Breeding costs?

[ASRG]

How much does it cost a year to keep a bull? What should you pay for a commercial bull?
I understand the concept of you get what you pay for, but often wonder if all these EPDs are really all that accurate?
Back in the day when I was serious, I used a lot of AI. Quite often the clean up bull produced better calves than the AI bull, with all the numbers and blue ribbons!
If you pay $5000 for a bull and use him for four years (say 120 calves) and then sell him for $1600 he has cost $3400 for 120 calves....or $28.33/calf?
Add on the interest for 4 years (say 3.5%/yr) on $5k = $700 or $5.83 calf?
Then add in the cost of keeping him fed and healthy and seperated part of the year @$400/yr. =$1600 or $13.33/calf?
$47.49/calf?
The $2500 bull with the same costs above is $7.50 $1.05 $13.33 = 20.88?


So....the $5000 bull needs to make an extra $26.61/calf to return the same cost as the $2500 bull?
That very well be possible, or it might not. AI might be even cheaper if you do your own and put little value on your time?

[forage]

ASRG you have to much time on your hands. Good question with so many answers.

[15444]

So based on what I received for calves this fall, the calves off the pricier bull need to weigh 16 lbs more than the cheaper bull. Seems reasonable particularly when one bull has a weaning weight of 700 lbs and the other 540 lbs.

Not that I am advocating the purchased of high-priced bulls just because they cost more. Also not a fan of buying bulls to improve one trait. Neighbor just bought a $3k bull calf, with a 935 lb weaning weight for the purpose to increase yearling weights. That may be all he is good for? I want more of a package that is above-average on multiple traits.

Because EPD's are based on successive generations as well as the individual itself, good EPD's can disguise poor calves and poor EPD's can hold back exceptional ones. I want hard numbers.

[grassfarmer]

Yah! genetics - my favourite :O)
Lets be generous ASRG and say it costs $500 to keep
a bull for a year. So you have a weaned male calf
worth a generous $900. If you keep him for another
year and a half you have $1650 in him. If your bull
supplier can't sell 2 year old bulls for $2000 -$2500
they are spending too much money doing things to
them that will reduce their value to your operation.
i.e. feeding, more feeding, showing and BS'ing.
Seems plenty commercial buyers haven't figured that
out yet.
All this "genetic progress" the cattle industry claims
to have achieved in the last 20 years with faster
growing cattle, bigger cattle, leaner cattle, higher
yielding cattle, higher EPDs, better Igenity scores is all
BS. American research indicates that although we
have increased cattle size and growth rate in the last
20 years we have not improved efficiency one iota. In
other words yes, they are bigger but it costs a
corresponding increase in amount extra in feed to get
them there.
Most everyone is on the hunt for the "next great bull"
the exceptional one, the herd changer, the multi
thousand dollar bull which all points to the fact that
current breeding methods aren't very successful or
these great ones wouldn't be so rare.
When will we learn to be content with "average" cattle
that are reasonably good in every trait - but bred
consistently leading to less wastage throughout the
industry? That would really return better margins for
the commercial cattleman but it can only be
accomplished by close breeding, closed purebred
herds where the objective is to produce a stable
homozygous population of cattle. When you have that
you will have reduced variation in the cattle
something that EPDs don't reflect - they show a
predicted average not the range of variation. When
you get these close bred herds you can sell most of
your bulls as they are all of a similar standard. I know
guys that do this - take gate run of 200 bulls because
there is no significant difference between them and
charge $2500 for them. Good value for the seller and
the buyer. Only catch is it takes 20-30 years of
dedicated breeding to start building a herd like this
and most purebred herds average only 7 years in the
business. So the purebred industry remains largely a
superficial playground with some guys investing
outside money and playing rancher, some guys trying
to hit a one off high sale bull price, lots of guys
muddling along following the fashion of the day
using bulls that others reckon are "great" ones. Guys
turning Angus into Charolais and Charolais into
Angus, turning red breeds black and spotted breeds
solid color and the guys selling their FI steers as
bulls. And the commercial cowman that buys bulls at
inflated prices pays for this whole circus of nonsense.
Yep ASRG breeding costs are much higher than they
should be - how long until we figure out there is a
better way?

