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Mares vs Cows

Northern Rancher

Well-known member
It's -48 here before the windchill this A'M-every bunch of cows we have has some horses running with them. we have one little group of later calved cows and a few mares that foaled late-the mares and foals are wintering alot better than the cows and calves. I know what I'd run if there was any way to make money at it lol. Can you guess which it is lol.
 

Mrs.Greg

Well-known member
Northern Rancher said:
It's -48 here before the windchill this A'M-every bunch of cows we have has some horses running with them. we have one little group of later calved cows and a few mares that foaled late-the mares and foals are wintering alot better than the cows and calves. I know what I'd run if there was any way to make money at it lol. Can you guess which it is lol.
Yup...the cattle huddle in a pile in the trees if they can, have to push them out to eat :? The horses have been acting like this weathers the greatest thing that happened to them,running playing in the snow,and eating.

Ok theres not much money in cattle but horses....BaaaaHaaaHaaa,can't hardly give them away
 

Soapweed

Well-known member
Northern Rancher said:
It's -48 here before the windchill this A'M-every bunch of cows we have has some horses running with them. we have one little group of later calved cows and a few mares that foaled late-the mares and foals are wintering alot better than the cows and calves. I know what I'd run if there was any way to make money at it lol. Can you guess which it is lol.

Horses are fun to have around, and I sure have too many of them. They do well on range but if you are feeding hay to horses, a 1200# horse will eat twice as much hay as a #1200 cow. At least this is my experience. One old cowboy in this country, who died about 20 years ago, told me that horses can winter on left-over grass where cows spent the summer.

With the way things are now, a calf in the fall is worth $600 and a colt might bring $60. Guess I will stay with cattle for the time being. I did see a classified ad recently that stated, "will trade 10 nice broodmares for 25 bred heifers." This is from a reputation horse outfit and somebody might take them up on it, but in most cases if you could trade 25 broodmares for 10 bred heifers, you would be very lucky.
 

Faster horses

Well-known member
Where I was in Texas, when you took a horse to the auction they required a deposit...in case the horse didn't bring the commission to sell him.

It's sad.

On another note, the horse sales during the Black Hills Stock Show seemed to go fine. Some good prices and lots of bidders.
Good horses still sell well. It's what they can do that makes the
difference. I saw a horse sell that I would have died for, had he
not been quite so big. This horse was a MACHINE, he was so well
broke. He'd done lots of ranch work and was consigned by Casey Vaughn, Scenic. SD. The footnotes said :
"Pudden has been used for everything on the ranch. I have drug hundreds of calves to the
fire and doctored cattle in the pasture. Nice to sort on and started
nicely in the arena." He was Doc's Lynx and Cee Bee Command bred.
He sold for $6700.

Another real nice horse, a grey gelding, 9 years old, Tyrees Watch bred, brought $8250, but he was a 'No Sale.' He was owned by Bill Dale and Jesse Dale, Timberlake, SD. The footnotes said, "We raised this nice Tyrees Watch/Two Eyed Jack gelding. This horses full brother qualified for the Wrangler Jr. High National Finals in Team Roping, Calf Roping, Breakaway and Ribbon Roping and won $40,000 in the USTRC finals in 2007. Darre is just as versatile. He has been hauled to jackpots and had roped both ends. He has great potential."

I'm pretty fussy about how horses are broke and these two were way above average in that department. It was fun to see. I have to say, that the horses I saw sell at that sale, were better broke than they used to be. Not so much "head up--nose out--mouth gaping" stuff.
 

Northern Rancher

Well-known member
Well maybe someday if our bucking horse deal works out we can get by just on horses-there are some big horse herds up here. One outfit just ships a few semiloads whenever they have a major capital purchase to make.
 

Choclab

Well-known member
It just depends on what kinda horses ya got and what sales you go to. Hermiston is a dumping ground for trainers, lots of crappers there and usually a buyers market. The only horses that do really well at Hermiston that get 4k+ are broke to death ranch geldings that have color. Blue roans bring alot there for some reason.......but Billings on the other hand, seems to get some pretty decent bloodlines running through there often and is usually pretty seller friendly.
 
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