Steer Planet - Show Steers and Club Calves Forum

Lets not confuse lower performance for lower profitability!!!!!!!why raise 600 lb calves when buyers want 500!  Top calf prices are 500 to 550  so why raise over that....and  as a purebred breeder why would you try to raise cattle that performed to a certian degree but  were not profitable... performance  does notalways  equal profit.

here is a good example and it right on the money 99% of the time.  A ranch will support 200000lbs of cows! do  you run 200 1000lb cows or 160 1200lb cows!!! The answer is you run the 200 it will always make you more moeny!!!

 I do not raise anything for feed except grass!!!!therefore I pay full retail for any feed that is put livestock around here.  the last year I calved 2 yr olds I spent $5000 on feed and sodl the calves for $5000... performance  yep... profitable...NOPE!!!!  plus I had to do all the chores !!!! also if I take care of my females when they are 2-3  I will calve more 11 + yr old cows!!! I will more than gain the first  calf back!

Someone is an earlier post mentioned calving and management like it was done back in the 70's..... I can almost bet you that the NorthAmerican cow herd is closer to what it looked like in the 70's  so why not manage them the same way!!!

LOL  well I am not arguing with you at all... and I am not telling everyone to go out and do it but if folks are raising cattle in a similar way as I am all i am saying is maybe you ought to go OLD SCHOOL and try it this way!  maybe you will make some money.


 Now  If I was located in SK Canada and produced the quality  and the quantity of forage you guys do I would probably still be calving at 2 - 2 1/2  but with the heat, humidiity, endophyte fescue and other stresses we have here going to 3 was the best way to go. And once you do it you really only lose the incme off of the heifers 1 yr and in mycase it was break even so who cares!! 

Thats what the definition of insane is. When purebred breeders start telling commercial people what kind of cattle they need to raise. I always thought that a measure of success was "pounds weaned per cow exposed to bull" minus costs. I know alot of people tally up the pounds weaned say off a quarter of grass. This is what they need to know. If they loose one single calf at birth this really eats away from the averages. "A dead calf has a distressfully low weaning weight". But in my opinion us dumbass registered people keep using big birth weight bulls and slap each other on the back about the ridiculous wda of age figures we can artifically produce in Denver and Louiville ever year.jmo

If you read what I said in my previous post, I said if calving at 3 years old works for you, then that is what you should do. I also said that calving at 3 years old doesn't work for me, nor does it work for many others who either raise cattle near me, or in many other locations. That said, if it works in your operation, by all means go for it.

As far as being a purebred breeder, I guess I am, as I do register and sell purebred stock, but it would be very hard to imagine how I could run my cow herd on a more commercial manner. We have had a very exceptional year in 2010, with more than average rainfall so our pastures have lots of grass and our hay crops are excellent. I have over 4 years supply of hay now, and I still have another 100 acres to bale ( if the rain showers will stop long enough to get it done). Will I sell some hay this year?  Absolutely not, as in our environmental conditions we may not cut much hay next year.. or the following year. Our average rainfall ( including snow) is 12 inches. I believe that aj posted previously, that his area of Kansas gets 18 inches annual precipitation. We can get hot weather here, but I suspect it takes more rainfall in Kansas to do the same thing as we do here. I suspect our environments are not much different when everything is considered.
I normally stock most of my pastures at 20-25 cows per 160 acre field. I have some leased native pasture that I am only allowed to run 27 pairs on 960 acres. There have been some years when we have had to bring them off this pasture early because they have eaten all the grass. They have been other years when I could have run triple this many head on it.