[gaucho]

Good summary GF.... I always chuckle about the guys selecting for feedlot efficiency when in fact that represents 400 lbs of the animal, whats about the 1st 900 plus lbs of gain ... industry talks about 6.5-7:1 conversion.... but what fails to mention that is live weight gain.... convert it to actual meat and the conversion is 16:1 plus.... the only feed source that could come close to justifying that kind of conversion is an animal that does it on its own through forages....hence what cattle should be selected under and not under 5 star hotel and dining concepts most purebred breeders operate under... Genetics should be produced and selected from under least cost least input systems... Most however are still under a paradigm that grain will go back to being cheap... I don't think so else agribusiness will have no farmers to sell new equipment, new see and no technology to

[ASRG]

I get out and about a bit doing my surface rights stuff and I can get a pretty good idea of who is raising what kind of cattle and how they take care of them. A good uniform bunch of cows with stout calves and no creep feeders or lick tanks in site always catches my attention! Cows out hustling in winter is always something I like to see.
A bull from that type of operation is what I want. I don't want him "greased".....I gave up buying fat a long time ago!

[GaryE]

GF..you might find this unsettling but I'm, agreeing with you again. That's the concept that ABC(Alberta Beef Composites)was built upon. Based on a seedstock herd cows that have to fend for themselves, 40 top bulls are kept as bulls and offered for sale the 3rd Thursday in March for a price of $2500. Bulls are fed to gain 3#/day on a screening/roughage ration. Ultasound has been used since 1997 and the rib-eye scan has improved from 1.09/100# to an average of 1.22/100# with some approaching 1.4 The breed make-up follows the preaching of Dr Roy Berg to maximize hybrid vigor.
Wishing all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

[grassfarmer]

Sounds like a bit of a mix of things Gary. Putting
environmental pressure on the cow herds lends itself
to selecting maternal replacements yet feeding for
3lbs/day gain and measuring for ribeye area is
selecting for terminal performance. I firmly believe
you shouldn't be selecting for both types within one
strain/breed of animals.
Not sure either where you are maximising the hybrid
vigour with a composite herd. To maximise efficiency
of beef production the hybrid vigour should be at it's
max in the slaughter generation not the seedstock
herd. Baldie cow bred Charolais would be a simple
example. To get best results in my opinion you would
cross prepotent line-bred Hereford and Angus cattle
to make the baldie then use line-bred Charolais on
the outcross. Trouble is not many guys think long
term enough to do all that breeding.
Your $2500 is not unreasonable but for a yearling it's
still plenty - then again growing them at 3lbs a day
isn't cheap and is a bit too rapid growth in my
opinion.

[smcgrath76]

Interesting. From a different
perspective, we rely heavily on EPD to
sort through the cattle, but we are not
looking for the biggest, fastest,
strongest and we are not trying to find
the game changer. Once we have our
choices narrowed down we also use
pedigree, conformation, appraisal of the
mother, etc. We are working on
consistency, maintaining our position
and tweaking. Thanks to the web I also
go back several generations and check
the numbers for consistency or strange
outliers.
We can pay quite a bit for a bull and
justify it here, but also if you use on
farm collection and AI, one bull can
breed a lot of cows.
I agree with GF on the F1 cow and
terminal bull, but the reality is that
it isn't going to happen on a large
scale for a lot of folks, and most
people aren't going to buy F1
replacements. The reality is that a
hybrid bull can provide a simple one
bull solution and retain nearly 85% of
potential hybrid vigour.
An interesting thing about EPD (and I
also agree that they express average,
not variation), is that if you have a
profile that works for you, you tend to
wind up back at the same genetics over
and over.
I also agree with GF somewhat about
being all things to all people, but I
agree with Gary that if you are careful
you don't have to give up everything and
can even gain a little on the carcass
side without giving up maternal
abilities, although obviously nowhere
near as rapidly or effectively as you
can with a terminal sire approach.

[GaryE]

As with ABC, it's a simple breeding program. The maternal strain is red with emphasis on those traits and the genetic make-up is primarily 50% British and 50% continental. We've listened to all the hype about buying thin bulls but in reality, no one buys them. Unless you want to keep them until two, you can't calve in April and sell yearling without a moderate rate of gain. Most purebred breeders are targeting 4.5#/day. Phenotypically they would be very similar to your Luing. The terminal strain is primarily Angus and black so multiple sires can be used in the pasture but calves are identified by color. There is always room for improvement but this has worked for us for 24 years.

