What to buy or not?

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Anonymous

Sold some calves and wanted to increase our herd a little and wanted some thoughts. Would you buy young bred cows, bred heifers or what? Would you wait until fall and see if they get any cheaper. Seems that most young cows are in the $800 and up range. Just wanted to get some thoughts on this, wanted the most bang for my buck but want to improve the herd some too.
 
If I was using a $3000 bull I would go buy a $4500 bull and wait to buy cows when they get cheaper. In most places right now you can't buy a very good young cow for $800. If your a good bull buyer then you can only spend $1500 more and improve your calves drastically next year. If prices are cheaper then keep your heifers. If they are still high then you'll top the market.
 
I agree with Ollie. You can't go wrong by improving the quality of your bull. I guess it all depends on how big your operation is and how your set up. We only have about 50 cows. We started upgrading our bulls five years ago and keeping 5-10 heifers a year. That has worked well for us. I know alot of people don't like fooling with heifers though. Just my 2 cents. Good Luck!
 
i personally like to keep heifers that i raise, and if i buy outside i like to get cows with calves or springing cows.
 
A 2 in 1 or a 3 in 1 package is always better than a single heifer or cow. If the calves don't turn out ok then you always have one or two with the package to sell or use for freezer beef. If you didn't pay over $1000 for the cow, you get your money back and still have the cow to breed again or sell.
 
I agree with Campground Cattle. We're looking really hard at selling some of our older cows & replacement heifers that we've kept to get some of these good prices that are out there. Our thinking is to sell now while the prices are high, buy or keep replacements later when the prices fall off a little. Up grading your bulls isn't a bad idea either.
;-)
 
I don't care what anyone thinks.. I think the market is going to go down substantially in the not so distant future!

We're down to about half our herd in numbers right now, and we're fixin' to haul a small group of calves this week. I have a long memory.. I can remember the horror of '95 - '97.

We generally sell replacement heifers, either bred or open, and cull the bottom 10% of the herd. If I were buying cows to restock, I'd invest in 2nd calf, proven cows. But then, I'm talking about registered stock.
 

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