Wintering cows with straw

[ALLFARMER]

Feed 7 months x 30 = 210 days x 1.40 = $294
for wintering. Compared to 7 bales x $50ea =
$350

[ALLFARMER]

Cattle ownership has been great in this rising
market. The $800 cows I bought I sold for $1250
The heifers I bought for 975 were worth 1700 last
winter now calved out $2150? Cattle charts
bullish again

[ASRG]

Allfarmer: Not trying to rip you here, but realize we are in a fairly sweet time right now in the cattle business?
That can change in a minute? When BSE hit, we went from better prices than now (real prices, adjusted to inflation) to prices that were a complete joke!

What might happen tomorrow if we got something like foot and mouth?

It is only prudent, in any business, to try to keep costs down while maintaining as much productivity as is economically feasible? Good times don't last forever and what we are experiencing right now is a typical cattle cycle?

Yes, use this time to expand responsibly.....but realize margins will narrow as we move along the cattle cycle?

If you can keep costs low in the good times it will allow you to build equity so you can weather the bad times.

[smcgrath76]

AllFarmer - Note that 200 days rolls off
the tongue, but 7 months is over 1/2 of
the year. There has to be a cheaper way
to knock at least a few days off of that
total. If you have cropland, have you
looked at a jones buncher, or chaff
piles?
I would struggle feeding that many days
if it was to a class of livestock that
is not growing (feeder calves). That is
a lot of work and $ when most of it is
going for cow maintenance. I know the
country is different around your area
than it is here, but I would think it
would be worth looking around for other
unique feeding options long term.

[ASRG]

I know a guy who lives in the general area Allfarmer is at who swaths grazes well into January. He does it a little different than most would here. Big swaths. He says even when covered with a couple of feet of snow he just plows along the edge of the swaths and the cows get right down and pull it out! When the snow goes they clean up what is left.

[grassfarmer]

I agree with the other posters Allfarmer you need a
sharper pencil. Picking figures out of the air to make
it work is all well and good but when reality hits you
will be working with a model that is unsustainable.
Maybe a better idea instead is to start designing a
model around the $500 weaned calf prices we had in
recent years. If you could make a system work at
those values then imagine how much more profit you
would be making now. Can't be done with cows fed
mechanically harvested feed for 200 days at
$1.39/day I can tell you that much.

[ALLFARMER]

I personally don't have grain land in this year but
help the neighbor's a bit who do. Using a
Buncher behind the combine is a great idea but
the no till farmers are not interested in that. Then
dont want the risk of a mess being left in their
fields.

As far as BSE goes, bse killed cow prices but it
didn't kill calf prices....that's why there still is a
cattle industry in this province. Ya I sold some
cheap calves, didn't make money on $500 heifers
but the calf market is why everyone didn't shut
the doors.

BSE was bad but you don't go forward looking
backwards constantly. Get past it.

[ASRG]

I might suggest if you don't learn from the past.....you just might repeat it again?
When...... ,not if, FMD hits Canada it will not be pretty?
$500 calves in 2003 didn't leave much money to buy the beans and bacon? How about today?

[gaucho]

Allfarmer... you have heifers not mature cows...Forget the straw rations... these are growing animals and Straw are maintenance rations. Cows are meant to graze and not be fed... Tops is 2.5% OF BW for intake, rarely a bale over 1000 lbs and lets not forget the transport, chop and haul part of the equation. You better learn how to operate a calculator and learn about how to maintain cash flow with all the shopping and building you have been doing around there. The cows tail can only pull you so far

[ALLFARMER]

Rarely a bale over 1000lbs?? Straw bales out of
a JD 530 baler weigh 1000 lbs. My JD 567 has
to be puttin out 1200lb bales.

With land now averaging 300,000 quarter I just
hit a net worth of well over a million so I've done
ok starting only 15 years agoe with nothing. Ya I
will say you've done better than I have Doc but I
hold my own.

B.S.E. Thats the initials to an x wife. Being
gentlemen we won't use her full name. Thankfully
were done with that piece of work! She's left and
that 7 some odd years are behind us. Be the
better person and forget er! Living with bad
memories is no way to live your life. Move on
move along on with bigger and better thing.

210,000 (more people day) x 30 (days month) x
7 months = 44,100,000 more potential beef
buyers! How did I do Doc that maths works?