Bull sale logic?

[grassfarmer]

I said "breed OR buy heifer replacements" guys, great herds are certainly built on strong cow families. My own preference has always been to breed my own replacements using the best females in the herd with the remainder crossed to the best type of terminal sire I could source.
rsomer, it looks as if plenty guys round here are practising your advice already. Many of these home reared bulls wouldn't even have made a good steer!

[cowman]

I can definitely see the logic of buying F1 females and then breeding everything terminal. It is a struggle to crossbreed and get a large enough selection of desirable females, while still getting the advantage of the terminal sire? I have always found that a problem.
rsomer: Consider that there are commercial cows out there that would knock the socks off just about every purebred cow in the country. In fact we all have cows in our herds that are probably as productive as the average/or better of most purebred herds. You know the cow...always brings in a big calf at the same time no matter how rough the feed, never has foot,eye,udder problems, is quiet and has brains enough to take care of her calf?
We have probably no clue how that purebred was raised? Babied and coddled all her life perhaps? We know how our cattle are produced?
Take that top home raised cow and breed her to a "proven" top bull and the chances are you will get the kind of calf(especially heifer) that will work for you. Consider when you buy seed grain? You go and buy certified top seed. We'll say barley...say $8.50/bu.? You get a wonderful crop so you keep some for next years seed? Get it cleaned and treated and tested. Voila! You have $8.50 seed for $3!
Take 10 top cows out of your herd. AI them to the top "proven" bulls you can find(for whatever traits you desire). Say you get 8 calves, 4 of them bulls. Keep the best two for bulls. What has it cost you? $40/cow for the AI? A couple of hundred to get them to the yearling stage? So you have a top yearling bull for say $800-$900? If your bull calf was worth $700 in the fall of the year he was born and you use him three years how much has it cost you? You sell him as a 3 year old(after breeding) at say 66 cents a pound(we're going non-BSE here)and he weighs 2000 you get $1320! So you have a profit of $420-$520 over what he was worth as a calf! Maitenance costs are in reality the cost of breeding your cows. So say we allow $350/year for a total of $850 over 3 years(you only feed him 2 winters). He sires 75 calves. You deduct your profit from the $850 and those 75 calves cost you about $5 in breeding expense?
Now take the $3000 yearling! His maitenance is cheaper because you cut out the $200 first winter, so say $650? You sell him at $1320 so total cost was $3650-$1320= $2330! Then divide by 75 calves and your breeding costs are $31/cow! $25 dollars per cow in extra profit looks pretty good I would think? Now this isn't for everyone. Many people wouldn't want to be bothered with the effort or inconvenience and that is okay. There is no right way or wrong way to do this business, just what works for you?

[rsomer]

Grassfarmer: you said "Many of these home reared bulls wouldn't even have made a good steer!" Many of the bulls selling this spring at bull sales would not have made a good steer either.
Cowman, I agree with your comments and would underline your point that what people are paying good money for at the spring bull sales are not proven bulls. The best way to get proven bulls is to AI, as you pointed out. Many commercial producers have cattle that are every bit as good as the purebred herds and they are every bit as capable of producing a quality bull for use in their own herd thereby saving thousands of dollars. Many herds can produce one or two truly superior bull calves, the problem is the bull shippers who are peddling 50% to 75% of their male calve crop as unproven bulls and telling people they are getting superior genetics. That is just pure BS. The top one or two calves might have superior genetics but the rest are just run of the mill calves who have been over fed. They should have been steers.

[grassfarmer]

I agree with much of that rsomer, there are far too many people in the purebred business here who will be selling big strings of poor bulls this spring.
I am amazed to find that in Alberta there are people who only have purebred cattle and have never run a commercial cattle operation or sold cross bred calves. In the UK purebreeding is the very pinnacle of cattle breeding and unless you have excelled in commercial cattle production before starting with purebreds you would struggle to be taken seriously.
As I have been arguing all along with these threads this spring is THE time to be ensuring you get the very top genetics from the best herds with the highest selection ratios. Rawes sale sold 68 bulls out of a 400 cow herd that has been culled back from over 500 cows due to drought - that's close to 25% bulls reared.

