Thoughts on this calf’s confirmation

[Baymule]

I agree with Ridgetop and farmerjan. This is a nice looking heifer and after showing, will make a nice cow for future calves.

 

[CaliFarmsAR]

Cooler than normal here most of June and quite dry until the last week. Got 3.5 inches in 4 days week of 20th... then turned warmer and over .6 inch July 1st(yesterday). Gotten hot and humid the last week. Made hay in early June and yield was down a bit, but last few fields are a little better with some later growth.... Pastures are in good shape, but we are down in cow numbers a bit as we sold more heifers this spring that would have gone out to grass, because prices were so high....and culled out some cows while cull cow prices are quite high also. That will make the grass last longer so not complaining....There are quite a few places that are trying to recover from drought (like you had last year) ..... and another drought is not too far off if the rains don't continue to come and revitalize the soils.
If you have the time I see no reason to not try to show the dairy heifer... different type of class and different type of showing.... But only you know if you really want to work with her.

Glad to hear y’all are gettin some rain and getting some cuts in for hay. Prices are very high for cull cows and where I’m at, cows in general are being sold for a lot. My grandma sold 3 cows and a calf for 5k, the calf went for over 1 grand, which was surprising.
And we ain’t far from a drought like you said, we need rain real soon, just seems like a lot of the storms are missing us.
How many head if cattle do y’all run?

Okay, thank you! I might try and show the dairy heifer too. I’ll let y’all know what I decide!

 

[CaliFarmsAR]

I agree with Ridgetop and farmerjan. This is a nice looking heifer and after showing, will make a nice cow for future calves.

Thank you!

 

[farmerjan]

My son and I , normally run around 150 brood cows...but we are down around 120-125 I think right now..... calving about half in the spring and half in the fall. We used to pull the calves off and sell direct to the stockyards, but he has developed some contacts and now we usually wean them and background or precondition them for 45-90 days.... he also buys some feeder calves at "off times" and backgrounds them and then makes up more uniform groups to sell... mostly bull calves in the 450-600 lb size and then we castrate and give vaccs etc... get them eating good and then match to others we have to make uniform sized groups. Groups bring more here than singles or pairs... and steers definitely bring more than bulls, so we buy the bulls.... usually someone that has pulled them off a cow to sell and they never got "worked"; we do the work and get them eating and then make a bit when we sell them as steers with others of the same size.... So, in the fall and into early spring we can have as many as 300 head here, counting the cows, that are starting to calve.... They winter at a couple of pastures closeby so don't have to travel far to feed hay.... then as they cows are calving in the spring, the calves get worked and they go to several summer pastures we rent. The ones to calve in the fall go out to pasture out behind the farm for the summer, then come into the "calving field" closeby so we can watch them closer.... and sometimes we will put them out to pasture for a couple months if we have grass that needs eating. Last year we got some off pasture in the first week of January because we didn't have any snow cover... and we fed the hay we made on the adjacent hayfield right there at that pasture then brought them home for the rest of the winter.
Those are the ones we were just recently preg checking... and they are out on pasture for another 2 months then they will come back and last fall's calves pulled off and weaned, so the cows can calve again in Oct/Nov....
Luckily our cows for the most part are very easy to get in and are used to being trailered , so normally we can get them in a catch pen pretty easy to move them if we have to.

Right now we have approx 40 cows/calves at one pasture, 20 at another 12 at another, 30 some at another place and just sub leased a place to a guy for 10 of his heifers because we sold 17 heifers we had spayed to a guy who is going to beef them and he does not want them coming in heat and getting bred and they will be running with his cows and bull... so had them spayed.... Steers were just too high this year for him to buy... and he wanted to do some comparisons with spayed heifers... so we delivered them to him in upper VT along the Canadian border.... he is a friend and we used to make it a combination trip to see family but they have passed on so don't think we will be making many more trips up there... we'll see. Sold 30+ other heifers this spring that brought over 2.00/lb at 450-500 lbs... sold over 40-50 head of steers in the 450-600 lb size in a couple of groups and they did real well.
Congrats on the sale of the cows and y'all getting a good price for them,. Cull cows are bringing .75-1.00 lb and calves are 2.00-2.50 on average... steers more than heifers.
Replacements are going to be high since people are selling more with these prices... and some dry/drought stressed areas, like you are still...keeping numbers down on farms so they can find enough hay to feed through the dry times and the winter..... we are dry for here even with the rain we have had... we normally average 3.5-5 inches a month... about 40 inches a year anyway... varies but we were dry and alot cooler than normal this spring... just getting to normal temps and humidity is back up.
We only kept about 6-8 replacement heifers out of the last bunch.... normally keep 10-20 a year and make a second "cut" after they are yearlings.... but most of them we spayed and sold.... and we have been culling cows that were open... and/or cows that are old or raised mediocre crummy calves...
We also buy some old bred cows or some with small calves and run out to pasture for the summer, with no bull so they don't rebreed, and they will gain some weight... and then sell cows in late fall and put their calves in with the weaned ones to mix and match....but even the "one and dones" are expensive right now.