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farmerjan
Herd Master
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@Mini Horses , you are right about the "what am I thinking thing"..... and when there is a bumper year like this year it makes you worry that there won't be any next year. Like last year when the peaches were "frozen out" early and the apple crop was small, and all the rain and wet.
Had a complete change of plans yesterday. Son called in the morning and said the cows were down near the "lane" and that we needed to get them in and ship a load of calves. I was barely up and coherent after the long afternoon Thurs. So I said I would be up in awhile. He got them to come down the lane which runs alongside the other pasture fence, across the driveway, and into the barnyard. We sorted the calves out, got a load of 8 steers from this bunch, and 4 from the small group of odd weaned calves we had there, and I wound up taking the load of 12 to town. He was going to go rake and do some work there at the barn. So I got to town, unloaded, he texted and said he would come in and watch the sale as soon as he got done raking. I wound up eating some lunch there, he got there the sale started and I left in the other truck to come home and get some stuff done. He bought a cow/calf pair for $500.... decent looking cow.... that should tell you how prices were. He also "no saled" 2 of the steers that would have brought barely $1.00 lb. Sold the other 10 for about $.20/.30 less per pound than what we were hoping to get. They brought in the 1.20 range and 4-6 weeks ago they were in the 1.40 + range for the comparable size. Talk is that it is going to "soften" even more through the fall. The only saving grace is that overall the steers weighed about 50 to 100 lbs more than he thought, so we made up a little in increased weight what they lost in price per lb. I haven't seen the check yet. Heifer calves in the 500 lb range were barely $1.00, and he left to come home before they sold more than a couple pens..... because in the meantime, he talked to the vet and he could come do the pregnancy checks on that group of cows after 4 p.m. So, it was a very long afternoon.
So the end result was that we averaged about $700 per calf, at an average weight of 600 lbs., but there was an extra 2-3 months of grass/feed in them. But if you figure it another way, we spent less than what one calf brought, and got a cow and calf pair. So got 2, for the price of one calf, and MAYBE in the spring, this calf will bring a decent price.
The good thing is all cows that were checked were pregnant but 3. The bad news is most were not near as far along as they should have been. I expected them to mostly be in the 6-7 month range, with calving mostly in Nov. Nope, most were only 4-5 so will be calving in Dec/Jan????? Not my idea of fun, but at least they were mostly all pregnant. This group of cows did not do as well as normal at this pasture, they seemed to struggle, and the calves seemed to grow a bit more slowly. Maybe because they were late calving to start with. The effects from the extreme wet in 2018, and the poor quality hay has had lasting effects. Supplementing with additional protein tubs will be something we will have to consider this year, yet another expense that the calf prices really cannot justify. And with all this I said, we are missing a couple of cows....
So after we got done with the pregnancy check and were moving cows around, my son said hey, there are some cows on the hill. I had just said that I was missing a couple of cows from the list of who was supposed to be up there. Sure enough, here are 4 cows, and 3 calves that were who knows where way up back, and 2 were real nice sized steer calves that should have gone to the sale with the others. So these couple of cows will have to be preg checked and the calves will have to be dealt with. Have a couple of cows that were late calving, in June/July that we have to band the calves and give shots too, so have about a dozen to work through. The one saving grace, is these 2 steers are pretty nice, so at least they are found and can be sold, not missing/dead somewhere. But this is one of the things that doing something last minute makes it not as efficient, as if I had had more time to "prepare" I would have been able to check cow numbers and see that we were missing some cows before we started.
When you have animals, you have to realize that they cost money to take care of properly. The more intense you manage, the better the return to a point. With small animals, like the goats and sheep, there is a faster turnaround on the offspring, but there is more intense management like worming and foot trimming..... goats seem to me to be even more demanding than sheep with their copper needs and such. But we have always had a decent return on the management of the cattle, within normal years. The past couple have thrown a real monkey wrench in it. Since the high prices in 2013-2014, the prices have dropped and the weather has made it to where there is "no normal". You cannot justify spending more on the cows than you can realistically expect in a return, for more than a year or two hoping that it will turn around. Protein tubs cost money, and with depressed prices, you might not be able to justify the increased weight gains in the end result.
