Why wean calves?

[Warren Allison]

In my area it's mostly small operators going to a small sale barn. Sort them off the cows this afternoon and haul to the sale barn next morning. They are through the ring by 3:00. No information follows them through the ring.
Fleshy or non black will get you $0.20-$0.40 deduct. Bull gets a $0.25- 0.35 deduct. Any chrome and you'll get less than $0.75.
I only wean the heifers I plan to keep.

Same here,. except bull calves and steers bring about the same. Occasionally a sale barn will have a special sale for conditioned calves, but they don't bring much more than the regular ones do. There are no "buyers" per se. No calves leave the sale and go to a feed yard or a processor. Most people here have 1-5 cows. A big operation may have 20 cows or so. The huge, mega ranches here may have 50 or more. The buyers of calves here...some of y'all call them penhooks... are traders who either take them to their place and condition them, or send them to a backgrounder who does it for them. When the prices are right and they have a load ready to go, THEN they send them to a feedlot. We try to wean at no older than 6 mos. 400-450lbs is the weight they bring the most per pound, with 500-550lbs being the next highest. Any pasture, any hay, or any feed that weaned calves would eat, is better used on more brood cows.

 

[gcreekrch]

I have been forward contracting my calves. When delivery date approaches I pull them off the cows, put them on feed and water overnight, weigh them first thing in the morning then load them on trucks. No shrink off the scale weight. There is no way weaning them would pay in this market.
Buyer delivers the scale right to the place and does any sorting he feels is required.

Who got them this year?

 

[gcreekrch]

Our little swamp rats were sold last February. Two months before they were born. Weaned off the cow and weighed 5 hours later after a truck haul. They averaged 458 lbs and $1337.50 per head. There is no dam way weaning them for 60 days would have come close to those dollars. Our heavy calves that fell outside the parameter were 563 and dollared at $1182.30

 

[gcreekrch]

I have always figured you would have to be paid 25 cents over what your calves were worth sold as off the cow to pay for all costs for preconditioning.

 

[Silver]

Who got them this year?

VJV made the deal and wrote the cheque, but I think maybe they ended up with the same fella that got yours.

 

[greybeard]

I always think of this article when I see someone mention penhookers:

"Penhooking."

---

"By Old Coddger

As I have been watching the comments and questions about pen hooking, I have seen no one else mention the "pen hookers" at the stockyards. (Thus my spelling PEN, as cattle in a pen). If you have never pulled up to a stockyard with some livestock on a truck and had several "pen hookers", jumping on your truck, making offers on what you had, asking what you would take, anything to close the deal before you unloaded and consigned your livestock to the market for sale. It was quite a show and a little scary for a kid from time to time as these guys would get quite loud trying to be the one that bought your stock..


All this reminds me of a story about one of these "pen hookers". Names of all parties will be withheld to protect the guilty. One of the local "pen hookers" was also a real estate and auctioneer with a booming business..

On the day in question a local farmer pulled up at the stock yard, driving his small flat bed truck, with no racks or side boards, as was very common in those days. Laying in the middle of the truck bed was a calf, that looked to weigh around 300 pounds, and was securely tied down to keep him from jumping off the truck. This was not uncommon in the late 1950's or early 60's.

The "hookers" swarmed the truck making their offers, all of which were about one-half the value of a calf of that size in that day and time. The farmer soon made a deal with the above mentioned gentleman. The "pen hooker" paid the farmer, in cash, and proceeds to tell him to back up to a certain gate, so that they could unload the calf into the stockyard. When the ropes were removed it was discovered that the calf was dead.

Well the "pen hooker" approached the farmer demanding his money back as the farmer knew the calf was dead. The farmer had only one comment: Mr. Xxxxxxx do you remember selling me a refrigerator (that was said to work by you), at auction a few weeks back that did not work? Your answer to me was "you bought it "as is", well you bought the calf "AS IS". I have now got my money back. Thank You."

Penhooking (Pinhooking): Commentary by Old Coddger on ColumbiaMagazine.com

www.columbiamagazine.com

 

[gcreekrch]

I always think of this article when I see someone mention penhookers:

"Penhooking."

---

"By Old Coddger

Penhooking (Pinhooking): Commentary by Old Coddger on ColumbiaMagazine.com

www.columbiamagazine.com

You mean like a guy named Warren?

 

[Lucky]

What would be an acceptable profit per head if you weaned and fed them for 100 days then turned out on grass for another 100 days? $100 after all cost $200?

 

[Silver]

I would consider that "backgrounding". Some years there appears to be good money in it, others not so much. I don't have an answer as to what would be an "acceptable" profit on backgrounders, I suppose if it's a profit and you are happy with it then it is acceptable.

 

[Lucky]

I would consider that "backgrounding". Some years there appears to be good money in it, others not so much. I don't have an answer as to what would be an "acceptable" profit on backgrounders, I suppose if it's a profit and you are happy with it then it is acceptable.

Would $200 do it? That would be about $12,000 per truck load. You could also say your making a $1 a day per head. If it takes 5-6 hrs a week to look after them that's pretty good money. Especially if their on the same place the mother cows are on just in another pasture.

I'm not saying that everyone should wean or background or even saying that it pays to do so. I just think that when Cattle raisers as a group pretty well say " there's just not enough money in cattle" it's important to know what is "enough". We know what are cost are so it's pretty easy to put a figure on what we think is a good profit. I do think it's important to figure things per head though.

