Plans for 2009?

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What will you be doing next year w/ herd size?

  • downsizing

    Votes: 3 9.1%
  • increasing numbers

    Votes: 16 48.5%
  • dispersal

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • staying about the same

    Votes: 14 42.4%

  • Total voters
    33

red

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 20, 2007
Messages
7,850
Location
LaRue, Ohio
With feed & fuel prices going up & as well as uncertainty in the market, what are your plans for 2009 in regards to your herd size?

Red
 

RSC

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 30, 2007
Messages
1,998
Location
Shelby, NE
Keeping the numbers the same but stepping up the ET emphasis and less AI.  If I can step up the quality of the calves and keep cost low, it should help.  Keep embryo cost at a minimum.  Keep up the good work COWBOY!

RSC
 

MYT Farms

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 28, 2008
Messages
1,061
Location
Peyton CO
Well, I've got three pairs, a heifer, and a bred cow. (Gave her mercy for being open last year. ::) )I'm looking to pick up two or three weanling heifers and maybe a bred heifer or two this fall and next spring. I don't know if you can really call that increasing, but I'll have more than what I got now!
 

dori36

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 29, 2007
Messages
969
Location
Central Lower Michigan
red said:
With feed & fuel prices going up & as well as uncertainty in the market, what are your plans for 2009 in regards to your herd size?

Red

Well, in my neck of the woods, both fuel and corn prices are down.  If I still had a herd, I guess I'd be staying the same or enlarging it.
 

justintime

Well-known member
Joined
May 26, 2007
Messages
4,346
Location
Saskatchewan Canada
I am in the process of restructuring our herd somewhat. For the past few years, the top 10% of my cows have been producing over 85% of my income. This does not seem to change whether it is a good year or bad year in the cattle business. With this in mind, I have been wondering why I spend as much time, as I do, chasing the other 90 % of the cows around this place. Our ET program is becoming more and more important and we now have 25 donor females, and another 8 to 10 coming on board when they enter production. ET is not for everyone, and it has forced me to get much better at marketing. ET can quickly put you in serious financial distress if you do not market properly.
We are presently in the process of reducing our cow herd to about 150 head of breeding age females. We will maintain a core purebred herd of approx 75 cows and heifers. Our donor herd of females will be maintained at about 25 to 30 head. We normally flush each donor for a full year then put them back in calf for a natural calf.( We have found that if we rest them for at least 2 months between flushes, they will flush good for 4 to 6 flushes. There is a big difference in donors, in how they respond. I have one donor, who has now been flushed for almost 6 years without having a natural calf. She also shows no signs of ever being flushed. )We will keep an additional 50 cows which will be used as recips. If I could find a good co-operator herd, I would reduce the number of recips as well. This all means that about 80 head will be sold over the next few months.I would like to reduce our herd even more, in the next few years and concentrate more on quality than quantity. I think quality is going to become even more important in the near future as we all sort our ways through this financial and economic mess that the world finds itself in right now. If there is one thing I have learned in this business, it is that a few good ones, handled and promoted properly, will retain their value in any market conditions.
 

Cattledog

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 27, 2008
Messages
1,116
Believe it or not with all of the ups and downs of inputs I have really become more focused on my product.  We are gong after it harder than ever!
 

klintdog

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 4, 2007
Messages
733
Location
NoDak
With the market being what it is, I'm going to use this as an opportunity to do some expanding. There are plenty of guys who are looking at selling out or moving cows. Being part of the younger generation, I think this might be one of the few opportunities I have to grab some high quality females are reasonable prices.
 

Eberth

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 5, 2007
Messages
195
Location
Basehor, Ks
I am currently in the process of restructuring our herd as well. We are culling all of the cows that have not been producing anything but salebarn calves and wont take an egg as of the last two years. We are also going to emphasize more on our donor program than we have in the past my ideal goal would be to get rid of the majority of our cows except donors and have about 10-15 donor cows  and 20-30 recip cows and find a cooperator herd to put in about 100 or so  eggs every year for spring borns and probably 25 or so for fall borns and have our donors calve in the fall, but that goal is probably a few years off.
 
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