Most of my bulls sell to commercial producers so I cannot afford to produce big BW bulls. I am a big believer in optimum cattle and I try to produce low maintainance cattle.The guys I sell bulls to, demand performance in their herd bulls, so I have to try to balance birth weights without sacrificing too much performance. That is why I am thinking that I have to think more about calving ease than I do about simply birth weights. I band every male calf that has a BW over 110 lbs and I started this practice over a decade ago. Since then, I have sold a few hundred bulls, and I have not had one complaint about calving problems from my bull buyers. Keep in mind that calves born in our climate will weigh about 10-15 lbs more than if they were born in a more moderate climate. I prefer to have all my calves under 100 lbs at birth, but I find IN MY OPERATION, that I lose too much performance if my BWs get too small. That is why I preach about " optimum" cattle. That is cattle that are moderate in all traits, from birth to death.
 My cows have only seen grain supplement once in the last decade and that was in the spring of 2008 when I purchased some distiller's mash from the ethanol plant to flush them prior to breeding,  after they went through the worst winter in 30 years or more. We normally get one cut from our hay crops, but there are times when we do not get a hay crop at all. In the decade of the 1980s, we cut our hay twice, and one of these years we only cut it because there was a few bales there. It did not make economic sense to do this, other than we were able to get a few bales for the barn.

I will agree that it is a good management practice to tally up pounds weaned from a quarter of grass. I think that is a great practice and I think many more people should do this. In our operation, seeing that we are strictly a cattle operation, I use a little different formula, and that is I calculate the dollars produced from each pasture, and more specifically from each female in the herd. This helps make many culling decisions and it helps wave good bye to some nice looking cows that don't produce as good as some less attractive cows. Some days I think it would be nice to be able to raise cows and not have to worry about how much income they are going to produce, but I think this does help keep a person more grounded on what is actually important in this business.

As I have said before, I think there is a place for cattle shows in the beef business. I do not agree with lots of things involved in cattle shows, but I look at them as just another sector of the industry.  I don't think they are the end all- be all. If nothing else, they provide a place where cattle producers from all parts, to get together to compare notes. Personally, I do not place much emphasis on who wins, but I do go through the barns and I find the cattle I think will work in my operation. I could really care less where they stand in class.

I think in the economic times we are in, anyone who can raise cattle without supplemental income from an off farm source, has to be doing many things right . That is why I say, if it works for you, then that is exactly what you should be doing.

JIT, why did you not keep a semen interest in the Leroy son you were going to keep? How come I rarely see a bull you r using that was bred by you(Timeline, Touchdown is all i can name)? I find it hard to classifie your breedings as anything but fire and ice matings, sorry. Any bull around the midwest that weighed over 95lbs at birth will never bring good money around here. Canadian ranchers tolerate more BW than we do in the states, I think we can all agree on this. It's hard to knock any bull from Saskvalley, when they win a show, I feel it is iceing in the cake. They are certainly not bred for showring only. All I am saying I guess is if a ranch has been around for generations and I don't see pedigrees stacked with their own genetics it makes me question the consistancy of the herd. When a outsider looks in and sees different bulls from all over the place, they have to question it. I agree you must have some performance in your bulls or they will never last, but they also better come easy and grade a good carcass. I think when you breed a smaller bull to a bigger cow or vice versa to "even it out" all you can hope for is a fire and ice mating. IMO this is why JPJ works so good for Jungels but other peole struggle to get the same results as him. His cows are BIG, JPJ is small. Fire and ice again.  I'm not trying to pick on you JIT, I think you can handle these questions and conversation without flying off the handle. If I am way off base, I appologize, but it's breeders like you that are at the forefront of our breed that are going to help little fish like me get my foot in the door. We all need to somehow work together and try to somewhat agree on the direction of our breed by producing cattle that will increase the commercial mans profit. Nobody can ignore the BW problem within our breed, Couple that with the fact that many "hot" sires have large BW EPD's and lack alot of performance considering what they weighed at birth. AJ makes a great point regarding retained heifers with large birthweights. Think about it.

What are we talking about here show heifer bulls or range heifer bulls, because when it come to shorthorns neither can compete with each other in their respective domains. I'm sorry but I don't raise or market my cattle by the pound, so I could really care less if one has a 3% more pounds of weight at weaning on grass when I can feed and make up the difference. I am trying to obtain a specific phenotype, yes I want them to look like show cattle. I want long necks on my females and huge bone mass, tons of hair, oh and huge butts. If ever I start a commercial herd then I will think on getting a performance driven bull, just not now. By the way exactly how many commercial breeders are using shorthorn bulls? What are the numbers I want to know just how many head of shorties being ran as range cattle? What are the numbers, someone give me the numbers, I'm tired of all the performance data I want to see more cattle in the pastures.

