What do you pay for your herd bull

[Cowboymom]

You misunderstand...I wasn't being degrading to a cow's mind. It just doesn't play the same importance as it does in a horse. It is like comparing apples and oranges. I helped a neighbor of ours who is a really good cowman and show jock buy a horse. He kept trying to buy something that had great conformation. He didn't have the checkbook to buy something that had great conformation and cart him around a branding pen. That is big bucks. You can have the most goose butted, jug headed, long necked horse, but if he works a cow, won't buck you off everytime you get on him and doesn't spook at every bird and butterfly, he is wonderful.

When you drop a lot of money on a bovine, you hope either it reproduces as good or better than that individual. With a horse, unless they are halter horses and even those have to have a certain temperment to deal with it, they also have to do whatever discipline you want them to do. To put simply, when you pay 5 or 10k for a yearling bull, you don't have to worry that it will also have "cow". Besides the ability to breed one!

 

[frenchie]

Personally I would not pay over $5000.00 for a bull to use in a commercial herd.

 

[Cowboymom]

Me neither...

 

[msscamp]

You misunderstand...I wasn't being degrading to a cow's mind. It just doesn't play the same importance as it does in a horse. It is like comparing apples and oranges.

Again, I beg to differ. Cattle's minds play every bit as important of a role as horses minds (if you have ever tried to coax cattle across a snow-laden gully or tried to coax them across a electric fence gate or drive them through a previously unknown gate you know what I'm talking about - but the same can be said of loading a horse for the first time, talking a horse into passing a deadfall that was not there the previous ride, or working cattle when they are not used to them) - they are simply different roles. Both have their individual idiosyncracies and the key to being able to successfully harness either one and accomplish what needs to be done is understanding how their different minds work. There are just as many high-headed, dumber than a box of rocks horses as there are cattle in this world, it is up to the prospective owner/owner to understand each species, be able to tell the difference, and avoid the undesirable animal - be it cow or horse. Just my thoughts.

 

[aplusmnt]

Well that is why we ride Mules here, like the best of minds on something I am riding, and got rid of the last Limousin on the place (sorry to the Limousin producers but we have had nothing but bad ones) do not like those limi minds. 8)

 

[dph]

Been thinking more about this. I guess it depends on how you want to operate also. My father and I don't golf, we don't drive new pickups, or chore with a new tractor. That frees up some extra money for bulls. It sounds like some have suggested that the extra money spent on a bull should be paid for by the performance of his steers alone when the calves go through the ring. While we expect his steers to perform better, we are betting on much of the return coming on the daugthers we retain and their calves.

Not to beat a dead horse, but I will bring this up again. How do you value your replacements? We sell replacement heifer calves at the barn when we sell our steers. They sell well for us, almost as well as the steers did last year. But never, in the 13 years of selling at that barn has a customer ever approached us wanting to know a thing about the bulls they are out of. We want to know where our replacements are coming from, and we will pay a little more to get a little better.

Everyone is free to spend what they want. I don't see how anyone else can dictate what is too much or too little. And cost isn't always a good indicator of quality, though often it is.
Afterall, at any given sale, the better bulls usually bring more than the poorer ones, unless you pick up a "steal."

The guys I spoke of earlier are Bill and Shawn Zutavern of Dunning, Neb. They are commercial cowmen. When we left the Broken Bow sale this year they had spent around $64000 on 8 bulls. Grant it, they really have some extra $ coming in with High Prime, but they have always paid for top quality cattle, and I doubt that the average was much higher than before. Some of their commercial bred heifers, 350 of them, will be sold Dec. 5, on Superior, after Summitcrest's two year old bull sale, if anybody would like to tune in. I am curious what kind of premium those cattle will command. Because of the quality of cattle they purchase, and the way they do business, they are building a reputation as one of the top commercial ranches in the country.

It doesn't undermine the importance of the cow, but one thing I have heard and said before when this topic comes up is if you want daugthers better than their mothers there is only one way to get there. Females may be the core of your herd, but if you retain your own heifers, like we do, it is the bull, and bull alone that sets the future direction. Buying a good cow herd, but skimping on bulls is like buying that new pickup and skimping on the steering wheel. It isn't going to take you anywhere. IMHO.

 

[msscamp]

While we expect his steers to perform better, we are betting on much of the return coming on the daugthers we retain and their calves. Not to beat a dead horse, but I will bring this up again. How do you value your replacements? We sell replacement heifer calves at the barn when we sell our steers. They sell well for us, almost as well as the steers did last year. But never, in the 13 years of selling at that barn has a customer ever approached us wanting to know a thing about the bulls they are out of. We want to know where our replacements are coming from, and we will pay a little more to get a little better.


Females may be the core of your herd, but if you retain your own heifers, like we do, it is the bull, and bull alone that sets the future direction. Buying a good cow herd, but skimping on bulls is like buying that new pickup and skimping on the steering wheel. It isn't going to take you anywhere. IMHO.

Ok, I'm confused. You stated in the first paragraph that you sell your replacement heifers with your steers, but in the second paragraph you stated that you retain your replacement heifers. Which is it? And the bull alone does NOT set the future directions as there is another set of genes in the equation as far as offspring are concerned. The bull helps, but he can only do so much to overcome a sub-quality cow or heifer in one breeding season (and I'm not even suggesting your cows are sub-quality, just speaking theoretically (sp?)). It takes years to bring the offspring of a sub-quality cow or heifer up to quality regardless of what bull you use - the worse the quality of your cows, the longer the time span to bring that quality up to par.

