Differing viewpoints

[cowman]

I was at a farm sale yesterday for a couple of hours. I was talking to a guy and we were talking about the high price of feed. I said it sure was pricey to feed a cow this winter and I doubted if there was any profit in it. His answer was he fed his cows pretty cheap! He figured you can't charge the cost of bought feed to homegrown! Well I guess we just looked at it differently.
So I asked him what could he have sold his hay for? He figured $140/ton. So I said that is what it cost you for feed, but he said no way...all it cost him was the twine, fuel, and fertilizer as he owned his hay land and machinery!!!
At which point I gave up. This little conversation only reaffirmed my decision to get out of the cattle business, as you just can't win against people who use this kind of logic.

[ValueChainFX]

Funny how some producers just don't cost the real costs. I guess it is more comfortable to believe that you may be at least breaking even. But I would say that is the same thing as the old joke ... What do you mean we are out of money there are still plenty of cheques!!!

[Muttley]

I can see where he is coming from on his figuring the profit.
I myself allways figure my feed inputs to what I will get if I sold the feed.
If you could sell hay for 140.00 ton then that is what the cost of the feed was.
I only hope that hay will be reasonable next fall as I do not see a big hay crop coming here in my part of Sk.
I had a inch of rain last week on some land but nothing on some as well. It's not the first of June and I am still feeding grain to cows on pasture. I will be pulling some pastures in the near future if no more rain comes soon. What the heck do I do with the cows? I'm allready using next falls income to feed this spring!

[corine]

Cowman, I think either way is valid, as long as a)you use the same way of calculating your feed cost each year (which means if it costs you more to grow the feed than to buy it, you still use the same method of pricing) and b)when you use the cost of growing your own feed you must use return on investment on your land and equipment, and charge labour. Don't become too discouraged by what it costs to feed a cow this year, these things change from year to year and some years you even make money by feeding Bossy instead of selling the feed (I seem to remember)

[topper]

some producers like to use a low homegrown figure and some like to use inflated prices that maybe they could have got but probably wouldn't have, so quite likely the truth is somewhere in the middle.

[cowman]

I guess my problem is I hate to do anything for free. Now growing feed was a money maker last year but feeding cows was not. It's too bad the federal government took the 5 year average away some years ago. Now you are sort of stuck in a rut with no wiggle room.
About ten years ago my cousin decided if he was going to own cows they were going to pay their own way. So he plowed up his hayland and concentrated on grain. He had some old rough pasture land back in the hills so he needed to keep some cows. Bought all his feed, still baled up some straw and had one of those chaff savers. Said he never regretted it. Made more money doing it that way and wasn't stuck in the hayfield half the summer. Now I don't know how happy he is about his feed costs last winter.