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Some new cows and a new venture...

RSL

Well-known member
We had the opportunity to take a pick of the herd from one of the best herds of Red Angus cattle I know of anywhere in Western Canada. They were an old Charolais association progeny test herd that is downsizing. It is pretty rare to find a group of cows where you know:
how they are bred
what the calves will weigh
How they will do on feed
What the carcasses will do (80+% Choice, all Y1 at 14 - 15 months old).
We had our pick of cows aged 4 to 9, and with a neighbour we hauled 4 trailer loads home.
First load
165021_475497399623_661889623_5849928_8333044_n.jpg

165516_475497739623_661889623_5849941_6595272_n.jpg

Middle load...
164789_475497919623_661889623_5849948_1613269_n.jpg

Last Load - 4:45pm
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I would have liked to have bought them all, but we will not gamble on the grass.
The new part of the venture is that instead of us buying the whole bunch, a neighbour bought several and we are going to custom operate them for him. Less debt for us and guaranteed cash flow, expertise and a lower cost for him. It should work fairly well.
 

Justin

Well-known member
it sure make a person feel better about adding cows to the herd when you know that much about them. congrats on the additions. :)
 

Dylan Biggs

Well-known member
Always exciting, good for you.

What specifically about those cows leads you to classify them as the best in Western Canada?

Always nice to have data, from a data perspective the more the better.

How are you planning on translating the data into added value?

Are you going to breed them differently then your main herd?
 

RSL

Well-known member
Dylan, those are big questions that hopefully I can answer in semi understandable babble...
1. I like the structure of the cows, the pedigree, and the work behind them. From our perspective of being somewhat risk averse, it is one of the few herds I am aware of that I know before I buy the cows what the expected calving difficulty, weaning weight, feed conversion, carcass quality, etc. will be. This automatically moves them way up on my list of "good". They are on a very good animal health program as well, although slightly different than our own as far as products used.
Also, the people are 100% honest and very good to deal with. The way I think of good cattle is that someone comes and says "these are good". My immediate reaction is "prove it", and usually the result is "because they look nice". These cattle have the proof behind them. They consistently gain 3.5+ on feed, and when killed at 14 months go 80+% AAA, all Y1 and turn out 750 pound carcasses (regardless of bull battery).

The other thing I really like is that these are not $1500 heifers, with their hardest life challenge (rearing first calf and rebreeding) ahead of them. They are young, but over the hurdle so to speak.

3. They are currently bred CH, but will go with our red SM bulls with the rest of our mature cows. Splitting breeding programs creates grass management challenges for us.

2. We already sell a few F1 heifers out of this mature cow herd, and we are slowly working into grass fed beef sales. As this progresses we may use some of these cows in that program (not bred SM). The steers will either be fed out or backgrounded or sold off the cow. Based on current prices I doubt they will be fed out.
They also provide an opportunity for us to pursue the custom cow management business on a small scale to see if it works for us and to help out a neighbour and his young family (this also secures us some free dayhelp now and then). This same neighbour is looking at investing in a provincially inspected custom processing operation, so there could be some real synergies there for us.

Sorry for the long answer...

:oops:
 

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