Bulls

[MN Farm Girl]

Hope everyone's fall is going smoothly. We got calves weaned, cows off cornstalks, and got our hay and stalks ground for winter feed. Now just to ship the open cows and we are pretty well finished for the fall. Dad and I have been toying with a few ideas and I was looking for a few more opinions from different operations. We have a bull that is 2 1/2 years old, and still in good shape. We were tossing the idea of purchasing a couple long yearling bulls every spring, then just sell them when all the cows are bred.
I guess I don't see too many issues with this theory, however I am a little leary. Is there any chance that your uniformity will decrease? And the other thing that I am troubled with is, is it possible to find quality bulls with good genetics for a decent price that we can afford to breed 25-30 cows, sell he/them and make money? In this market we as producers gotta watch our dollars, and I understand that when you retain a bull you have the over winter costs. We are just tossing these ideas back and forth. At least if we sold the bulls every fall we wouldn't have to find somewhere to "store" him during/after calving.

Just looking for some more insight on the topic.

Thanks,
MN Farm Girl

 

[Faster horses]

Soapweed has done this, in pretty large numbers. He could sure
give you some advice. He doesn't worry about registration papers
or EPD's. If that is something important to you (it isn't to me),
then it might be too costly to do.

Good luck! Congratulations on getting your fall work done!

 

[MN Farm Girl]

We are not worried about registration papers. We are commerical and it is way to costly for us to try to paper the cows and keep everything registered.

 

[Soapweed]

Soapweed has done this, in pretty large numbers. He could sure
give you some advice. He doesn't worry about registration papers
or EPD's. If that is something important to you (it isn't to me),
then it might be too costly to do.

Good luck! Congratulations on getting your fall work done!

This works pretty well when cattle prices in general stay relatively steady. Lately, with rising prices,
I have been a little reluctant to completely pull the plug on all our bulls and have to start over in the spring.
Yesterday, I did weed out five yearling bulls that were not particularly attractive and sold them as "cutting bulls."
They weighed 952 pounds and brought $101.50 per cwt, or $966 per bull. My costs into these bulls were
approximately $1300 per head at turn-out time, so rent only cost about $350 per bull for the summer breeding
season. This is less expensive lease than the bull rental facilities charge, but you have to own the bulls for a few
months to make this work.