IS it worth raising these club calves !!!!!

[Freddy]

First the market's report for yesterday , a size able group (51 .)  of red angus heifers at 584 brought total per head check of 2289.00  ....
Other groups of  red angus heifer calves brought over 2000.00 up to the high I quoted ....

There is a bunch of these highly promoted cattle not doing this , also this was  a noticeable trend in the bull production  and most people guarantee these bulls against injury for  year or more ...

 

[home2012]

Market prices sure make you want to think twice about all that breaking, washing, clipping, and marketing show calves.  Net money pays the bills and I am not so sure show cattle are going to be the best net profit in the next year or so.

 

[Freddy]

FAT  cattle had record high of 170 yesterday !!!!

 

[GoWyo]

We do clubbies for fun.  Most of the calves don't pan out as show cattle, but they seem to feed OK.  Seems like it takes about 6 cows rolling the dice to make 1 steer good enough to be competitive at our county fair.  Some years there is a heifer worth showing and sometimes the neighbor kids will take one for a little over market price.  It would probably have been cheaper to just buy a $3000 county fair steer each year, but it has been fun. 

I am thinking when we are done showing, the crossbred cows will either just be bred Angus or will be recips for our registered Angus deal if they are good cows.  The rest will hit the road to make room for the best registered cows or recip cows we can keep around.

 

[CRS]

We some culls to the sale barn along with a clean up bull yesterday and wow.  There were a couple fats that brought 1.75, but most were in the mid 1.50's.  A larger group of all black steer calves sold for 3.03 all 5 weights.  At those prices the fat price has to go up.

 

[obie105]

The worst is guys still call wanting cattle at prices that there hasn't been in 5 years. I had a guy call me not wanting to spend more than $2500 for his next herd bull. I have one left and he is priced at $4000 the guy told me that was outrageous. I told him look at what fat cattle are bringing and he hung up. Guess he hasn't sold feeder calves yet.

 

[Doc]

The worst is guys still call wanting cattle at prices that there hasn't been in 5 years. I had a guy call me not wanting to spend more than $2500 for his next herd bull. I have one left and he is priced at $4000 the guy told me that was outrageous. I told him look at what fat cattle are bringing and he hung up. Guess he hasn't sold feeder calves yet.

Yea, that is the thing with the small breeders in our area. They are still looking for that $2,000 herd bull. The only good thing is at least now they can't go to the sale barn even and buy one as cheap as they want to.

 

[RyanChandler]

Prices like those are the result of someone getting thrown a bone--  the best 5 weight heifers I've seen are bringing <250/cwt at OKC West.  The price quoted in the scenario above is OVER FIFTY PERCENT MORE than the HIGHEST heifers I've seen. 

Bull prices are relative to quality.  MANY young (4-6 yr olds) purebred / papered bulls coming through sale barns (the same bulls that were in the fancy catalogs 2-3 years ago) and they're selling for market price: $ 2500-3K

The stigma that some place on these bulls just because of the outlet they were sold through is one of the silliest, most unexplainable concepts ever.

If the quality is there, there's no ceiling on what I'll pay for a bull-- that said, I'd still expect a pretty dang nice bull for $4k -- especially! if we're talking yearling bulls. 

 

[Medium Rare]

The small dollar side of the club calf deal has been saturated for awhile now.  There are quite a few small operations who are doing a large amount of work for free and if they would put an actual dollar figure on the daily breaking, fitting, fluffing, and selling they'd probably scare themselves with what their calves would need to sell for to come out ahead of GOOD commercial cattle right now.  The transition back to GOOD commercial cattle who take care of themselves in your operation isn't cheap, or quick, though.

I'd even go so far as to say there are a lot of purebred breeders who are not getting the dollars their animals are worth right now considering commercial guys are moving everything for good money and the purebred side has been lagging just a little.

 

[Freddy]

I agree with MEDIUM RARE ,bull deal is  the worst because you grow them ,get some of them to fat ,won't test ,if they do you get the privilege of guaranteeing them the first breeding season , some are to fat and get hurt  ,most problems  IMO is the ANGUS .....PEOPLE FORGET ABOUT THE COST'S AND ENJOY ALL THE GLORY AND HARD WORK ...