[grassfarmer]

Sean I've read all the stories about hybrid bulls that
retain nearly 85% of potential hybrid vigour - I just
question the science. I bet when they figured out the
theoretic maximum of 100% they didn't cross two
unrelated, tightly bred lines exhibiting a fair bit of
inbred regression. If they had I suspect they may have
had 130% compared to your 85%.

Gary I didn't appreciate your program had a terminal
and maternal strain - that makes sense. Interesting
that you would have 50% continental in the maternal
strain but predominantly Angus in the terminal strain.
That's contra-logical to me but you certainly were
ahead of your time implementing this 24 years ago.
The Angus breed as a whole has definitely moved in
that terminal direction in this timespan.
I guess everyone has their own definition of condition
but we aim to grow bulls at 2.2lbs/day until they
reach maturity and they are never thin. They might
grow faster in summer and slower in winter but they
are never thin.
I would not use a bull that was grown to yearling size
at 3lbs a day. If you start testing them at 600lbs?
grow them at 3lbs/day for 200 to get a yearling
weight of 1200lbs I feel you get a body weight of
animal that has too much weight of flesh in relation
to muscle - particularly the muscles that he uses as a
bull. To be able to cover ground, breed cows and
fight other bulls in a multi-sire situation you are
handicapping him akin to turning a feedlot steer out
with mature bulls.
You are right that many buyers don't choose less fed
bulls but I see that as an education opportunity.
Anyone that comes here and says my bulls aren't big/
heavy enough for their age gets asked what size their
heifer replacements are. Most don't have their
yearling heifers weighing 12-1500lbs and two year
olds weighing a ton because it would cost them too
much and would be over developing them. So why do
they expect the bulls to be raised this way? The
resulting wastage this causes is a huge cost to the
commercial cattle producer but thus far most are
swayed by the "bigger is better" mentality.

[GaryE]

The biggest reason for using Angus as terminal is that many of our buyers also participate in the value added programs such as Prairie Angus or Spring Creek and although we just started this line 10 years ago, we find there are plenty of high performing Angus cattle. I can't claim the credit for using the crosses for the maternal as that was initiated in the late 70's both at Clay Center Nebraska with what is now called Stabilizer cattle and the Beefbooster model that was developed in southern Alberta by some very forward thinking ranchers

[grassfarmer]

That's when I start to worry about breeding programs
- when marketing supersedes breeding. This whole
"Angus beef" deal has been great marketing but it's
been bad for the cattle breeds in my opinion. With
the requirement being only for black hided cattle in
many programs this has diluted the genetic
consistency to the point the end product can only be
generic beef.
Is there a website for the ABC program? I confess I've
never heard of it although I'm familiar with the Clay
centre work as well as Beefbooster and their spinoff
CL super crosses.

Here are links to a couple of images which I hope will
come through for people.
http://plantandsoil.unl.edu/Image/siteImages/B73Mo
17,hybridPlantsLG.gif
This one shows corn plants with the two rows on the
left being the inbred parent stock lines and the one
on the right being a hybrid created by crossing the
two parents.
http://plantandsoil.unl.edu/Image/siteImages/B73Mo
17,hybridEarsLG.gif
This second image shows the cobs off the same
plants with the hybrid in the middle this time. I think
these demonstrate well how the best hybrids are
created in plant breeding. Yet in the cattle world most
either breed unrelated parent stock to each other or
they use hybrids as breeding stock. Why does nobody
follow the corn model and maximize hybrid vigor for
the commercial producer producing the feeder
calves/fat cattle?

[grassfarmer]

I guess the links don't work - try going to:

http://plantandsoil.unl.edu/pages/printinformationm
odule.php?idinformationmodule=1075412493

scroll down until you come to pictures 10a and 10b.

[GaryE]

Thanks for the comments...The best crosses for maintaining hybrid vigor yet control over the seedstock are phenotypically similar yet genetically diverse and those are hard to find within purebred programs. EPD's are great for single trait selection but poor at identifying optimum for a large number of traits.