Differences in Cattle Prices

[ianbatey]

The hard part of dropping calves in the fall is that you have to buy or store forages/commodities to feed and grow your calves. You will also be breeding in December or later, so getting pregnancies will be more of a challenge due to decreased body condition etc... The point is: Fall calves bring a higher price for a reason. If it was easy and cheap to do, everyone would do it. If you can find a way to produce fall calves cheap, you'll make some money though.

The other part of this is getting all male calves. I could walk us through this, and If anyone wants me to, just ask and I'll make another comment showing my thought process. Anyways, you'll spend roughly $35 more per cow to get about 75% bull calves instead of 50% (Theoretical I know, It rarely works this perfectly).

Now lets leave out the higher price he'll fetch for a larger uniform group (for now) and just focus on heifer/steer difference. The price difference between steers and heifers is anything but consistent (location, season, long term market cyclicity, etc...) and I'm pretty sure $300 dollars like was said here is an extreme case. Assuming a difference ranging from $120 to $240 per head, you would be losing $5 per head on the low end and making $25 per head on the high end. As noted earlier this extra profit will be exaggerated in the sale barn due to the larger group of more uniform calves. If it's worth it or not depends on your specific situation.

Here's my disclaimer: I am not an expert in cattle markets. I am pretty knowledgeable in repro though and have spent some time around/in the beef industry. This guy's situation is unique to him and if this works for him then great! The prices and estimates on cattle prices I listed here may vary in accuracy and should be taken with a grain of salt. The semen costs I got straight from the ABS website, drug costs from a quick google search, and the ranges on price differences based on sex were gotten from various historical USDA market reports.

If anyone has any comments, critiques or questions, I would love to chat here. I definitely get nerdy about this stuff.

[l.farmer]

I feel like I understand some business concepts he is discussing but I'm not 100% sure what some of his words mean 😂

[hallwest]

I’ve had this idea for years but never had the money or property to start it! Wonderful to see it working and someone profiting

[RobertWilliams-]

The problem with calving in the fall:
1: the extra weight and body heat from carrying a calf…. That with the already hot climate temperatures equals more stress on the cow.
2: summer time is the cheapest time to put weight on cattle… you in theory wanna hit it where your calves are off the cows and on feed and grass by time the heat really hits… calving in Feb into March has you weaning in August-September… letting the cows put back on their conditioning while putting a significant amount of nutrients to their next calf they should already be growing…
3: you could possibly be dealing with calving while your trying to get your hay/forage for the winter which gives you less time to do either very important job… you could either have more dead cows/calves or not be able to put up enough feed for the winter months….

Yeah the check coming in at the end will be a good bit better, but your input cost will have also increased significantly… Time is money.

[ThatSB]

No shit everyone calves in March. The entire animal kingdom does so.

[hankelrod]

I make sure when my cattle are sold at auction that the auctioneer tells everyone as they parade around the ring that my heifers identify as steers. This works well but you first have to name the heifers all boy names & teach them to play boy games like Red Rover & buck the cowboy off in 8 sec. It also helps to slip some Nugenix in their feed. Net an extra $200/calf on the Nugenix preconditioning program

[j.borchard]

Innovation is critical to any business, let alone the Livestock Business! Well Done!

[plowboy]

Steers bring more than heifers because it takes less inputs to get them fat. Replacement heifers can bring steer price but not straight heifer runs. It doesn't hurt to have calves for market at different times of the year. The reason. They are born in the spring mostly is because they are better calves and you are selling your grass better by growing your calves on it while it's green and growing.

[eddiefin]

I love this podcast and I’m a city boy. These seems like it should be secret 😂

[thatchedstudios]

“I’m gonna CREATE ONLY MALES”
Imagine a farmer from 100 years ago hearing this.

[RobertWilliams-]

Also, if you already “AI” your cattle, then going sexed semen isn’t that much more expensive per straw, but their is a cost difference…. Plus conception rates on sexed semen are less then straight run straws… lower conception rate equals less calves to sell… is the extra cost of a combination of higher priced straws and less calves get covered by the few cents extra per pound??? Plus the random heifers that you’ll still get even though the straws had been sexed because it’s not 100% accurate…
Then to attempt to cover the lower conception rate, you’d need to run a clean up bull.. running a clean up bull would put those cows a few weeks behind the rest of the herd and you’d lose the likeness to run them through the ring with the rest of your crop which would be you taking a hit on those later calves

[christinafoster]

My brother was taking his cattle to the auction yard. He noticed that the Angus was getting a better price as long as every cow in your lot was black. So he bred the Angus cross with slayer from out west, now he gets paid for Angus, but gets about a 30% heavier weight from the slayer cross. we went to a cattle auction in Kansas It was huge and good experience if anybody gets an opportunity, just google largest cattle auction in Kansas..

[DanMurphy-zqll]

Thanks for the advice. Youare correct as well. THE FALL MARKKET IS STRONG.

[kendean]

In a grass-fed group I prefer spring born calves. I don’t need to worry about wind chill losses on a February calving day. A friend lost 7 as a result of cold last year. That was 1/3 of his production that year.

[Onealfarm]

Dang I thought I was the only one that figured that out

[jameswhipp]

I have no clue what any of this means.

[jamescheever]

Good logic ... practically hardest to make happen w weather n seasons

[tranceman]

Smart farmer always has one eye on the market other eye on his stock & crops.

[clintpfeifer]

I average over 60 percent bull calves and I literally just run my black angus bull with my longhorn cows.
And the calves look amazing.
You might get a little color but the calves do great.

[krocketonboost]

Bro discovered the basics of supply and demand