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burnt

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 28, 2008
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6,617
Location
Mid-western Ontario
Well we are still at least a month and a half from grass and an inventory shows that we ain't gonna make it with what hay and other feed we have.

Buying hay is out of the question with prices ranging from 10 cents/lb. and upward because of the dry weather here last year.

So I'm getting in a load of oat straw at 5 cents, which I have already been feeding half and half along with what hay we have.

I could also sell the calves and use their stockpile for the cows but I don't like the markets right now.

The thing of it is that if I would have sold the hay and oat/barley/peas baleage last fall along with the cows and calves, we would have as much money in hand as what the new calf crop will be worth. Go figure . . . :lol:

I guess we like our cows too much?
 
I was always told... you start losing money when you fall in love with your critters. It all depends on what your goals are. I sure hope you pull through it!!
 
Not fun. Hopefully you get an early spring. We are thinking we will have just enough. We still have some rake bunches we will be piling onto here in a couple of weeks. We are at roughly 2 feet of snow and still falling. We have burned through all of our reserve hay, have bought a couple of loads and are awfully glad we baled 1000 greenfeed bales on shares last year.
White since Oct 17th. Feed is expensive, but not 10c. Yikes.
 
MHO. Is sell the calves. Cut the loses now and put the money into the sure deal the cows.... Welcome to our world. We sold way eariler than usual and at the time it didn't look real good, but now it was right. Remember hindsight is twenty, twenty.
 
So far our feed supply looks good..... as long as we have grass by May 25. We have turned out a few times by the 15th but usually a cow needs a 2 speed rear end to find enough grass that early.

Who knows what kind of summer follows a mild winter?
 
Selling the calves makes the most sense, but I don't wanna! :mad:

:lol:

In any case, we are not going to suffer all that much since we're so close to having enough.

We culled hard last fall knowing this was how things are but I could also have helped myself by chopping the corn stalks for fodder like some other did with good results. Now that they have been the guinea pigs for that experiment, I will do the same next fall and should have some pretty cheap feed and stretch the hay they get.

Chopping stalks into a pile does two things - makes for cheap cow feed and removes a lot of the residue making no-till work better.

Oh yeah, now I talking farming on a ranching site :roll: :wink:
 
gcreekrch said:
So far our feed supply looks good..... as long as we have grass by May 25. We have turned out a few times by the 15th but usually a cow needs a 2 speed rear end to find enough grass that early.

Who knows what kind of summer follows a mild winter?
Click to expand...

If its the same kind of summer we had after our mild winter last year I don't think you really want to know gcreek
 
Jake said:
gcreekrch said:
So far our feed supply looks good..... as long as we have grass by May 25. We have turned out a few times by the 15th but usually a cow needs a 2 speed rear end to find enough grass that early.

Who knows what kind of summer follows a mild winter?
Click to expand...

If its the same kind of summer we had after our mild winter last year I don't think you really want to know gcreek
Click to expand...

30 to 36 inches of snow here now, not too worried about irrigation water unless it goes too soon.

We are in a far different world than the prairies. A dry summer usually doesn't affect us unless there is not enough moisture in the frozen form over winter. When it's dry the cows and the discbine just graze further into the swamps.
 
gcreekrch said:
30 to 36 inches of snow here now, not too worried about irrigation water unless it goes too soon.

We are in a far different world than the prairies. A dry summer usually doesn't affect us unless there is not enough moisture in the frozen form over winter. When it's dry the cows and the discbine just graze further into the swamps.
Click to expand...

The word swamp in our area is more or less reserved for stories of far away lands.

Do they have any ways of capturing that snow melt to last all summer or do you have to just hope it doesn't all melt away before mid summer?
 
It doesn't help that there is snow and below normal temps forecast for all of next week . . . still almost a foot of snow in places with the tops of the hills starting to poke through.

Might make plans to sell the calves earlier than usual. I'd like to wait until closer to grass time. But you gotta do what makes the most sense.
 
Burnt you are in a tough spot however you can be happpy that the market has improved over 3 years ago when i found myself in a similar situation.and opted for the longterm.which paid off well.we had summer grass but were short winter feed and were forced to sell bred heifers and some cows and then buy hay to get the others through.it is kind of ironic that last year we had 225 4x5 round bales left over & this year it will be 350 +after selling 150 swamp bales for sheep feed& our moisture is looking good with 2feet of snow on the ground as of this afternoon.
 
burnt said:
It doesn't help that there is snow and below normal temps forecast for all of next week . . . still almost a foot of snow in places with the tops of the hills starting to poke through.

Might make plans to sell the calves earlier than usual. I'd like to wait until closer to grass time. But you gotta do what makes the most sense.
Click to expand...

What is the Ont. market doing burnt? It is soft as a sponge on this side of the country. About half of the lots on TEAM were unsold on Friday.
 
gcreekrch said:
burnt said:
It doesn't help that there is snow and below normal temps forecast for all of next week . . . still almost a foot of snow in places with the tops of the hills starting to poke through.

Might make plans to sell the calves earlier than usual. I'd like to wait until closer to grass time. But you gotta do what makes the most sense.
Click to expand...

What is the Ont. market doing burnt? It is soft as a sponge on this side of the country. About half of the lots on TEAM were unsold on Friday.
Click to expand...

Not a lot of good bunches going through this time of year but here's a sale list from Tuesday:

http://www.keadylivestock.com/catalogue.html

And Brussels Livestock for the week -

http://www.brusselslivestock.ca/market_report.shtml

I guess you know how to read sales reports . . . :?
 

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