As far as placing value on a replacement heifer, it is usually done based on the conformation of a particular heifer (at the local sale barn, anyway) as each buyer has their own game plan and, unless they are into your particular breed, probably don't give a flip about your heifers bloodlines. Buyers of your replacement heifers won't ask you about their bloodlines because they don't care. Buyers purchase your replacement heifers because those heifers will work for THEIR breeding programs using a bull that they have decided fits with what they want to achieve and where they are going. Your bloodlines are immaterial for that reason. A production sale or a registered sale is slightly different in that bloodlines play a little more prominent role or could play a lot more prominent role depending on said bloodlines and the latest craze for a particular bull. Just my thoughts.

 

[dph]

msscamp: no offense taken, and no confusion intended. Thanks for the response. We keep our "cut" of replacements when we sell calves. The sale barn makes a next "cut," about half of what remains, and sells them as replacements.

The bull alone does set the future direction of our herd. It is a closed herd. Were are not bringing new genetics in on the dam side. The bull is the only source for genetic improvement. Good cows don't happen by accident, the genetics have to be there to create them.

I pay little attention to bloodlines, unless a bloodline has been proven to be "disappointing" and its EPDs are kind of "discredited." Instead, I was speaking of EPDs. We continaully have people on this board asking about EPDs of certain bulls, which is good. But the gist of your argument was that bulls can only do so much.... If that is the case, and I agree with you, why wouldn't a producer want to know the quality of bulls(confirmation, EPDS) the heifers were out of (representing half the genetics in that heifer)? It seems like people select replacements based on confirmation alone. When in reality, you could easily show me two sets of heifers of equal confirmation that were vastly different in performance, either in the feedyard or on the rail. Confirmation is the key ingredient, I agree, but performance is what dictates what kind of profit a producer will make. Or, from another point of view, I could show you a few cows we have that look real good, but leave something to be desired when their calves go across the scale compared to the rest.

What I am really getting it, beating a dead horse, sorry, is the identification of desirable genes in cattle and what carries it and what don't. If you have a closed herd, like we do, the only way to increase the prevalance of those genes is through bulls. Just the way we look at things.

 

[ALACOWMAN]

I relie heavy on my cows to perform because i know what there capable of more so than the bull i use no matter if its a 30.000 dollar or a 3000 bull you gotta have a good moma & milk there to get the results

 

[Beef11]

Wow i should of got in on this earlier. I see both sides of the fence. Being an advocator of genetic improvement I can see that spending big money on a bull is definetly an investment in the future of your herd and if the money is well spent a return will be had. I am also a realist who believes in making money. spending 10k on a terminal sire that will cover 25 cows a year is a big waste of money if you can buy his brother for 2500 and your calves are within 50lbs of each other on average over the next 4 years on dollar market it doesnt pay to coin up for the high dollar critter. I would guess that if you collected him and bred 100-150 heifers to him and had him in cleaning up i would guess he would pay. ON the flip side he may not be any better than half the 2500 dollar bulls sold that day. Maybe his momma milked like a holstein and he got into the neighbors where the good grass was all summer. All things are dang near possible anyways. Don't put coffee shop prestige in with practicality. Put the numbers to it and figure out if your per calf return justifies the purchase of the bull. I am a big advocate of AI but see little use of AI and a breeding bull in herds with only one breeding group.

 

[Cowboymom]

Your cowherd is your foundation and you build upon it by purchasing the best bull power that you can find and afford. Just because a bull brings a bunch of money, doesn't make him a superstar. I have known more than one "cowman" that didn't have a clue, would buy what was being bid up or was priced the highest. I would never do it but just one year I would like to put a big price on the bottom bull and watch them buy him! We have been selling bulls off the ranch in the $2250-$4500 range. We have some good cowmen come and pick out bulls in the $2500 range that are just dandy. Pricing bulls is one of the hardest things we have to do each year. Hubby and I get into some really animated "discussions"!LOL

One trend that we have been seeing the last few years is that our bull buyers are starting to get younger. I guess that a lot of guys didn't want Herefords because that is what their father used. We have one good cowman who we have been selling bulls to for over 50 years, his son hates Herefords but his grandson loves them. Every year his son says that is the last year and every year they come back after they run their calves over the scales! Dad is still the boss and the grandson loves it!LOL

 

[dun]

I saw a 46k bull sell a couple of years ago at a Red Angus sale. After he sold so high I went out to take a look at him to see what was so special about him compared to the other 3 bulls in the same pen. A bunch of other folks had the same idea. It was funny to watch people that couldn;t see the ear tag numbers pick out other bulls in the pen as the high priced one when all the others sold from $2500-$5000.

dun

 

[novaman]

I will never understand how spending large amounts of money on a bull will improve the herd. I know a cattleman that will sit at the bull sale and wait until a bull gets bid up. He goes after the highest priced bull simply because he thinks a big price tag equals big calves come weaning time. The last time I checked the cows have an equal amount of influence as the bull. If a group of cattlemen were to study a pen of bulls, they would probably all have a different opinion as to which bull was the best in the group. When I go to a sale with the intentions of buying I will sit down with the EPD's in front of me. I study them and highlight the bulls that I feel would be best for my herd. Then i go to the sale and find those bulls in the pens and look them over. The bulls that look the nicest to me will be the bulls i bid on when they come in the ring. They might go high and they might go low. I'm not going to let a nice bull go through without bidding on it just cuz it's not going for a huge sum of money.

 

[aplusmnt]

Seems like a person that is going to pay that high of a price for a bull would be better off utilizing A.I. and then get a above average bull to cover the 40% or so that do not take. You will get most likely way better genetics that are proven from the A.I. bull and then with a good quality bull as clean up you will still do good.

But Surely those that pay around 10,000 as mentioned are doing it for an A.I. bull in that case it is a gamble but could have high payoffs in the end.

I could never see a commercial operator paying above 5,000.00 for a terminal bull and making money.