The calf run

[cowman]

I wonder just how heavey the calf run will be this year?
Seems to me a whole lot of little guys have bailed somewhere along the line and a lot of the ones left have taken to at least backgrounding their calves so as to capture a bit more money? I get around central Alberta a fair bit and I see a lot of places where the owner had some cows, the pastures haven't been grazed at all? My hay buyer tells me a lot of his smaller customers are gone.
I suspect with all the cheap feed around the cow/calf man might just be expecting a decent price or he may just feed them himself? The backgrounder made a killing last year and in all likelyhood has a lot of silage put up. He either buys or he pays the taxman in a big way?
I would suggest you hold your calves off the market as long as possible. When the tax money comes to town it could be very HOT!

[kato]

Around here it seems the calves are hitting the market fast and furious. A lot of guys in this area seem to be more willing to take the money and run. Maybe it's because Manitoba has suffered more than Alberta has, but there are a lot of people here who don't have a lot of faith in the future. The prices are good right now, and who knows what they'll be later?

Another factor could be the fact that there were a huge number of unseeded acres this year, and the crops that were grown weren't all that great. There are bills to be paid, and no crop money to pay them with. Hay seems to be the only thing in a surplus, and there aren't any buyers for that.

[cowman]

Spent some time at the sale in Innisfail yesterday. They had about 3,000 head, probably one third yearlings.
The calf sale was a presort and generally prices were good. Good calves...lots of big calves! I think the char crosses topped the sale overall with the blacks also doing well. There were some really good Sim calves and they hung right in there on price. Generally 600 lbs were around $1.30 and 750 lb were in that $1.20 range. Lighter calves didn't do much better per pound than the 600 lb calves and there was a definite preference for the bigger calves.
They sold a few old cows as breds and they might have made 25 cents a pound.
It was fairly obvious that the late harvest is definitely delaying the farmer/feeder from wading in? An order buyer for US interests took a lot of the bigger calves.

[PureCountry]

The neighbours sold theirs about 2 weeks ago on the satellite sale through VJV in Ponoka. They topped the sale with 720lbers @ $1.32. That was 70 head, then they got $1.15 for their heifers @ 650lbs on 70 head. They celebrated for a couple days, then it rained some more, and more, and more, then froze.

Ah the bliss of having both worlds.

I heard of one other neighbour through the g****vine who took a B-train of wheat in and found out it had all sprouted. I'd think it'd be a little tough to go home and get back on the combine to do the rest of the field after that. Poor bugger.

[madcow]

I was at the feeder sale in Truro N.S.Saturday, just observing.I was quite depressed as were the prices!.There were a few singles and a few small groups that were in the decent range. A pair of charolais steers weighing 640 lb9 (320 each) brought $1.17 and a pen of light semmintals was in that range, As the sale went on the prices seemed to drift downwards, too many calves and too weak a market .A lot of calves 600lb & up were in the 70s & 80s, lighter stuff , 5 & under was in the 90s to $1.05.I didn't stay to the end but no one called to say it improved. Fat steers were $1.51 at the PEI plant last week,yippee. I heard through the g**** vine at the sale that the Quebecers are guaranteed a base price of $1.86 for fats, anyone know if that's correct?Last months feeder sale averaged $1.03 with some Quebec buyers present,no Quebec buyers Saturday
Many producers here are worse off than ever this year ,prices haven't improved much,input costs are up and we don't have any useful aid programs on the horizon. CAIS hasn't been worth a tinkers dam here either.

[cowman]

So tell me madcow, how does anybody stay in business when they are getting such dismal prices? Those 320 lb. steers at $1.17 comes to $374.40! Can anybody afford to keep a cow with that kind of revenue? Even your 600 lb. steers at 80 cents only comes to $480!
We never got those kind of poor prices out here!
I don't think the $1.51 rail price is out of line, but someone is sure screwing you on your feeders? Maybe time to consider feeding them yourself? At $1.51 rail a 1200 steer should yield 720 lb. X $1.51 equals $1087 or$607 over the price of yor 600 lb. feeder steer! Cost of gain should be in that 40 cent a pound range or $240? Should give you a profit of $360!
My advice would be feed them yourself. Our feedlots would just love to be able to screw us like you are getting screwed!

[cattleman2]

cowman: Do you want to feed a couple hundred calves at 40 cents? Don't think many people can do it for that. I have heard 53 to 60 this year depending on the quality of the cattle.

[PureCountry]

I've never heard of anyone charging less than 55 cents per pound of gain.

[BFW]

If Cowman had to feed two hundred calves he'd be so busy chopping wood to keep the water bowls from freezing he wouldn't have time to enlighten us here on Agriville! Cowman, I used to think your comments carried a certain amount of wisdom with them, but really you're just a blowhard.

[cowman]

Well the last issue of the Cattleman lists cost of gain for feed at 34 cents. Now overall they list total cost of gain at 55.76 cents so if madcow feels the need to pay him/herself $15/hr. to feed them then I guess you would need to add that? But whatever, it all goes into the same wallet!
If you are feeding cows anyway it doesn't cost much more to run the tractor a couple of extra minutes?
I don't think madcow was talking about 200 calves?
I always feed my heifers out and it sure doesn't take a lot of time to feed and bed 60 heifers. I would definitely say 40 cents per lb. of gain is right in the ballpark...of course I'm not paying someone else to make money on my cattle.