[grassfarmer]

Is nobody out there going to defend the purebred guy? Early along in this BSE crisis the packers lost some money. They got it back, and then some, from the feedlots and the government via the feedlot. The feedlots are obviously out to get some of there losses back from the backgrounder and the cow calf guys. What you guys keep suggesting is that the cow calf guy get some of his back by avoiding buying, or running down the practices of purebred bull suppliers like myself. Come on guys, we have been hurt as bad as the rest, don't use this BSE BS to find faults in the purebred industry in Canada. It is, and always will be, an integral part of our wonderful beef industry. All of the percentages and numbers you have been coming up with could be challenged by any number of purebred men. Who says that A.I. bulls are best.Who says that one breeder doesn't have 70% top producing cows in his herd compared to 20% in the next guys.
Who says the the Bloody Brits are better cattlemen than Canadian!!
Some people will never appreciate the extra time and effort put in to raising purebred bulls, and would rather call it pampering or whatever. Most of us rather look at it as a challenge to be the best. To eliminate the poor qualities and seek to express the best. Fertility, functional structure, and carcass quality that in the end satisfies not only our bull buyers but our wonderful Canadian consumer as well.
We have a commercial herd as well as our purebreds, and finish our crossbreds and our cull purebreds for a niche natural market in Alberta.
There are, believe it or not, other breeders like ourselves that know the ins and outs of all aspects of the beef industry, and work hard to produce the kind of bulls that fit.

[grassfarmer]

rpkaiser I didn't mean to cause offense - of course Canada, and Alberta in general, has an excellent purebred sector. The best herds here will stand comparison with any in the world. Rawes are in my opinion in that world league with their Charolais herd. The best herds in Canada are probably better than the best in Britain - that is why the UK is sourcing genetics in Western Canada constantly ...BUT there are in my opinion many herds here of a poorer standard than would survive in the UK mainly in the hands of inexperienced amateurs.

[Bruce14]

Good post rpkaiser. If you visit some of these sites much you must know that in many instances it is basically a high-tech coffee shop. This seems to be a continuance of the earlier thread of Bull Sale Prices but a few new things come to mind.

There have been numerous and mostly negative posts about politicians (especially Ralph and Shirley), packers, CCA and other industry groups and leaders, and whatever else, and the attention is now directed again at the purebred breeders. So why not just take a wide brush, paint all of them with it and throw them to the wolves as well? Those nasty, nasty purebred breeders! How dare some of them have a decent sale? What's wrong with those people buying those bulls?

There are some excellent purebred operations out there and our family works hard at trying to be one of them. We cull hard and stand behind our product. Its rewarding to see breeders who attract business from some of the top commercial outfits in the country year after year. Many of them are repeat buyers and they just keep coming back to do their business knowing full well that saving a grand or two this year by using his or his neighbors home raised "bull" MAY save in the short term but will cost somewhere down the road. I wonder if that neighbor will spend $50 on a semen test let alone stand behind his $900 bull and be there with a replacement the day after a problem arises just to make sure their cows get bred.

We have customers that don't even pick their bulls out. We do it for them with a satisfaction guarantee. Are they hurting this year? You bet! We all are but we do what we can to help them out with volume discounts, financing, delivery, advice, lining up buyers for replacement females (yes there still are some people buying those as well) or ANYTHING we can do to help them get through this. The only thing we try not to give them is the negative attitude and gloom and doom that many seem so willing to share.

As far as the A.I suggestion. Sure it works for some and if it works great. No corrals to repair. We probably do more than most but we don't put all our eggs in one basket. There are some pretty darn good Herdsires that get turned out once seeding starts and year after year our most consistent calves still come out of our walking bulls.

Where are many mixed farm operations at seeding time? Out in the field not heat detecting or standing behind a squeeze with an arm up a cows butt twice a day. We sure don't need any purebred breeders according to some but I wonder where those bulls pictured in that A.I. catalogue came from? Who do you think raised them?

