Cattle Production in Manitoba

[ProFarmer]

How many of you fellow cattle farmers are going to liguidate all or part of your herds? Yes I have some land that only is good for cattle but the rented pasture and PFRA land could be let go. Poor land that I sowed down is gone with one shot of round up. Grain farming is so much easier. We are just busting our butts for for the neverendings rants from the specalists that say "The cattle cycle will be back next year with good prices" bull!!! I am tired of working for nothing.It just seems next year never comes just more cattle bills.....

[kato]

I think there are lots of herds being liquidated as soon as the pastures are done this fall. All the people I've talked to either say they are quitting, or they are closer to quitting than they have ever been. Some of these people are full time long time cattle producers. They've put a whole lifetime into their cow herds, and they're thinking maybe they wasted their time.

We've been through lots of tough times over the years, but even we've never been closer to just chucking it all than we are now. How much bad news can a person take? How many disappointments in a row can a person take? How long does someone wait while watching their equity dissolve into nothing before pulling the plug and getting a job in town?

I was talking to a fellow from Saskatchewan at the auction mart last week who just took a licking on a load of fats. He's an older man who's been in the business all his life, and he says he's never seen it so bad. How can you sell fat cattle for 73 cents a pound, and expect to carry on? You can't.

We've seen the loss of our packers, BSE, high interest, high feed costs, drought, feed shortages, Tuberculosis, pasture shortages, and floods in this province.

And this year is the worst. What does that say? It has never been worse than it is now, and we have never been so ignored as we are now.

The livestock producers of this province are so beaten down and exhausted that they're losing the will to fight back.

Kathy is a proponent of the theory of government agendas, and I'm leaning the same way myself in this case. Maybe the NDP will get their wish and we can turn the province into a provincial park. Then they can have lots of places to park the RV's on the weekends, and they can get rid of those pesky rural people.

end of rant. I'm feeling a bit better now. Time to go pick some tomatoes. At least they're worth something.

[rookie]

well, I don't find much more money to be made in alberta either.

One more load to go, and I'm out.

I'm not old money, dads farm or some combination that seems to keep my neigbours optomistic somehow.

The only thing that you can count on is change...........

[smcgrath76]

I think it is potentially worse in MB with
the exception of maybe feed costs. Here
in AB we spent the weekend rounding up
cows for a young neighbour family. As of
today they are out of the cow business.

[kato]

Feed costs would have to be almost free to make a difference. We just can't seem to get a break.

To put it in perspective, we're expecting a frost tonight, so I'm busy clearing the garden. I've been going to the Farmer's Market all summer with vegetables, and in the two crisper drawers of my fridge right now are 30 red peppers that will bring me $60.00 on Saturday. We also did the final numbers on some steers we're selling next week, and those peppers equal the profit on 12 steers. If I processed the peppers into red pepper jelly (which I already did with a whole lot of their brothers) they would net me closer to $300.00. That would be equal to the profit from 60 steers at the deal we got today.

Now how sad is that?

Guess who's putting in more peppers next spring? That would be the same person who'll think twice before backgrounding calves at least in the near future.

[grassfarmer]

You know I'm actually feeling a bit more optimistic these days. Major problems are still present in the cattle business but I think there are some opportunities coming too. This has been an expensive year for us as we had to rent additional pasture to keep the herd going but then we got enough moisture to really help the grass. We now have more grass than we can use this fall/winter or next spring even if we stay dry. With an open winter we could really cut back our feeding period. We got a pile of feed bought at not too bad a price (manageable if you're not feeding for 6 months anyway,lol)
I think this job could turn around next spring if we get moisture in Alberta. I think we saw that this April/May when feeders and pairs started to go through the roof when people started to think their was going to be a lot of grass and not enough mouths to eat it. This has nothing to do with the fed, feeder or cattle price futures it all has to do with producers "spring optimism" when the sun starts shining and the grass greens up. I predict prices will take off again next spring for the above reason - if we get moisture. There is a lot of feed being put up in some areas and I think the bred cow/feeder prices will rise because of that factor this fall...but I've been wrong before (quite often!)
I just bought a bunch more bred cows - the pick of a herd that had been culled hard already and I think they will do well for me.

