Trying something new

[grassfarmer]

Grassfarmer what is the difference between buying calves and keeping them for a year and hoping you make a profit above your expenses vs keeping a cow for a year and selling a calf for hopefully more than your expense of raising it? Unless your cows, land, and equipment is all paid for and free labor is available there is definitely a "break even price" on those calves which the market may or may not pay.

Just curious since most guys around here have no idea on their cost of raising a calf. They gauge success on if they got a higher price than last year.

I've always found it easier to make money with cows than any of the "add on operations" like backgrounding or fattening as you are producing #s of new cattle each year rather than just trying to take a margin off cattle that already exist. Saying that we market unconventionally in that we set the price on most of the cattle we sell. By setting the price we want on breeding bulls, breeding females and grass fat cattle it leaves us with only a proportion of our calf crop entering the lottery of the commodity auction ring.