Where are you? - Market Cycle of Emotions

[Aaron]

I have never experienced the later stages of your scenario, until recently. My place was built after hours so to speak. I always had retirement in mind, as the goal. Certainly not as a real source of income, I just always saw myself out enjoying my place, and my cows during those years. I'm starting to think, that 25 cows would be more enjoyable, than 150. There's no money in cows and calves at the moment. Zero times 25 is still zero, and zero times 150 is still zero.

Always money in cows. Problem is that most of North America has priced its land and lifestyle out of the cow biz and is evident by the number of producers working off the operation.

 

[WalnutCrest]

I have never experienced the later stages of your scenario, until recently. My place was built after hours so to speak. I always had retirement in mind, as the goal. Certainly not as a real source of income, I just always saw myself out enjoying my place, and my cows during those years. I'm starting to think, that 25 cows would be more enjoyable, than 150. There's no money in cows and calves at the moment. Zero times 25 is still zero, and zero times 150 is still zero.

Always money in cows. Problem is that most of North America has priced its land and lifestyle out of the cow biz and is evident by the number of producers working off the operation.

Around here in whitetail country, owners who can sell their land as "good hunting land" are getting easily 20-30% more (per acre) than ranchers who are marketing their property as pasture.

 

[angus9259]

A $100. a head is cheap to feed and house a cow for 6 months. And having a bull with nothing to do is a good thing this time of year I would think. Who in your area would want to carry late bred heifers and there calves through the winter? I'm thinking along the same lines as you two, but we don't have the winters y'all do and my heifers are all 4+ months bred and not going on leased ground in the spring.

Well, good question. If they were mine right here right now where I am with stuff, I would feed them my lowest grade dry cow hay to polish that off then give them some second cut hay (remember I have hay to burn so this may not apply to you) starting in Jan when they really start building that calf. Then I would try and sell them as pairs in the spring to someone getting spring fever. If they didn't sell as pairs, I would wean as soon as the spring grass dries up and sell the mommas for slaughter (unless I genetically needed to keep them). The one hope I would have in your situation is that early weaned cows late next spring will hit at least a seasonal uptick.

My thinking is that the calf would pay for the otherwise very cheap hay I have and I don't think I would lose too much money selling a bred cow now and getting basically slaughter value vs getting slaughter value late next spring when demand is up and supply might be coming down a tick.

But you are talking about kicking the bull in now or even later. If you feed then low quality hay how well do they breed up? How many opens do you have? Those will absolutely kill you in this market. Breeding then now means August-September calves. Is there a market for heifers calving then or those pairs in your area? There sure isn't that market here. If you hold then and wean the calves in the spring you have two winters into them. Cheap feed or not that is a lot of feed. And that second winter with a calf at there side you can't feed cheap or you will have dink calves and thin cows.

This chain is getting a little confusing. There are TWO sets of animals in question.

MY heifers are FALL heifers so they are about 15 months now (that's what started the topic). They should calve NEXT fall as 2 year olds so YES the bull is going in end of November. My heifers I'm breeding now will get good quality hay and will stay fit over the winter and "fatten" when spring grass comes in. So MY heifers will either be sold in the spring as fall calvers or sold as grass fed (probably not "finished" but very fleshy) beef in the summer.

True Grit was asking about his SPRING calving cows that are already bred. THOSE DRY COWS would get my cheap hay till they were in their third trimester - then better hay. After they calved in the spring I would try and sell them as pairs. If they didn't sell, I would wean and sell the open cows for beef.

Either way - each set of animals gets hay only this winter.

 

[True Grit Farms]

I have never experienced the later stages of your scenario, until recently. My place was built after hours so to speak. I always had retirement in mind, as the goal. Certainly not as a real source of income, I just always saw myself out enjoying my place, and my cows during those years. I'm starting to think, that 25 cows would be more enjoyable, than 150. There's no money in cows and calves at the moment. Zero times 25 is still zero, and zero times 150 is still zero.

Always money in cows. Problem is that most of North America has priced its land and lifestyle out of the cow biz and is evident by the number of producers working off the operation.

Around here in whitetail country, owners who can sell their land as "good hunting land" are getting easily 20-30% more (per acre) than ranchers who are marketing their property as pasture.

That's the only reason we don't clear this place off is because of the deer. There's more money in deer than cattle, but the BS isn't worth it to us. "The only thing worse than the deer, is the deer hunters" Jed.