Z&J Cattle
Well-known member
So, here is my situation. I will provide as much information as possible, some of it probably even irrelavant, but I am really puzzled here and seeking some insight. I sold 12 Angus/AngusX heifers today that when I bought them weighed an average of 510# ( I even went back and checked the salebarn ticket to be positive). I bought them 150 days ago, brought them home, doctored any snotty noses/etc.... gave them two rounds of black leg and two rounds of triangle 4, and dewormed them. They were grazing stockpiled fescue pasture and were given good quality bermuda/fescue hay from a very nice hay field nearby that is well taken care of/fertilized, etc.... The hay was provided free choice all winter and of course they ate it more when the weather was bad and grazed the stockpiled grass when it was mild. They were give a supplement of 4#/hd. per day of a feed mix that is right around 15% protein and it runs 12-15% fat content. They also had good, free choice mineral at all times. I tried to be selective when I bought them and buy good quality animals. I feel that I have a decent eye, although I am far from an expert. Now for the bad part. I will tell you their average weight today (150 days later). It was 555# for an average gain of 45#/hd. That's .3# ADG. What happened? I am totally at a loss. I thought that it seemed like they may not be gaining at a rapid rate, but being that I see them twice a day everyday, I just thought that maybe it was hard for me to tell. I feel like I did everything as close to the correct way as possible, but obvioulsy something is amiss to say the least. Her is another interesting bit of information. I sat in the barn watching calves sell for 4.5 hours waiting on mine and paid extremely close attention to heifers that size. Mine brought as much if not more than any group of heifers of the same size/color/type/etc..... The ringman, who also owns the barn, even commented to me how good the calves looked. I can't complain at all about they price per pound. They just didn't gain. Any insight on this would be greatly appreciated. One last question. In hindsight, given their terrible gain rate, couldn't they probably have done just as well without the $500 worth of feed that I put into them? The bottom line is that financially, I broke even. And I mean EVEN. I did not make one penny on them, but thankfully I did not lose. The bad part is that I sold them for $10.00cwt more than what I bought them for and if they had gained properly, I would have done very well. Oh well. I am all ears.