Steer Planet - Show Steers and Club Calves Forum

Use to work at a very large sale barn in Missouri when I was was in college.  They had huge feeder calf runs year round. Also worked for a cattle buyer while I was there and then at his sale barn. If you need any contact info I can try to help you out in that area. I agree with the Angus / Hereford cross they are going to be more expensive in the beginning but also will bring premiums in the end.

Char influenced.

While I agree with you that Char influenced cattle are some of the fastest growing cattle. My smokes (Char Influenced) put on weight fast. The 2 problems I see is that is I don't know if they would be as profitable at auction cause of the price decrease in that area, Black sells best. The black baldies grow faster than the pure black cattle but still get the premium at sale and feed lots like those black baldies. The 2nd would be trying to find 200 steer calves of Char influence in that area without paying trucking to truck a great distance from the south to get them to Central Missouri. If I was doing this operation in Texas or Oklahoma, I would agree that the Char Influence is the way to go.

Use to work at a very large sale barn in Missouri when I was was in college.  They had huge feeder calf runs year round. Also worked for a cattle buyer while I was there and then at his sale barn. If you need any contact info I can try to help you out in that area. I agree with the Angus / Hereford cross they are going to be more expensive in the beginning but also will bring premiums in the end.

I will probably take you up on the help trying to locate the calves, thanks

Just pm when you are ready

How would a good set of black/BWF heifers backgrounded & bred to prooven CE name recognized bulls work in comparison with the national cow #s being so low?

I know a guy who did that too.

When you get done, you should sell straight to a feedlot - no need to mess with a sale barn.  You are correct though - practically all feedlot buyers still want balck hided animals and will pay a premium for them, particularly if you can meet their requirements for source verification.  Call Power Genetics in Arapahoe, NE and see exactly what they need in the way of documentation for calves you are buying in this manner.  I know how to do it as a cow-calf operation selling straight to them, but not how it works for your situation.

Your going to have a hard time finding uniform calves - so many folks have just sold down their herds.  You might check the Superior video catalog and see if they have any groups of what you are looking for that you could buy.  I'd avoid sale barns like the plague if possible - a lot of those calves sure may be stressed with the drought in so many places.

I would certainly second Chambero's suggestion of contacting Power Genetics adding that through them you could also acquire the age/source verified calves to start the program, most likely from a single source, and at the same time also be able to contract directly with an affiliated feedlot for fall delivery if you could lock in a price that made you happy at that point, or anytime in the future  - these calves would have predictable genetics as well as be healthy as they have specific vaccination/health protocols  - we have been contracting with them for several years and it works well - their focus is on age/source verified cattle for specific programs such as potential export for good premiums - even with running them for the summer you could probably still make those cattle fit the <20 month age limit at harvest - life will be a lot easier if you avoid sale barn cattle entirely -  they may seem a little more expensive at first but in the long run with the sales price/performance plus you will get very minimal health/loss issues it is pretty logical - as in someone else gives them the shots and puts in the EID tags prior to them leaving their ranch -  PG moves a lot of cattle direct - I was looking at their website this morning and coming up in the next few months they will be selling in several regional sales 1,000 sim/angus bulls that will go to producers in their network and additionally they also have an affiliation with ABS so lot of calves you could be buying are AI sired or out of those high performing bulls - predictable outcomes are essential in any enterprise -