On another note, we are still waiting on the guy to harvest the corn for silage. He has had several breakdowns, and the corn is fast drying out. It looks like it will be maybe Tuesday. There is a possibility that we will be using another farmers' trucks, and if things do not get put together, this other farmer may be doing it all for us. Which will be more out of our pocket because then we will be keeping all the corn for silage, not working out the "partnership" in which we would have had very little output in actual money. It just seems like there is one thing after another. There have been several accidents this year with farmers and trucks.... 2 different ones have turned over their trucks hauling silage on steep hills. No one seriously hurt, but the loss of the truck bodies, and that has left them short so more time involved in getting each field done. If the chopper has to wait on a truck to get to it to continue chopping, you are paying for the time he sits idle.... you pay for the truck and driver and the person working the bagger at the place the silage is being unloaded, of where it is being blown up into a silo. It is like a dance, and all the partners have to be in sync or you get a traffic jam....that costs money out of pocket you cannot recover.
For what little we plant, 14 acres this year, it doesn't pay to have all your own equipment for the chopping process that we will only use for a week or two at most. We wouldn't have put the corn in if the one farmer hadn't asked us because he was needing more corn ground for silage and a partnership was beneficial to us both. We would have put in grain sorghum again and made it into silage like last year. The timing is a little better/more forgiving in getting it harvested.
Well, I have got to go out and haul water to the meat chickens, then get the milk testing meters and stuff loaded on the truck, so I can go to work. Going to be a long day again, although this is a small 70 cow farm... just because it is an hour away, I have to set up and then take down the meters after milking and the wash system gets done. I will be gone for about 7 hours total.... and I hate having to be inside when it is so nice out and a bit cooler so very comfortable. Oh well, it could be 90 again and muggy and hot....
Had a complete change of plans yesterday. Son called in the morning and said the cows were down near the "lane" and that we needed to get them in and ship a load of calves. I was barely up and coherent after the long afternoon Thurs. So I said I would be up in awhile. He got them to come down the lane which runs alongside the other pasture fence, across the driveway, and into the barnyard. We sorted the calves out, got a load of 8 steers from this bunch, and 4 from the small group of odd weaned calves we had there, and I wound up taking the load of 12 to town. He was going to go rake and do some work there at the barn. So I got to town, unloaded, he texted and said he would come in and watch the sale as soon as he got done raking. I wound up eating some lunch there, he got there the sale started and I left in the other truck to come home and get some stuff done. He bought a cow/calf pair for $500.... decent looking cow.... that should tell you how prices were. He also "no saled" 2 of the steers that would have brought barely $1.00 lb. Sold the other 10 for about $.20/.30 less per pound than what we were hoping to get. They brought in the 1.20 range and 4-6 weeks ago they were in the 1.40 + range for the comparable size. Talk is that it is going to "soften" even more through the fall. The only saving grace is that overall the steers weighed about 50 to 100 lbs more than he thought, so we made up a little in increased weight what they lost in price per lb. I haven't seen the check yet. Heifer calves in the 500 lb range were barely $1.00, and he left to come home before they sold more than a couple pens..... because in the meantime, he talked to the vet and he could come do the pregnancy checks on that group of cows after 4 p.m. So, it was a very long afternoon.
So the end result was that we averaged about $700 per calf, at an average weight of 600 lbs., but there was an extra 2-3 months of grass/feed in them. But if you figure it another way, we spent less than what one calf brought, and got a cow and calf pair. So got 2, for the price of one calf, and MAYBE in the spring, this calf will bring a decent price.
