Quick Growth Breed Question

Me and my father went into partnership and leased a farm in Central Missouri. We are looking to drop 200 fall born steer calves on the property in April and figure we have enough grazing pasture to support 200 head till Oct/Nov time at which time we will sell them. We think that is our best profit that way, plus we will put up some hay from this land also which I will take back to Wyoming if our drought continues. My dad lives out in Missouri and has the hay equipment and will take care of the cattle and fences, I will travel from Wyoming when we buy and sell the cattle. But my question is for pure growth and profit potential, we think we should go with a black hided steer for the premium at auction even though we will pay more for them at purchase. We were thinking of going with black baldies (Angus/herford crosses) for growth potential and premium at auction instead of going pure black Angus or Simmental cattle as we are only keeping them for 6 to 7 months getting as much growth out of them as we can. I understand that I might not be able to get all black baldies but get as many of those that I can and get the rest all black, don't know if we will buy at an auction barn yet or go through a video auction or private treaty. Looking for peoples input that do this type of operation and suggestions, thanks in advance.

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.

-XBAR- said:

Char influenced.

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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.

obie105 said:

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.

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

I would rent the pasture out to someone...  If it was living, where I used to live- I would be interested... 

Just pm when you are ready

With that volume, you should direct mkt to a feedlot. Color shouldn't matter if you're selling them on the grid.

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?

personally, I know a guy who chopped a couple thousand acres of the shitty corn we had this summer, then put wheat into all that ground and then went out and bought everyone who ran out of feed cows.  He's got something like 700 cows now, or a little more.. and intends on selling them back to the people he bought them from once they get feed back, and other people. 

I know a guy who did that too.

blackdiamond said:

I would rent the pasture out to someone...  If it was living, where I used to live- I would be interested... 

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No we would not sublease the pastures. It is river bottom pastures and it produces ALOT of hay each year and it did not dry up this summer. We got a great deal on the lease as my dad and my cousin has done alot of work for the owner keeping this property maintained over the years, it is owned by a doctor in Philadelphia who flies his helicopter out and goes hunting with his friends. It is close to my dad's property so my dad can just drive the hay equipment over and put up the hay. We are going to run steers on the grazing pastures and put up hay on the other pastures. Will probably also run 15 to 20 fall calving cows also as I wanted to add some fall club calves to my business as I only run spring calving cows in Wyoming.

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.

Thanks chambero and -XBAR-, you got me thinking about selling directly to the feedlot, just did not think about that. Would save the sale barn fees also. I agree with you Chambero, I would like uniform steer calves.

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 -

If you do not have a lot experience back grounding freshly weaned calves I would recommend you buy them from a back grounding operation.  Thier are several around.  That way you will reduce your death loss significantly.  I have seen a lot of good cattle guys who have not back grounded many cattle have huge death losses.  Or I know thier a couple sales around us that have special started cattle sales were every thing has been weaned at least 45 days.  This is one way to put together a very uniform group.