Summer grazing of steers

[harris25]

I am looking at maybe buying some steers in april running them on grass during the summer and selling them in October or taking them to a feedlot to finish them out on a cost-share basis. What are your guys thoughts is there a way to make money on doing this?

[Northern Rancher]

Bud williams puts ona pretty good three day seminar on just how top go about makinmg money on them. There's alot of variables involved but there can be good money in running yearlings.

[RMUG]

I won't be buying any as I already have them, they calved in September and I will wean them, keep them thru the summer on grass and sell in the Fall. I reckon it'll be pretty darn good this year

[Silver]

My experience is that grassers are bought high on rancher optimism and sell in the realities of the market place in the fall. I think the only way to make a reasonably consistant dollar on grassers is to raise them yourself if you have the hay to winter them and the grass to summer them. Just my thoughts.

[Ben H]

Buy these books, the last isn't related but might as well.

http://www.powerflexfence.com/catalog01.25.html

[PATB]

Ben what is your target market in the fall? Will the animals be age, source verified, breed makeup and will they be natural/meet pineland meat protocoll? The above greatly affects final price in fall. Have you look into custom grazing for pineland or working with kevin woltemath? There is more money to be made feeding light weights over the winter if you have the feed and facilities.

[PATB]

[Blkbuckaroo]

[BRG]

Just watch the market. It seems that ussually their is a point when yearlings coming off grass, are really high priced and you may do better selling them then instead of sending them to a lot. Take a buck when you can

[greybeard]

Silver gives some very good advice. read it carefully.
Last spring the market for grass calves looked hot so I picked a load of steers out of my own that I was intending to grass over summer. They returned over $800 dollars in early may. Unfortunately ,I kept 2 loads, added about 200#, and sold them for $100 less. Finished steers were under $1000 at the time.
It can be good if selling into a rising market but very bad if selling into a falling market.
I think the Bud Williams method is simply buy back the best available value on the day you sell and your profit is the difference in price paid/ sold.He also advocates buying at a low priced market and selling at a higher priced one as pat is suggesting.
Good luck, but don't bet the farm!

[bverellen]

[RSL]

Just do the math and pay close attention to the markets. Things are really volatile (bouncy) in Canada so yearlings are not for the faint hearted.
We grass a few, have bought grassers in the past and try to sell when there is profit. Last year despite our plans to grass all our calves the price reached a point that was well above our projected profits. That was in March before the grass was growing so we pulled the marketing trigger and only grassed a few later calves. There are usually peaks in early spring for calves to go to grass and August for calves coming off.
KNOW YOUR BREAKEVEN!!! It's OK to leave some grass behind if the profit is there. If you have time and a bit of patience there is real money in upgrading cattle (buying tailenders, age verifying, dehorning, castrating, vaccinating, etc).