The good thing is all cows that were checked were pregnant but 3. The bad news is most were not near as far along as they should have been. I expected them to mostly be in the 6-7 month range, with calving mostly in Nov. Nope, most were only 4-5 so will be calving in Dec/Jan????? Not my idea of fun, but at least they were mostly all pregnant. This group of cows did not do as well as normal at this pasture, they seemed to struggle, and the calves seemed to grow a bit more slowly. Maybe because they were late calving to start with. The effects from the extreme wet in 2018, and the poor quality hay has had lasting effects. Supplementing with additional protein tubs will be something we will have to consider this year, yet another expense that the calf prices really cannot justify. And with all this I said, we are missing a couple of cows....
So after we got done with the pregnancy check and were moving cows around, my son said hey, there are some cows on the hill. I had just said that I was missing a couple of cows from the list of who was supposed to be up there. Sure enough, here are 4 cows, and 3 calves that were who knows where way up back, and 2 were real nice sized steer calves that should have gone to the sale with the others. So these couple of cows will have to be preg checked and the calves will have to be dealt with. Have a couple of cows that were late calving, in June/July that we have to band the calves and give shots too, so have about a dozen to work through. The one saving grace, is these 2 steers are pretty nice, so at least they are found and can be sold, not missing/dead somewhere. But this is one of the things that doing something last minute makes it not as efficient, as if I had had more time to "prepare" I would have been able to check cow numbers and see that we were missing some cows before we started.
When you have animals, you have to realize that they cost money to take care of properly. The more intense you manage, the better the return to a point. With small animals, like the goats and sheep, there is a faster turnaround on the offspring, but there is more intense management like worming and foot trimming..... goats seem to me to be even more demanding than sheep with their copper needs and such. But we have always had a decent return on the management of the cattle, within normal years. The past couple have thrown a real monkey wrench in it. Since the high prices in 2013-2014, the prices have dropped and the weather has made it to where there is "no normal". You cannot justify spending more on the cows than you can realistically expect in a return, for more than a year or two hoping that it will turn around. Protein tubs cost money, and with depressed prices, you might not be able to justify the increased weight gains in the end result.
On another note, we are still waiting on the guy to harvest the corn for silage. He has had several breakdowns, and the corn is fast drying out. It looks like it will be maybe Tuesday. There is a possibility that we will be using another farmers' trucks, and if things do not get put together, this other farmer may be doing it all for us. Which will be more out of our pocket because then we will be keeping all the corn for silage, not working out the "partnership" in which we would have had very little output in actual money. It just seems like there is one thing after another. There have been several accidents this year with farmers and trucks.... 2 different ones have turned over their trucks hauling silage on steep hills. No one seriously hurt, but the loss of the truck bodies, and that has left them short so more time involved in getting each field done. If the chopper has to wait on a truck to get to it to continue chopping, you are paying for the time he sits idle.... you pay for the truck and driver and the person working the bagger at the place the silage is being unloaded, of where it is being blown up into a silo. It is like a dance, and all the partners have to be in sync or you get a traffic jam....that costs money out of pocket you cannot recover.
For what little we plant, 14 acres this year, it doesn't pay to have all your own equipment for the chopping process that we will only use for a week or two at most. We wouldn't have put the corn in if the one farmer hadn't asked us because he was needing more corn ground for silage and a partnership was beneficial to us both. We would have put in grain sorghum again and made it into silage like last year. The timing is a little better/more forgiving in getting it harvested.
Well, I have got to go out and haul water to the meat chickens, then get the milk testing meters and stuff loaded on the truck, so I can go to work. Going to be a long day again, although this is a small 70 cow farm... just because it is an hour away, I have to set up and then take down the meters after milking and the wash system gets done. I will be gone for about 7 hours total.... and I hate having to be inside when it is so nice out and a bit cooler so very comfortable. Oh well, it could be 90 again and muggy and hot....
this calf will do good for you.
It's lovely to wake to slightly crisp, warm up to comfortable, go down slowly at night. I am not a COLD weather person. Fortunately, here in VA we are pretty mellow weather wise. You get more snow, thankfully I don't.
