Bred heifers

[15444]

gf: I was told by a Manitoba Charolais bull breeder a few years back that our area is the worst place to sell in Canada, due our commercial breeders being extremely stingy with their money and not paying nearly as much as what breeders in the West will pay for bulls, cows, calves, etc. A good bull at a spring sale in Manitoba that sells for $2500 would only fetch $1600 tops in this area. Only area purebred breeders will pay over $2500 for a herd bull and over $1800 for cow/calf pairs. The commercial guys will not pay for breeding stock, and as a result, we as purebred breeders have to sell our stock cheap (Good deals for those out West that want good stock for lower than average prices). Alot of good bulls are sold for $1000 - $1500, Cow/calf pairs for $1000 - $1400, and bred heifers for $900 or less.

If cows were going over the border, than prices on everything would be about $200 - $300 higher than what I quoted.

[grassfarmer]

Interesting 15444, there weren't a lot of English settlers in your area were there? ;o)
Getting back to the weight of cows/ heifers issue one thing that has always intrigued me is this. When a heifer calf gets bred by accident(usually about 6-7 months)she usually calves OK in a ranch, if not a feedlot situation. If the calf is live and you let her rear it she usually comes in open. If the calf is removed from her and you breed her back to the bull she usually settles. In both cases she is getting a bit of a rest compared to a normal first calf heifer before her second calving ( she maybe deserves it)but in my experience will go on to be a trouble free, productive cow capable of reaching her teenage years - but she will never grow beyond about 1200lbs.
On the other hand in Scotland most cattle are still bred at 2 to calve at 3 - the land is just poorer plus there is always less grass because of tighter stocking rates. Calving at 2 just does not work on cows that have to live out during the high rainfall winters. You end up with cows that
are big enough but struggle to maintain condition and to conceive - they just seem to struggle all their lives. If you calve at 2.5 years
you need a fall and a spring herd
and you need to keep fall calving cows
in barns all winter. Calving at 2.5 in the fall and allowing them to slip through to spring calvers the next time makes them grow into huge cows.
In a way what I'm saying is to get the "most efficient" cow ie good milk
plus growth genetics to pass onto her calf yet do it from a feed efficient size ie small,breeding heifer calves seems to turn in the result we are looking for. We would be thought of as crazy for implementing this as a policy but isn't it in fact the way nature would do it? No-one pulls the bulls in nature and females do get bred young - then with that tough challenge to overcome they take a while to breed back - is this in fact how nature controls the ever increasing mature size problem we great managers of cattle have?

[cswilson]

When I switched from January to Fall calving years ago that's exactly how I did it-I just exposed my 10-11 month old heifer calves and calved them the next fall. It worked quite well-I bought alot of early bred heifers from neighbors over the years too. I find that you don't get many average type cows that way-it either wipes them out or you get a very good cow. In fact one of the commercial cows I want to flush started life as a 15 month calver-has never missed and also popped a set of twins out along the way-she's 11 and has raised 12 calves.

[15444]

Hahaha, you guessed right gf!...when I entered that last post, I was kicking myself, thinking I should have mentioned that, yes, this whole area was settled in the 1870-1890's primarily by stingy Scots and Irishmen, and then complemented 50 years later by equally stingy Ukrainians and Scandinavians. Some how those genes evaded me!

[cowman]

1554: So why not just send them for beef? Why lose money so some jerk gets cheap cows?
$1600 for a yearling bull is about where the price should be...after all how much is a fat 1200 lb. steer worth? Now mind you that is if you develop him fairly cheap and don't run up a bunch of BS expenses against him like most purebred outfits do! Still running purebreds is a lot of time and work and usually isn't worth the effort. What is the average length of term for purebred outfits? It seems to me I saw a quote of about 5 years! A whole lot of rich boys like to play the old purebred game and hobnob with the big boys, but for somebody who wants to make money it usually is a loser.

[FRENCHMAN]

15444 which area of Ont are you in ?

[sjc]

Cowman:
$1600 is reasonable for a herdsire??? My family has been in the purebred business for over 30 years, offering our customers bulls that will work and offer them something that will continue to make them more profitable. I cannot raise a bull calf, semen test him, guarntee him, carefully select a sire and maintain a cowherd capable of producing quality for the price of a fat steer. That is the problem with some commercial men- they go to the stockyards and buy a cull - something that has four legs and a set of nuts and then cry that there calf crop is not what they expected. Every bull of mine is sold off the farm - not at a bull sale. I want the customer to look at his mother, sisters the herdbull. If I cannot get $2500 for them then they are cut. There are plenty of breeders where you can get a bull for less - but they are not purebred breeders. They do not have the investment and offer the quality that I do. You have to get away from comparing to a fat steer price and look at the price of a herdsire divided amongst the number of progeny he is going ot sire for you over the four years you are going to keep him for. If the bull you buy from me can make you an extra $50 per calf in the fall, is that not worth something?

[grassfarmer]

sjc, sure it's worth something but the marketplace in Western Canada is vastly over supplied with purebred bulls, every man and his dog wants to sell purebred bulls. $1600 is way more than a fat steer has been worth for a considerable time. But we all need a price to be our cut off point - if yours is $2500 fine. Good bulls can still be bought for less than that in some breeds. Equally much rubbish that should have been cut makes $3000 every year.

[cswilson]

Nothing pisses me off more than watching the 'ring worms' and auctioneer run cattle every sorry SOB gets propped up to a couple grand or more. If I catch them at it I just hang them with the bull-if I think the bull is worth 3 or 4 thousand I can bid there myself. To me a good commercial mans sale bottoms at 2,000 and tops out at 5,000-the top bulls are in reach but the breeder isn't getting hooked either. Ringmen are pretty much a dinosaur in my opinion-any good feeder calf auctioneer can sell bulls as good as the purebred boys without a ringman's help_I've been to a few sales where thats the case and they are a pleasure to attend.

[sjc]

Grassfarmer:

You are right, there are too many bulls in the country. I guess I just did not like to be painted with the same brush as some people out there selling bulls. I hate that. We have a loyal base of customers that keep coming back each year so I know we are doing something right. Our focus right now is the Leptin gene. We currently own and have rights to five Leptin tested TT bulls. We are going to feed out several of our customers calves out of bulls off these sires and collect some more data again this year. It is pretty interesting stuff.

CS: I have been run in many sales. That is why we choose not to run our bulls through a ring. Some customers want the opportunity each year, many of them not realizing that in the end it costs them more money. But it is exciting and some people like that I guess. I probably sell for less on the yard then in a sale, but the expenses are less and if the guy comes to the yard, I can make sure he/she is getting a bull that will work not a bull that was the last one left, or went for less money or whatever.