Well a person can breed to show cattle or show their breeding cattle! The shorthorn breed probably shows more cattle and has bigger shows for the size of our breed than any other. Trouble is the average commercial breeder is more interested in performance cattle. By performance I mean everything to fertility, good momma's, good udders, rate of gain, calving ease ,feed converstion etc.
If a show heifers characteristics are just imporantant on show day there is going to be a huge disconnect.
The shorthorn breed has a lot to offer commercial breeders but but we have to put some emphasis on what they need in their breeding programs if we are to succeed in putting shorthorns in commercial pastures. The CSA recently tried to determine how many shorthorns were in commercial pastures and it was about 2%. Good news is we have lots of room to grow our market share!

I stand corrected as always.

aj.. here are my thoughts on the questions you asked...

1) favorite TV show --- Flintstones, followed closely by old reruns of Carol Burnett and Red Skeleton. I am also a fan of some of the Law and Order and CSI shows. ( NOT CSI Miami - that red headed moron drives me crazy!)

2) Who mostly influenced me in my formative years.... tougher question. There were lots of people who I think I learned from. Louis Latimer from Remitall instilled many lessons about the beef industry.Arthur Huber from Huberdale, was a quiet man who taught me many things about cattle. The main thing he taught me was that if you do not have pride in what you produce, you will never experience much success.I remember him explaining why cow families were important, and why it was important to use the best sires you could find and afford. He also believed that if you look after your cows, they will look after you. This theory certainly worked for him.   My dad taught me a good work ethic, and to try to " do it right the first time". He also told me there was no such thing as failure until I stopped trying. He is still influencing me at 85 years old. Some days he can still accomplish more than I can. He also taught me that things in the barn yard can seem to be disasterous at times, but as long as things in the house remain good, you will get through it. He also taught me that if you can't do it honestly, don't do it at all. There are many others.

3) Yes, there are standard pelvic measurements that should be used. I have seen research papers on pelvic measurements that show breed averages for pelvic measurements. It is interesting that Shorthorns average 2 square inches more pelvic area than other breeds at 12 months of age. I suspect this may be the reason for some of the BW issues in the breed. Shorthorns have always had the ability to calve bigger calves, so there was never as much selection pressure put on lower BWs over many decades. This situation developed over a long period of time, and  it will take some time to correct it... but it will come in time. Average is not a bad term, and in traits like pelvic size and birth weights, average is a good thing.  There has been much research over the years at Miles City research as well as many others, that also show that Shorthorns also have early puberty compared to other breeds. Pelvic measurement is an easy process and I think more people should start keep some records themselves. The research I have seen indicates that selection of low BW sires  will also lead to selection of smaller pelvic areas in their daughters. Maybe if breeders started to keep their own records they may start to understand that low BW is not the total answer. Moderation is important and optimum is probably best in many traits including birth weights.

4) off shore drilling.   I am not opposed to off shore drilling, however, I do not think it should be a #1 priority until all land sources of energy have been developed. For example, there is a new oil field development that covers a large part of NW North Dakota, NE Montana, Southern Saskatchewan and SW Manitoba, that is called the Bakken zone project. They have known that it existed for years, but it is just in the last few years that they have developed the technology to develop it. It is reported that there is more oil in this zone than Saudi Arabia has, so it is a huge deal. There are actually 3 levels of oil in this area. The first has been developed for years. The Bakken, is the second level and it is now just being developed. I have heard reports that the 3rd level may be as good or even better than the Bakken, but it is really deep and complicated to develop. It will happen in time.  The oil produced in the Bakken zone is unique stuff. It looks like olive oil, and it needs very little refining, compared to normal oil deposits. The oil workers wash they tools in the raw bakken oil and they shine like they are new. I suspect some of the old JD tractors would run on this stuff raw.The production from some of these Bakken wells is amazing. A head engineer on one of the drilling rigs told me that some of  the wells have paid for all the drilling and development costs by the time they can pull all the drilling pipe out of the hole. Some of these wells are flowing, at least for some time at the beginning of their production.  I think there is much more that the US and Canada can do to develop their own energy requirements,, before much off shore drilling is required. I also think both Canada and the US have to concentrate on developing more oil reserves on their mainland areas. Canada has an abundance of oil and the oil sands in Alberta and Saskatchewan are one of the world's biggest oil reserves. It is expensive oil, but it has just started to be developed and I think expensive oil is still a better choice than lining the pockets of some Arab sheiks.

