Did I make any money?

[cowman]

Sold a good portion of my yearlings last week. Heifers weighed in at 976 lbs. at 88 cents. for a grand total of $858 and change each.(no sales costs taken off)
Now last fall I sold their brothers for $1.12 at 680 lbs. for at total of $762.
I always figure the heifers average around 40 lbs. lighter as calves and 15 cents less so lets say in the fall they were worth 640 X .97 = $621?
My costs: Very subjective but heres how I see it. 14 lbs/day of hay for 166 days(left them on the mommas until Nov. 15...out on old grass May 1). Valued the hay at 3.5 cents/lb.=.49 cents a day. Probably in the neighborhood of 20 lbs. of straw per day...eat and bed? Value that at 1 cent a lb. as it was my own. Good straw, two row and chaff saver baled right behind the combine.
So a total of .69/day X 166 = $114.59 in feed. Fed in a corral with a shed,no lights, a wood fired water tank, used a pitch fork!!
Now in addition I had an interest cost on these cattle. Not because I owed any money but because I expect a return on my money! So I pegged that at 5% on $621 plus the $114.59 and it came to $36.80?
For a grand total cost to me of $735.59?
So if I pay myself nothing for labor, and I have no death loss(I didn't) and I have no vet costs(I didn't) and I pay myself absolutely nothing for risk or yardage, then I guess I made $122.47/animal!
Of course you realize that in the real world you don't get away with this sort of "liberal" figures? In the real world I actually probably lost money...but then farmers haven't been in the real world for a long time?

[blackjack]

...hey cowman...don't spend all that profit in one place...lol...forgot to mention your price on grass...

[ALICIA]

Farmers don't work hard enought to make a wage.

[cowman]

I must be slipping....of course you are right blackjack! I forgot the grass...and the salt/mineral...and a sot of eight-way...and a couple of extra tags!
If I figure the grass at 65 cents a day X 147 days it comes to $95.55! Add a couple of bucks for salt/min and 50 cents for the 8-way and were into that $98 range? So I guess my profit per animal was like $24? Hmmm $24 X 38 heifers= $912! Guess I'll blow it all on luxeries like maybe getting the fuel tank filled up! Why I just might have enough deisel to get the darned corrals cleaned!

[cowman]

Well i farmedlike that for all my
life raised 5 kid,s the hard working
wife and i
that,s nice way off living and happy
we have the kid,s all married and around
us here.came from holland as poor immegrant we love alberta
thank you canada for paying my boat-trip
the best place to raise the family
be happy don,t worrie

[blackjack]

cowman... looks like you hit the high for the year on your yearling heifers...next year give us a hint when your selling...lol

[cowman]

Blackjack: Yesterday at the mart heifers were down about a nickel...in that 83-84 range so maybe I really lucked out. I tend to dither a lot when I'm getting ready to sell and it was Mel Glencross who convinced me the market was due to drop off as the calves started to come.
A whole lot of combines going right now so I expect not many farmer/feeders in buying yesterday...but then they usually want calves anyway? I've seen some grain that doesn't look all that hot so I guess there will be lots of feed grain looking for a home? My cousin combined some here and though it is running out fairly well it looks rough with quite a few small kernels and discolored.
I would suspect mid to late Nov. is the time to move some calves? The farmers are way behind this year and will probably be buying later.

[farmers_son]

I suspect you are right about people waiting to later to buy calves. Myself, I would tend to want to wait until after the U.S. election to see who wins.

[grassguy]

Cowman, you cranked more out of those heifers than most guys got for their steers, congratulations. Checking your figures I see you did not add the $36.80 of interest to your total. We got $87.20/cwt for 800 lb heifers the same week, off the ranch scale.

[cowman]

Well I didn't catch the President debates last night but I suspect Bush probably will win? I think Kerry has pretty well blown his chances of winning? Bushs' handlers have done a pretty good job of presenting Bush as a stable tough President while labelling Kerry as wishy washy and all over the map?
If Bush gets in I think we will see a resolution before spring, at least in regards to the younger cattle. I think we have to live with the fact that our old cows and bulls are going to have to be slaughtered here for several years? That is the reason I do believe we need some cow plants that can completely process and market the finished products? I still think the NGC plant at Pincher Creek is the best one I've heard of so far? Use the whole cow and be totally sustainable in the process?

[cakadu]

Actually, cowman, the polls show Kerry won that round.