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What to do with open cows?
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<blockquote data-quote="Dave" data-source="post: 920046" data-attributes="member: 498"><p>This board has too much generalization. Always has had. That and too much "this is what I would do" when giving advise clear across the country. There is without a doubt more money in selling directly to consumers by the 1/2 or whole. But he is talking 173 cows. To sell that many calves to consumers it would literally be one every other day. Good luck with that. Not impossible but you would have to be a full time marketer. If he running a cow/calf operation that is selling calves coming off the cow and that is his business plan, there is no doubt that the ability to sell uniform pot loads will make you more money. </p><p></p><p>His original question was about breeding and selling as short breds. My answer was how much are they worth today? I don't know this because I have never seen the cattle or know his local market. Next I said how much would it cost to get then to a sellable point as short breds. Again a question that he would have to answer. How much feed does he have? What condition are the cows in today? And then what are short breds worth in his market? All of those are things that he would need to be able to answer before making a decision. None of us can make that decision sitting at a computer miles away.</p><p></p><p>And in my mind they aren't perfectly good cows. Because they are open cows. Fertility is one of, if not the most important trait in a beef cow. Odds are that those cows that didn't breed the first time wont jump right into a 10 1/2 month schedule. Some might but most probably wont. But even the ones that did it would take 4 years to get them to a fall calving schedule. There is an old saying in cow/calf operations that certainly applies here. "If they aren't bred, you're dead." If a cow isn't going to raise a calf on schedule she is just a pit to throw money into.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Dave, post: 920046, member: 498"] This board has too much generalization. Always has had. That and too much "this is what I would do" when giving advise clear across the country. There is without a doubt more money in selling directly to consumers by the 1/2 or whole. But he is talking 173 cows. To sell that many calves to consumers it would literally be one every other day. Good luck with that. Not impossible but you would have to be a full time marketer. If he running a cow/calf operation that is selling calves coming off the cow and that is his business plan, there is no doubt that the ability to sell uniform pot loads will make you more money. His original question was about breeding and selling as short breds. My answer was how much are they worth today? I don't know this because I have never seen the cattle or know his local market. Next I said how much would it cost to get then to a sellable point as short breds. Again a question that he would have to answer. How much feed does he have? What condition are the cows in today? And then what are short breds worth in his market? All of those are things that he would need to be able to answer before making a decision. None of us can make that decision sitting at a computer miles away. And in my mind they aren't perfectly good cows. Because they are open cows. Fertility is one of, if not the most important trait in a beef cow. Odds are that those cows that didn't breed the first time wont jump right into a 10 1/2 month schedule. Some might but most probably wont. But even the ones that did it would take 4 years to get them to a fall calving schedule. There is an old saying in cow/calf operations that certainly applies here. "If they aren't bred, you're dead." If a cow isn't going to raise a calf on schedule she is just a pit to throw money into. [/QUOTE]
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