I'm curious kato how you did so bad with the feeders? We don't buy a lot but the ones we got last year did ok. I bought one bunch of bigger steers on Dec. 1st 540lbs for $594 - I shipped 2 plainer ones in August weighing 963lbs to gross $907. They did ok at that with the type of system we run. Most of that bunch we are fattening for our grass-fed market and shipped the first ones today weighing just over 1200lbs.
The beef job is increasing like your peppers though - there is good money to be made in the processing and retailing end.

[kato]

By the standards of everyone else we know who kept steers this summer, we did remarkably well. We're the only ones we know who did not lose money. The numbers I'm speaking of are into the several thousand head, not just one or two neighbours with fifty calves each, either. We're considered a success story by Manitoba standards. Sad but true.

We kept the lid on what we paid. We kept losses down, and sickness to a minimum, and fed cheap enough. Pellets and some old rye grass straw. It wasn't good enough, because the price just isn't there. We know people who put calves on grass, with very little other feed costs, and still lost money. At least it looks like a loss, because some of them haven't been able to unload them yet. The ones who did get rid of them were just glad to see them gone.

These calves were all bought last spring when that optimism you speak of was running rampant, and we were the only ones who didn't cough up the cash to finish buying, which is just as well. At the time we were under a lot of pressure from our buyer to up the limit in order to finish, but now he tells us he's glad we put the brakes on. So are we.

I also agree that sooner or later even if it's just due to reduced numbers, things will turn around. They always have in the past. The big question is who will be left standing when it happens? How many times does a person stick their necks out on the hope that this batch is the big one? That's the million dollar question. And yet, if you don't have the cattle when it turns, you miss it. I remember us buying calves in a turnaround market, and clearing a couple of hundred dollars each on them in 125 days. Ahhh the good old days...

It's enough to make your head spin.

[burnt]

How long to hang on . . . . not too many c/c guys who aren't asking that question every day. Here in Southern Ontario, we have the option to turn all our grassland into crop. But $3.50 corn doesn't work either. I have struggled to justify our cows and calves staying here for a long time. Every fall I'm "quitting."

By juggling the selling dates around a bit, I have helped our bottom line a bit but not enough to really win. The one thought that scares me badly is that it could actually get worse - a lot worse! Like 80 cent calves?

I have wondered about liquidating and taking paper positions to stay in the market - a bitterly upsetting idea cuz that ain't farming, but one way to be there IF/WHEN it does turn while having minimal exposure.

I just know that when the cows leave here, so does my chance to be in it when it turns and I also take a real loss on the cows themselves. Nothing worse that getting out just in time to see the value of replacements go sky high. Cuz then you're screwed.

It's a tough time to be in the cattle business.

[burnt]

On top of all the market isses, we lost our barn by fire last winter and have rebuilt this summer. It is smaller (cost constraints) but will be easier and much nicer to run when it's finished. I designed it so it can be used for anything in the future, not just livestock.

Here's the kicker - even with a nice new facility, there is no real joy or pleasure in it because I just keep asking myself "Why am I doing this"?

[per]

"Why am I doing this"?

The challenge of being creative enough to make it work when others couldn't.

[kato]

That challenge has kept us going for 35 years. That, and the adrenalin rush that comes when you pull a rabbit out of your hat and get away with it.

You do get tired after a while though, and that's our problem now. Do we have the will or the strength to keep it up? The days where you wake up and question your sanity are becoming more numerous.

Then you sit and remember that old "always darkest just before the dawn" saying, and hold on to that. At least for a while, anyway.

We are a tough bunch, aren't we?

[burnt]

Yah, O.K. Kato, we'll call it tough! ;-)

[DogPatch]

First of all Manitoba needs to get rid of that Do Nothing Government that they have. I can't say that the previous color helped any though. Increasing hog production killed that for most family farmers.

The only ones getting rich out there right now are those that are doing the buying.... the packers, the grocery giants and the grain companies.

[kato]

We'd love nothing better than to get rid of them, but whoever Winnipeg votes for will be the government. Three quarters of the province's population is in the city. We poor rural folk have pretty much got no say in it. After all, outside the perimeter, it's all wilderness.

Everyone knows that...

[Sawbones]

Rumor has it that there may be some good news for beef producers in Manitoba.