom]

Home raised calves born march April sold January and February . I usually buy a load end oct. first November keep them 70 days.

 

[MurraysMutts]

With limited resources and limited grass here. That is, I'm a cow calf operation!
I sell calves off the cow mostly.

I've tried weaning, holding etc and I've decided im gonna stick with one aspect and do it as best I can. There's plenty of folks out there who buy my calves to take them to the next phase. Sure they make a little money doing it. But I make money doing what I do. Cow/calf. If I had the pastures/extra grass etc, I'd buy more cows and make more calves! I just can't do it all, so I do what I can and do it to the best of my abilities and resources.

 

[Dave]

One and done cows with the sale yard vet calling for February / March calves. Calves are weaned in mid August by shipping the cows. Calves go into the corral for 4 or 5 days to get the bawl out of them. Then they go out on regrowth grass in irrigated hay fields. Once they get the grass ate which is generally mid October they all get a trip to town. A combination of the steep ground, distance to water, and the grass where they spend the summer the calves don't come off the cows fat. They are pretty hard. So we don't have the shrink that others talk about.

 

[Brute 23]

It sounds easy in theory but it can be a real pia. Are you already castrating your bull calves? Do you have a place to keep heifers where bulls can't get to them?

Not sure your exact market but usually a May calf in the 550-650 range is hard to beat by holding. I think making sure the calves are all gone by April/ May would be more profitable than holding.

 

[jltrent]

I go by size more than age. I like to sell at around 550-600 lbs. A 550 lb. calf will bring about as much as a 650 lb. around here and a lot less stress on the mother and more time to recover for the next calf. Grass availability, age of the mother, weather, hay stored up, etc. factors weigh in also. I like to give the mother at least 2 months to recover. If I have to wean I will, but very seldom get extra for it.

 

[TCRanch]

My calves are born primarily March-May, some a little earlier with an occasional straggler. Weaned in Oct, sold in Dec. Fully vaccinated, backgrounded, bull calves castrated at appx 3 months, heifers guaranteed open.