Piedmontese, I kept 5 bulls with the hope that i might get back in. These were bulls that I knew had a lotta hustle in them. I have sold one bull to a fella wanting old time Limousin gentics, will probably sell the rest shortly, unless we have a dramtic change in pricing. Buy low and sell high, works in real estate and it works in cattle.
Knersie, as for reason for selling the herd it was a perfect storm, namely Hurricane Ike. I like some of you ,I have land that I own and land that I lease. The lease land was on the coast. We had patched up many of the fences we lost in 2005 to Hurricane Rita both on the lease land and here at home. My land here at home is surrounded by subdivisions, so as any of you that get to deal with all these homeowners know they dont want to have nothing to do with repair our common fences. Most of these lease land the owners also didnt think they had an responsibility towards repairing fence...It was all MINE to take care of . So we patched some and some I went to electric fencing on.
So it was a little hiccup in life and on we went...Then Hurricane Ike came roaring ashore.. I was lucky in that I had not yet moved my spring calving group of cows to the coast. Otherwise I would have been really torn a new one..like many of my friends along the coast were... Let me say at this time .. Thankyou to all you that sent hay, fencing materials, money, and some of you even your time... You helped a lot of folks that needed it and were not about to ask for a dime...Thankyou again...most all of the land I had leased along the marsh got about 2 to 6 foot of saltwater and the fences were wiped out. That took care of my leasing days....it will be years or maybe a decade before those pastures will be productive again....
That spring I had purchased a large amout of hay, about 5 times more than I normally used. It was good hay and I got it dirt cheap. So I hayed all winter long and into the spring. I had decided that I was going to sell my fall calving herd and stick to the spring calving herd. Then the drought of 09 hit here in Texas, I was lucky in that we were getting rain, but ever bale of hay was going outa here as fast as they could put em on a 18 wheeler... That was the final straw, because I was not going to pay $60 a roll for 4x5 bales of hay that would only test out at 8% protein at best. So I fed out all of the hay, except some I kept for the bulls and the old cow in the pictures