I've got a friend that runs close to 400 hd. He quit doing spring vaccinations because he said it was just too expensive. I told him I thought it was well worth the cost and he got into how it cost him way more than it does someone with 50 hd. When I told him it was $10 a hd wether you had 1 or a million he didn't have anything else to say.

 

[Silver]

Would $200 do it? That would be about $12,000 per truck load. You could also say your making a $1 a day per head. If it takes 5-6 hrs a week to look after them that's pretty good money. Especially if their on the same place the mother cows are on just in another pasture.

I'm not saying that everyone should wean or background or even saying that it pays to do so. I just think that when Cattle raisers as a group pretty well say " there's just not enough money in cattle" it's important to know what is "enough". We know what are cost are so it's pretty easy to put a figure on what we think is a good profit. I do think it's important to figure things per head though.

I've got a friend that runs close to 400 hd. He quit doing spring vaccinations because he said it was just too expensive. I told him I thought it was well worth the cost and he got into how it cost him way more than it does someone with 50 hd. When I told him it was $10 a hd wether you had 1 or a million he didn't have anything else to say.

If I thought I could profit $200 backgrounding year in and year out I'd happily do it. Assuming I could put up the feed for them, which I couldn't most years. Or had the grass for them, which I also don't. So I'd have to reduce cow numbers and I have put pencil to this a few times and can't make it work. I like the idea though.

 

[Buck Randall]

I've got a friend that runs close to 400 hd. He quit doing spring vaccinations because he said it was just too expensive. I told him I thought it was well worth the cost and he got into how it cost him way more than it does someone with 50 hd. When I told him it was $10 a hd wether you had 1 or a million he didn't have anything else to say.

If anything, it's cheaper when you have a lot of cattle. Big buyers don't pay retail price for vaccine.

 

[Brute 23]

Would $200 do it? That would be about $12,000 per truck load. You could also say your making a $1 a day per head. If it takes 5-6 hrs a week to look after them that's pretty good money. Especially if their on the same place the mother cows are on just in another pasture.

I'm not saying that everyone should wean or background or even saying that it pays to do so. I just think that when Cattle raisers as a group pretty well say " there's just not enough money in cattle" it's important to know what is "enough". We know what are cost are so it's pretty easy to put a figure on what we think is a good profit. I do think it's important to figure things per head though.

I've got a friend that runs close to 400 hd. He quit doing spring vaccinations because he said it was just too expensive. I told him I thought it was well worth the cost and he got into how it cost him way more than it does someone with 50 hd. When I told him it was $10 a hd wether you had 1 or a million he didn't have anything else to say.

Labor? Most people can work 50hd by themselves and not factor in their labor. He may be bringing in day workers on the 400.

 

[Lucky]

Labor? Most people can work 50hd by themselves and not factor in their labor. He may be bringing in day workers on the 400.

There might be some extra labor cost involved but the point is this. If one guy has 50 and another 400 the cost are all relative. The guy with 400 has 8x the cost but also has 8x the income.

 

[Brute 23]

There might be some extra labor cost involved but the point is this. If one guy has 50 and another 400 the cost are all relative. The guy with 400 has 8x the cost but also has 8x the income.

I agree. It's like when some one says... you have more cows so you make more money... same thing. When some one says more money I think more per unit no matter if it's per head, hour, day, or job, etc and that's not always the case, especially with cattle.

 

[Brute 23]

That has been a point of discussion between the boss and I the last couple of years. We started out trying to get our number up and be full on, stocked up cattle. Although the gross looked good it was debatable if the juice was worth the squeeze. Being that we both enjoy cattle we have gone to trying to find a sweet spot on these properties. Keep them in plenty of grass, keep the labor down, and try to get as consistent from an expense stand point as possible. From there we are just riding the market.

 

[Lucky]

Sometimes more can be less when it comes to cattle. When I had a lease place and another 50 cows I noticed things started slipping. I couldn't handle keeping up with both places. Admittedly both places were pretty rough and bringing in new cows didn't help much. I ended up spending more in per head feed cost and was burning up the road. I liked having both places but it wasn't very efficient. Calving season was probably the worst part. I did that for about 3 yrs until I was able to buy a neighbors place and move most of the cows home and let the lease go. If I was to lease land again or expand more it'd have to be really close to home or enough to hire a full or part time helper. I also buy all my hay and feed so we can concentrate on doing other improvements that I feel save me more than the hay/feed savings. Land prices have gotten so high now I think you might be better off investing in what you already have to run more cattle also.

 

[cowgirl8]

One thing i know is the regular small time rancher cant compete with a feed lot... no way you can feed out a calf money wise like a feed lot..

 

[BC]

This was in today's Ag Report a daily commentary on the beef industry. http://agcenter.com/newcattlereport.aspx

"The spreads between weaned and unweaned calves seems to widen every year. Temperatures in October on the southern plains can frequently vary from lows in the 40s and 50s to highs in the 90s. This presents a high risk environment for weaner calves and death loss risks are high. Combine temperature changes with dust from dry weather and you have a volatile mix. Medicine is expensive and labor is scarce. The end result is the sale of many calves weighing 350# to 550# of the same weight and quality at prices that are $50 cwt. apart."

 

[GoWyo]

I don't try to compete with the feedlot. I put them in the feedlot at the neighbors. They can feed them better and faster than I can and I don't have to haul in feed. Just go check them every week or two. I'm kinda slow, but I figured out I get charged by the head pro rata on the pen, so smaller cattle and ones that don't gain fast are paying for more than they eat. Only going to feed the top end of my steers. Odds and ends and heifers that aren't replacements are going to the sale barn in a couple weeks.