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Replacements...Raise or Buy

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We raise our own, just makes sense, ya spend money on a "better bull" than you had last time, least ya should be, so there for you should have "better replacements" to keep. Goes back to that lil sayin, buy the best you can afford. Over time, eventually you'll have alot better cows than you had to start with.
 
I agree with you about raising your own replacements. Having bought some cows through the years, they just never quite perform up to the standards of home-raised cows. Heifer calves born on a ranch are just naturally already acclimated to the surroundings. They learn the procedures from an early age. By keeping your own, you pick the best, instead of buying someone else's seconds.
 
Have done that for 55 years!.....If you know your bulls you know what you are going to get.
We are taking this a little farther.Starting a closed herd.
 
I raise my own replacements but I do buy the occasional Registered heifer started AI'ing some cows mainly to keep bulls from for my own use.

I talked to a fellow at the sale a couple of weeks ago he is selling all of his spring calveing cows this fall he weaned his calves a month ago to let the cows flesh up and in his own words "Let Their Bags Schrivel up So You Don't See how bad they are..

If A COWS FOR SALE IN TOWN 9 TIMES OUT OF 10 she's got problems of some sort..
 
what cattle man sells his best heifer's? I keep the best and sell the rest.................good luck
 
Selling all my heifer this year, prices are just too good. But generally raise my own and buy some older bred cows occasionally.


On the cows, I have gotten some great older cows and gotten several years worth of claves. I actually hesitate to buy solid mouth bred cows. The older cows tend to be from someone that has more of a rangeoperation and can't meet th feed requirements. Some soft grass and good mineral are the key. The udder tend to be a key thing to watch,


PPRM
 
Always keep my best heifers ..... rarely buy. That way you know what youv'e got. Like the idea of a closed herd.
 
I do both, but never buy out of the barn. I bought 80 heifers from a ranch when i started and have only bought heifers from two other ranches. Andoneof those ranches we have worked with for at least five years, and the other about 15. I also bought some older cows from those two ranches in a dought year.
I keep my best heifers and then if i need more i will buy some from one of those guys if i think there 2nd cut is better than my second cut.
 
Just bought some. Reason being i am heading my herd in a little bit of a different direction. I feel this is the best way to do it. But we have a young herd. We sold every cow 5 years ago and are pretty much starting over. So in my case i need to buy. But if i had an older established herd i would retain and know for sure what i had!
 
We raise our own, usually heifers off the same cows. We've bought heifers but they usually don't perform as well as our own. We bought a couple last year off a famous Hereford bull, what a disappointment!
 
We raise our own and try to raise some good ones for other people. Our bulls are selected on MATERNAL Traits. The steer calves are more or less a BY-PRODUCT; although they really weigh up good in the fall.

We are breeding for a good functional FACTORY.
 
You buy someone elses heifers, you are buying behind the approxiametely top 20% they have kept for themselves. You buy someones old cows, these have stayed in the herd for a long time. Key is to have beeter feed and mineral than what they had to cause them to cull,


PPRM
 
The day I dread the most all year is the day we pick our replacement heifers. Ideally, I would like to keep them all til they raise one calf. We just don't have the pasture to do that. So, we use all the tools we can, but selecting replacement heifers at weaning time is basically a crap shoot.

We have culled our cows really heavy, so the heifers should ALL be good ones. Of course there are always a few that we don't like as well.

Interesting, they had a 4H judging contest in town on Sunday and we were asked to take some yearling heifers in. They wanted 8 for a 'Pick and Cull' contest. (Pick 4 and Cull 4). We had a hard time getting 4 and 4, or at least that was our opinion. We selected a heifer with a high tail head as a 'cull'. The judge picked that heifer as the fanciest heifer in the pen!! Goes to show what one person likes, another does not.

So, it is hard to say whether or not you keep the top 20%. Everyone sees cattle different.

What we do is take out so many, let the buyer take out so many and then we take out another draft, then they do. That seems to work really good when we sell replacement heifers, being fair to all.
 
If I were to buy replacement Heifers, I'd go to a commercial guy whose wholee herd was very uniform and I liked a lot. There probably isn't a lot of difference between the top 20 and the next 20 on that deal.

However, it may be the Irish in me, looking at holding onto pennies. With better feed and better mineral, I can buy his bred cull and come out better.

This partly comes from growing up in Joseph, Oregon. For almost evry big catte ranch, you heard stories how an ancestor got a start buying cull ewes and lambing them out. Sell the ewe's, keep the ewe lambs. Eventually, they'd have enough to start owning cattle and losing money again, LOL,

Just my way of doing things.
 
I prefer to raise my own heifers also.Last year i was able to buy my best friends bred heifers,she has the same taste in cattle as i do.So i knew they were just as good in quality as my own.I tried to buy some more off of her this year,but this year she is not being so generous :) .
 
Yes, I look at the hiefers but the main criteria in my judgement needs to be past history of the cow. There can be exceptions to this as any rule but if I have a cow that consistantly does a great job for me her hiefer will be looked at with great care. If I have a problem with a cow it would be very hard for me to keep one of her offspring.
 
This has been interesting! :D Obviously none of you are "cattle experts" because the university "cattle experts" tell us we are more profitable if we buy our replacements. If you look at development cost and lost opportunity cost against purchase cost, they have a point. But it seems we all know that an initial purchase cost doesn't necessarily make for profitable cow...long term thinking.

PPRM, I like your idea of buying old bred cows...there is a degree of proven performance with those cows. But that brings up another question...

We all agree to avoid the 'standard salebarn sells'...because we take all our culls there just like everyone else. I'm sure all salebarns put on some good stocker sales, but that is different. But the other question is...when you do buy, where do you go and what do you look for? Or, if you sell replacements, how do you go about it?

Just to warn you, my next question is going to throw you for a loop!!!!! :lol: :lol: :lol:
 
One advantage of keeping home-raised heifers is that they will be gentler, having not been joused around so much by trading hands. Another advantage is in the income tax situation. By not selling the heifer calves that are kept for replacements, no taxes need to be paid on the income they would generate.
 

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