feeding cattle this winter?

[cowman]

Despite really cheap feed costs this has got to be a tough year to try to make a profit feeding calves?
kpb laid it out pretty well? I wonder how many people are just doing it to avoid the taxman? We considered selling all the calves, for various reasons...the main one being the lack of a profit feeding them! But when you get into a system it isn't all that easy to change and I truly don't like to send the government one cent more than I have to!
Haven't weaned the calves yet(just the steers we sold) and am not sure how we will take them? Push them hard for mid winter sales or run them tough to go to grass. Considering feeding more heifers to be bred...don't know if that is smart or not? I suspect there could be a pentup demand for bred heifers but not sure what the border situation might be next fall?

[rkaiser]

There's no free money in this old world. When an event like the BSE debacle takes place, opportunity is there as much as destruction. Just as the hurricanes caused both in New Orleans.

BSE gave the packers an opportunity (and it's still debatable if they didn't help it out). Then it gave the feeders an opportunity, although the gamble was certainly more than that which the packers had to take. Hopefully the profits taken by feeders in the last couple of years will help them through the next few. Some will be lost, just like some caw calf folks were lost.

But I still see an opportunity coming some day for the cow calf guy which some may say has already come with higher calf prices this fall. Just wait until the cull price changes from the gift the packers are still enjoying. Just wait til the export markets start to be realised. Just wait til the last guy on this totem pole, purebred bull producer sees his bulls move south of the 49th.

Nobody said this business was going to be easy, and none of us could have guessed the implications of a phoney biological scare like BSE. But hanging on will pay off. The world loves the quality of Canadian beef. We won't go the way of the Alberta Ostrich.

[Rodjam]

By the number of dispersals I am seeing it seems some people have had enough. I feel bad for the guys that have been working their whole lives and now either have to walk away or are just fed up. Not great treatment for years of hard work. I guess you have to be a bit of an optimist to do what we do, a little crazy helps as well.
I am keeping my heifers for now, may sell a few in the spring or put them on grass.

[blackjack]

well the last three years ( i include the drought of 02) have been a challenge for everyone ...even those that us that have been in the business all our lives... cowman your right when you say it is hard to change the system your in ...i agree that kbp is right...but we have a ton of feed out here in west central alta with no local market so i will be feeding it to calves... since the weather had been so nice i have not been to any bred sales...but by reading the cattle market summaries in my opinion good quality bred cows are a better buy than the bred hfrs right now...

[cowman]

blackjack: I actually consider the 2002 drought the very worst year, at least from a morale standpoint? Never faced a year where I felt so helpless. It was an eye opener for sure...never thought it could be dry like that in this part of the country?
I suspect the "dispersals" have been going on for some time now? I know a lot of people bailed in the fall of 2002 when they were faced with staggering feed costs? I also note there were a lot of empty pastures this summer. Small outfits that ran a few cows were now empty?
And yet you hear farmers talking about seeding down more grass? The economics of grain production are really dismal right now and it doesn't look like it will improve, at least in the short term?
When I see these little calves going through the mart at $770 I wonder if somebody knows something I don't? Or are these buyers caught between a rock and a hard place and have absolutely no other way to market their grain and hay?
I agree that bred cows are a better buy than bred heifers, but then again bred heifers are just making beef prices? We need to get this darned border open to cows and breeding stock?