Have been considering breeding some heifers this year and want a yearling Angus. My "bull guy" has put his prices up a bit ($2500) two years ago $2000. Understandable for sure with higher prices, but only want to breed 15 heifers. Thought about digging out the nitrogen tank...but think I'm too lazy....guess I'll probably buy the bull.
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Bulls are fairly pricey this year?
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If the bulls are of good quality that is a
VERY inexpensive bull at $2500. A lot of
sales have floored out well above that
around here.
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Come on now ASRG......$2500 is cheap! Feb of 2009 a 600lb steer brought $702 and this year a 600lber is bringing $1050....so in 09 it took 2.8 calves to pay for a bull......in 2012 it will only take 2.4 calves to pay for a bull, plus your salvage price this year is probably more than half the cost, whereas in 09 it would have been likely in the 40% mark....or is your comment "tongue in cheek"......
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perfecho - the other way to look at it is
that sometimes you get what you pay for
and $2500 can be a VERY VERY expensive
bull...
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ASRG spend some that cash you have in the cookie jar. I sold two 2500 mature bulls at .95 and .97 cents a LB.
At these prices you can afford a heifer bull. Bred heifers prices are getting way out of economic sense to buy unless you bought earlier so it is better to raise your own and know what history is behind the mother.
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Well I'm calling bull@#$% on this one as its a pet peeve of mine. The underlying implication that $ sale value is somehow closely related to genetic value is the first error. Yes, Sean a $2500 bull may be very expensive but still half the price of the $5000 that breeds equally poorly. It sounds like the Kit Pharo Koolaid - preaching how everything must be "low cost" if you are to survive in ranching yet when it comes to buying his bulls they all need to be $5-6000. Marketing bull@#$% pure and simple.
We raise bulls on an all forage program because we know that they will last that way. We sell two year olds for <$2500 and still bank $450 net more than we did for their commercial fat cattle brothers and sisters that we retailed last fall. Our grass fats, direct marketed, are still well ahead of commodity cattle returns.
This is nothing other than purebred industry greed. If you can't sell a yearling bull for $2000 what are you spending all the money on? Likely excess feeding that will shorten his life, bull#$%@ marketing to promote him, buying overpriced bulls from others in the same purebred bull@#$% circus. Truth is most "purebreds" are so outcrossed and with such high levels of heterosis that commercial buyers would be ahead leaving the nuts on a couple of their $700 steers and breeding their own bulls that way. If it's all about "how much can I charge for my bulls and get away with it" how much better are you than the packers that everybody condemns for gouging?
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Still a big proponent of free enterprise myself; with an auction ring deciding the price of my bulls.
April 14th Olds College Olds Alberta. Come on out and tell me if I am using bullshit marketing with a wave of your hand or your ass sitting on it...LOL
We also keep our inputs down, but pay the costs for DNA, Ultrasound and Linear measurement testing that not many other bull suppliers do. Should we limit ourselves to making $400.00 over market steer prices for years of genetic selection and management? Gotta be some middle ground in this debate somewhere.
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GF - While I agree with you that $
doesn't always equal quality I disagree
with your logic. "If you can't sell a
bull for $2000 what are you doing" I
would argue if you can't sell a calf for
$400 what are you doing? If you are
getting more than that then great, but
why should you take $400 if you can get
more...
What proof is there that a bull is
better? What information and background
do you want when you buy a bull? That
his BW was less than 80 pounds? That he
weighed a lot at weaning? We ask a lot
of our bull suppliers, they deliver what
we want and I don't begrudge paying for
it.
I see a lot of bulls flogged out at
various price ranges (some really
expensive and some really cheap) and I
see bulls that come from breeding
programs and there is a big difference.
A documented, high quality breeding
program is a lot of work, so why would
you work for the lowest price point?
We demand EPD, pedigree documentation,
ultrasound, structural soundness,
breeding soundness, etc. in our bulls.
I believe that is a tall order for $2000
or $2500.
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Short answer to "why?" Sean is because I do it for the love of the cattle, producing better ones, more consistantly and not being driven by ones which attract the highest monetary compensation.
How good is the proof you are buying? I know that some of the highest $ bulls selling in Calgary today come from herds that routinely falsify their birthweights and tolerate cows with udders and feet so bad I'd cull them from my commercial herd.
A lot of the guys selling outcrossed bulls and crossbred bulls it doesn't really matter what the bulls figures and statistics are they have damn little chance of reproducing it in their offspring because there is no predictability to pass on.
Each to their own but this is a prime case of where commercial cattle producers squander money and it doesn't square with being an "efficient, low cost rancher" in my book.
I've always had the view that cows are cows and if you can't burn the papers and make them pencil selling them by the pound they are probably not worth their "purebred" status.
The problem with 90% of the purebred sector in my opinion is they are so money driven, it's all about marketing and not about breeding.
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Why would I sell a bull for $2000 when I can make that in butchering him, at least in the current market place.
People who market $2000 bulls do not have the market corned on honesty and integrity.
I have done well on lower priced bulls at times, however if a bull is what I want for my program, I will pay.
What people will pay is the true value.
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I think the long lived programs, built
on repeat buyers demonstrate value. I
think there are also a lot of programs
built on hype and not substance, but I
don't think you should penalize others
for commanding good $ from the
commercial industry.
As for the folks that are dishonest or
have poor cattle, they are not in it for
the long haul unless they find new
customers every year, no matter what the
price they sell for.
I believe in numbers but the most
important aspect of a good bull is who
you are buying it from.
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"What people will pay is the true value"
The true monetary value within a system largely based on marketing maybe - but certainly not the true genetic value.
"People who market $2000 bulls do not have the market corned on honesty and integrity."
True enough - but they usually have less at stake. A lot of the purebred guys buying high priced genetics as seedstock have the "too big to fail" attitude. When that $7000 show winning heifer turns out to be a disapointing speciman they still ship her off to the ET place to flush her and sell offspring off "the $7000 heifer" to recoup some of their cost. That does the industry a lot of harm.
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