Quality starts here?

[grassfarmer]

kpb, I understand your reasons for buying the type of cattle you do - it makes sense. Can you explain to me the experience I've had in the last couple of years? - once in Ponoka, once in Rimbey. I go in with a string of 720-750lb preconditioned calves, roughly 1/3 Sim x baldie, 1/3 char x baldie,
1/3 luing x red angus(which are just like red angus to look at - but better ;o)) I pen them in the truck in tens or twelves of each breed so they don't need sorting. Yet they appear in the ring as a group of @30 head and on both occasions were within a couple of cents of the market high for that weight range. They never attempt to sort them in the ring after they are sold either. Will the order buyers sort these out later or do they go to the feedlot in the same group?

I should add that when I sold the calves in February this year at 9-10 months old the Luing x angus calves were the same weight as the others - granted they were a touch heavier fleshed and slightly smaller framed but they impressed me none the less.

[kpb]

grassfarmer, I'm staying up late hoping for a mare to foal so here's what I think about your sale. First of all, your calves are obviously weaned which means a lot to me since weaning stress is the biggest killer for backgrounders. Secondly, for the three groups you took to the auction, the colors were different sure but the weights were very tight. And I mean very tight. Your three groups were all within 30 pounds or so which is why they all went in together to be sold and weren't split afterwards either. And they were 700 plus weights so who cares about the color--they were all obviously crossbreds from what you describe and I'm sure they looked great so yeah I guess they did get top dollar--they were just darn good calves with a tight weight range that were crossbreds which meant they could be fed. I would have bought them!

Why would you want them to be split--they would feed real well and be fats at all about the same time--a perfect pen. No need to split them in my book--like I said I don't care what color they are as long as they'll gain.

In regards to feeding your Luing-Angus calves, I confess I know nothing specifically about feeding the Luings. My question is did you feed them to gain over the winter or to maintain? In the fall I like to buy calves that will be 1,000 pounds by April. Say 180 days of feeding so they have to be able to put on the pounds and finish in the late spring or early summer. If your Luings will do that I'll buy them in the fall forever.

I have a Black Baldie mostly cow herd so I have nothing against British calves. I think the British cows are the best keepers for rough ground and rough feeding which is what my cows experience summer and winter. And I usually buy 7 weight British calves in the spring for grassing because they come off the pasture looking great in the fall and just need 90 days of feed to finish real well. I just don't want to feed them over the winter because I don't get paid for it.


kpb

[whiteface]

No hard feelings, we've already discussed this one quite thoroughly and I do agree wholeheartedly that straight british, probably in MOST cases ( not all ) hereford, is not the way to go for gain in the feedlot. I do very well with my herefords and like kato said, if you recognize a certain tag you may steer clear or in my case, they do buy 'em because they will gain and don't get sick but I believe that as a breed they're not there with some others for gainability or even a whole lot of other traits. This is of course the entire challenge with owning them, to "compete" with the other breeds using a distictive marking feature (the white head).
Hope your mare foaled allright and you all have a good day!

[grassfarmer]

kpb, With calving later now I wean in October and feed for 2lbs/ day of gain. I find that with the "book" rations set up to do that we get weight gains around the 1.7-1.9lbs from the calves. The slight drop from "book value" gains I attribute to the calves getting a slight set back at weaning and going onto feed for the first time plus some poorer gains if we feed them through very cold weather. I always find the ones that received the least milk get some compensatory growth gains at this stage over the better milked ones.
I now aim to hit the late December
"tax money" trade with some and the Feb-March trade with the rest.

Preconditioning certainly works for me - haven't pulled a sick calf post weaning in 4 years. It allows me to add value to my calves, spreads yardage/ tractor costs over greater numbers and converts some cheap straw into valuable organic matter.

As for feeding Luing steers I have not done that in the feedlot either. I'm told they will perform very much like the old fashioned "real" red angus cattle - before they got into the hard calving, 4lb a day gainers! Given that my steers were F1s we maybe picked up a bit of extra performance from the hybrid vigour? We killed grass fattened luing x heifers last fall at 17-18 months which were 690lb carcases with a very good fat cover.

[cowman]

kpb: So you are saying that crossbred British calves(eg. Angus X hereford) work for you? They will gain good enough and still not get too fat? I guess the bottom line is will they make you as much money as say a Maine X Angus?
Grassfarmer: I wonder what would happen if you left those calves on the cows until late Nov. early Dec.(when the tax money comes to town) and shipped them? They may not be quite as heavy but you sure wouldn't have any extra money in them? I am sure you have pencilled this out and have a good idea of whether it pays or not? If so, how about a ballpark figure?
Personally, being sort of a lazy type when I can get away with it, I just prefer to ship the big steer calves right off the cow in late November, but I might reconsider that if the pay is good!

[grassfarmer]

Cowman, I figure it out every fall but I can't remember the exact numbers. Roughly speaking to wean and feed through to December costs less than 80 cents/ day actual feed costs. On calves that are gaining 1.8lbs a day that's 44 cents/lb of gain - however poor calves have been in recent years we can all make money at these prices.
There is yardage but it's minimal - water, tractor cost to feed. I don't charge bedding and manure removal to the calves but to the grass growing operation - it pays for itself in that department.
As far as the preconditioning drug costs I give them 8 way and somnus ph in May, booster both at weaning plus pyramid 4. Assuming most people give 8 way as a minimum my extra drug costs are around $8-9 per calf. With no set backs and no pneumonia to treat you can't afford not to do this if you are retaining calves post weaning, in my opinion.
I was told by a smart operator when I moved here that every 10 days you keep a calf on the cow after 1st October costs you a ton of hay in the winter to make up on the condition loss on the cow. That may be an overstatement but the principle makes sense to me. Weaning in early October allows me to get the cows butter fat on banked grass and have them in summer condition at Christmas. This allows them to slide a bit through winter on a fairly cheap ration and still calf out in good shape.
With these in mind I wouldn't be tempted to keep calves on their mothers into early winter when they don't really need milk and the cows don't give much anyway but will pull their condition down anyway trying to produce. You get poorer gains on the calves and drop condition on the cows - sure it's an easier system I think that is why it is still so popular here!

[kpb]

cowman, actually each calf has its place I guess. When I say crossbreds work the best to feed I mean an exotic cross not a straight British cross. The very best feeding calves in my opinion are the Maines--either straight or crossed with anything half decent. I know this probably goes against the grain with some guys but I also really like the Chars to feed and I'm surprised and pleased that they are discounted right now at the auction mart. They gain very well for me.

Where the British calves work well for me is in the spring when you can buy them around 650 to 700 pounds, put them on grass, have them come off in the fall around 1,000 lbs, finish them for 90 days and have a real nice fat that will grade very well. If you try to feed them freshly weaned in the fall like the big exotics you'll end up with a butterball by January that is no good for anything.

I like my black baldie cows, crossed to black Simmi or Maine bulls. My cows never get grain, ever, have bush pasture all summer and as little feed in the winter as they can handle and have to produce a calf every year or go down the road. They always look rough going to pasture and great coming home. I think the black baldies are the best at managing this type of spartan existence.