5) Will China be a potential Shorthorn embryo customer in the next 9 years?   I am not sure if it will happen in the next 9 years, but I am fairly certain it will happen. China is now the second largest economy in the world, recently passing Japan in the second position. Every economy I know of, that has increased wealth has also increased their beef consumption. I do not know about the US, but there are several Chinese agricutural delegations each year to Canada. The Chinese have purchased a number of Shorthorn cattle from the US and Canada in the past decade, and I understand that they have been very pleased with their performance there. A few years ago, a Chinese delegation was touring Shorthorn herds in Alberta, and they stopped at Alta Cedar. One of the delegation asked Bill Boake for a price on one of his herd bulls. Bill did not want to sell the bull, and said the bull was not for sale. The Chinese ag official would not accept his answer so Bill put a high price on the bull, thinking this would stop this Chinese guy in his tracks. Without hesitation, he told Bill to get him ready for export, and the bull and several females were shipped to China. I also know that there was a shipment of 70-80 Shorthorn heifers from the US to China a few years ago. Ralph Kaehler from Minnesota , was involved in this sale, and he has gone to China a couple of times to see how the cattle are doing.
Two years ago now, I received a phone call asking me, if I would be willing to meet with a man from the Mongolian Ministry of Agriculture in Regina, SK. I did not know what this was about but I decided to go and meet the guy. He told me that Mongolia would be developing a very large beef industry within the next decade ( which I suspect means within the next 25 years, the speed things happen in Communist countries) The climate in Mongolia is very similar to the Northern Plains region of the US and Southern Canada, and the land base is huge. There is almost twice as much  grassland in Mongolia as there is in the US and Canada combined. A friend of mine has toured Mongolia a few times, and he comes back every time, more amazed at the potential they have for agriculture. It is a true undeveloped frontier. It is just a matter of time until this happens. The man I met with, asked many questions about embryos and he said that he liked Shorthorns and would like them to be a part of their beef plan. He also said that they would concentrate mainly on Angus and Hereford genetics to start with, but he wanted to develop a Shorthorn breeding unit to provide genetics to use to develop F1 females. He sounded very sincere, and I have had a few emails from him since our meeting. I have a site meter on my website and there is several hits from Mongolia and China every month.  
This embryo market in the world could get huge, as embryos and semen are quickly becoming the preferred source of genetics in the world, because of the shipping costs involved. Russia has taken several thousand Angus embryos from Canada in the past two years. At the ET center where we do most of our flushing, they had 700 Angus donors in their facility for most of the year collecting embryos for this order. I know of two Angus breeders who put their entire herds in the ET center, flushed them 2 or 3 times and then shipped the cows to market. They were wanting to retire, and were contemplating holding dispersals, but this option was easier, and provided as much or more money that they would have received from holding sales.
It may not be in my lifetime, but I am fairly certain that it will happen.

6) What price level do I think cloning would be feasible in my operation?   Cloning is not an option in my operation at any cost. I am not convinced that it is right and I am a firm believer that if you cannot generate a genetic replacement from any female or sire, that is not as good or superior to them, then there is something wrong with them or something is wrong with your breeding program. I know the science behind cloning but I am not convinced that it is an answer. No animal is irreplacable.... even Heatwave!

7)Could you talk me into judging the next National Shorthorn show?  quick answer -  No. I have judged lots of shows over the years, and I enjoy it, but I will not judge major national events like the National show. I know what I like, and I have no problems placing cattle as I see them, but I know I am not good enough on the microphone to do justice to a show of this kind. Being asked to judge a show is a definite honor, but thanks but no thanks.

Will the Colorado Rockies make a miracle run at the playoffs?  Your guess is as good as mine. I highly doubt it, but it is a possibly. Stranger things have happened.