is breeding heifers now a good thing??

[ivbinconned]

A good friend who has been feeding cows for 40 years sent me his thoughts about the "situation". (He has probably forgot more than I know, about the cattle business.)
Thought I'd share them.
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Here is a thought ..... "do not worry about cutting down your old cows, just stop saving heifers that turn into old cows, the old cows will die all by them selves" A lot of people are breeding 3-500 heifers and just rubbing there hands "if that border opens I'll make a million and the government will come up with a bail out if I am wrong" My opinion is that anybody that keeps more than 10-15% of there basic cow herd should not qualify for ANY help as they are the cause of the problem.
Anyone that wants to get the numbers down will slaughter as many replacements as possible for 2 years and the cow numbers will drop in half! Now if you think that this is wrong and want to take a chance on the border opening understand that you are bank rolling it yourself and I wish you luck. You have to remember that most people were running more cattle than they could handle before this BSE thing as it was the only commodity that was actually making money.
And that is all I know about that, as I see it!

[whiteface]

I kept 5% of my TOTAL heifer crop last fall for breeding this spring. Of that, another 1% have dropped off for various reasons, now I'm looking hard at this years heifer crop and really asking some tough questions as to what kind of market they have as breeding stock. I believe strongly also in what you've posted ivbinconned, I don't care to have endless cow numbers for all kinds of reasons these days...border, kids, expansion of embryo/semen markets and simply upping the quality of the breeding stock in general and yes, if the calves are worth more than the cows, my heifer crop may just go again this year.

[cswilson]

Well I breed alot of heifers every year cause I know if you don't you'll soon be out of cows-there's guys cashed in the last good calf years and never bred any-now stuck with a bunch of old crocks. Just looked and I only have 15 percent of my cows over 7 years old-if worse comes to worse I can always finish them after they calve. Its not a numbers problem it's a lack of kill capacity anyway.

[ivbinconned]

I understand your sentiments. I think my friend is warning us to think with are heads and not our heart.

[cswilson]

Thats exactly what I'm thinking with.