One last thought. If the packers remain with the control they have and ever identify the genetics they require to produce the consistent quality product they demand, they will be in the drivers seat. Not only will calves be discounted severely because they are out of some unidentified genepool like the neighbors favorite unknown cow, you may be forced to play the game by their rules and buy THEIR genetics from them.
Would you rather have a few hundred sources of bulls or TWO? If you think it can't happen then just take good look at the hog and poultry industries.

Our family has been in the beef business for over 70 years and have had purebreds for close to 30. Like many, we have enjoyed successes and also made mistakes that we have learned a lot from. We also realize that like any other business if you give up and quit planning for the future you might as well move on to something else.

[cowman]

Some how or other I seem to have gotten this idea across that I am dead against the purebred guy. That is not the case at all. I'm just saying everyone has to decide what works best for them.
I suspect the day is coming when the purebred industry will be largely gone just like in the hog industry. The day will come when the "product" will be standardized? That is just how it is!
While I can sympathize with the people who chose this way of life,if it is coming to an end, I don't feel it is my "duty" to do what doesn't work for me.
People raise cattle for a variety of reasons and quite frankly not always for what puts the most money in their pocket! Which is definitely their right!
I remember clearly telling my old Dad that he should breed his cows Char because he could make a lot more money. His answer(and one I never forgot)"Where the hell did you ever get the idea I want to make more money?" I was flabbergasted that anyone would think that way, but have come to realize that that is a really common opinion, although not usually voiced quite that way.
As I've stated before Hereford bulls literally paid for everything I own, but that was the past, this is now.

[smcgrath76]

To further confuse the issue with some technical and not so technical info...

As with anything there are some good and some poor purebred breeders, and some good and some poor commercial producers. Finding a quality program that you can work with for your seedstock needs is key to improving your herd (pure or commercial), even if this means that you keep bulls you raise at home, or deal strictly with an AI company. I am becoming more of the belief each day that if you can source a good seedstock supplier as a commercial producer that you need to spend little time worrying about your next bull, how he was raised and if he will work for you. In theory you give the criteria you need and it is your supplier's job to fill it. Not sure I want to broach the subject of what is a good seedstock supplier.

The heifer comment about raised versus bought... there is an environmental effect on gene expression that does provide an advantage to heifers raised in the same environment that they enter production in. Additionally, don't forget that commercial hybrid cows have all the benefits of hybrid vigour. This mostly affects hard to improve traits like fertility, disease resistance and longevity, and it also gives a boost to growth.

Interesting thread anyway.

[redcountry]

we have bought bulls from the same breeder for the last ten years, he called and asked if I was needing a bull? he had a left over two year old .
We realy couldnt afford another right now but he offered the bull at meat price.
$800. for a reg. pure bred, said if anybody was going to get a bargin it should be a friend.
I feel with friends like that we will make out just fine.

[cswilson]

This is an ageless debate-home raised versus purchased breeding stock-we sell all our production as finished cattle on a quality grid so poor genetic decisions would show up quite quickly.About 70 percent of our calves are A.I. sired the remainder are from mostly homeraised bulls-we but maybe one outside bull every year or so-basically if I see one I think I need I buy him-partner up or whatever toget him bought. The main advantage I see over our homeraised bulls is longevity-they are raised from proven cows that I know work for us. How does a coe get proven at our place-she calves on grass unobserved-she breeds back-her steers hang a prime-yield grade 1 carcass. Right now we are running 6 of our own bulls-they are all sons of two cows. I guess the main thing in buying bulls is to buy them from an outfit who manages his cattle similar to the way you do. We also sell grasstested bulls in fact was due to lkeave for Wyoming with a load on 5/20 so the closing has affected us in alot of ways. I always say there are three types of purebred breeders-1) jerks with good cattle.2) good guys with poor cattle. 3)good guys with good cattle. Hopefully we all run into more number threes .