Looking for old Shorthorn bull pics

[beebe]

I would love to see a picture of Butterfield Krakatoa.  I have semen from him.

 

[Willow Springs]

I have a few calves coming from Krakatoa in about a month. Dan Stephenson thinks he can drum up a picture and was going to send one to me. In the mean time here is a daughter from Braun Ranch in Sask.

 

[shortybreeder]

Zero chance he was a 4 1/2 frame if he indeed weighed 2400.  Though take into consideration  the embellishments that typically follow this particular storyteller. 

And $6000, in 1969, Mercy.  I was curious so had to look it up: the average annual income in both Canada and the US in ‘69 was between $5,800 and $6,000. With the average price of Saskatchewan farmland at the time being $60 an acre, where would a Western Canadian farmer have acquired that kind of disposable income to drop 100 times that on a bull ?

Ryan, I really don't care if you believe what I say or not.  Despite what you think, there was some pretty good prices paid back in this era for breeding stock. I have spent my entire life in this business and I do remember a few things yet. So I plead guilty to being a bit of a storyteller, even if I don't consider myself to be one. Actually, I feel very fortunate to have been able to do the only thing I ever wanted to do( and contrary to what you think, I did have to buy my farm and I paid dearly for it). I have been able to make my living from raising cattle and have never actually had another job ( other than helping others at a few sales over the years)
I remember my parents going to the Louada sale in Ontario in 1965 and they bought a son of Bapton Constructor at $5000. Another Saskatchewan breeder also went to this sale and he bought a bull at $12,500. He also bought 3 females between $2800 and $8000. The high selling bull in this sale was $30,000, and sold to Argentina.  The high selling Shorthorn bull at the 1968 Regina Bull Sale was $8000. I still have marked catalogs for almost all of the Regina Bull Sales from the early 50s through to when the sale ended just a few years ago. For many years this was the biggest bull sale in the world, and they sold bulls for 5 days from morning to night. I remember there was over 1000 Polled Hereford bulls there one year in the 70s,  and there was 14 bulls that sold at  $10,000 or more.I think the high price that year was $45,000 and very few bulls passed in the sale. In 1976, Crestdale Super Flag 14G sold in the Shorthorn sale at Regina Bull Sale for $41,500. And just like now, many breeders would place a higher price on an animal when someone was interested in it, and they did not want to sell it too bad. This was probably the case, when we asked for a price for Red Max Prince. He priced him and my dad decided he didn't want to pay that much for him. I don't think that is such a strange thing to happen. When I look back at some of the prices back 40-50 years ago ( or more) I really don't think prices for breeding stock have kept up with how costs have increased. Even in the 1990s when we also had a Charolais herd, we sold them privately out of the yard at your pick at $3000. We  sold 12-15 Charolais bulls for several years at this price. When I think of how much our costs have risen in the last 20 years, we are not keeping up with the prices we get for breeding stock today. For several years, we sold our Charolais bulls at $3000 and did not drop our price for the last few to sell. According to a inflation conversion table, $3000 in 1990 would be $5736 in 2019 dollars. We oftentimes sold 2-3 bulls at this price to some ranchers, and I remember one Montana rancher coming and taking 6 bulls at $3000 one year. Most of us don't think of this and still think $3000 is a good price today. My dad is 94 now, and still tries to keep up with what is happening in the cattle business. He attended our bull sale in March, and we averaged $4222 on the bulls. After the winter we had, I was pleased that we were able to sell them and was pleased with the sale average, My dad came to me after the sale was over, and said that compared to what we used to get, we were not keeping up with what our costs were. At first, I was a but upset that he was putting a damper on what I considered to be a good sale, but after thinking about this for awhile, I thought that he was probably closer to right than he was wrong. You can scratch your head on lots of things today, when you consider the price of grain, price of land, price of fertilizer and spray, and price of machinery. I don't understand this either. My neighbor just bought a new JD tractor on tracks and the largest air seeder they make ( I heard it was 76 feet wide). The cost of these two pieces of machinery was $1.7 million ( Canadian dollars) Another neighbor told me the interest alone on this purchase was $500 per day. He said that the guy who bought this machinery had told him this. Now how does anyone figure this makes any sense at any price you want to put on grain crops?

Interest rates must be much higher in Canada, because with the figures you gave, your neighbor would've had to have bought that equipment with $0 down and 10.7% interest... a typical loan on $1.7M (CAD) machinery in the States would be around $280 (CAD) interest per day, assuming they had enough other collateral to avoid a down payment.

And in a quick Google search, I've noticed that the Bank of Canada rate is actually lower than the US fed fund rate by almost 1%. I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on your financial institutions, but I'd say your neighbor is full of it claiming $500/day...

 

[justintime]

Zero chance he was a 4 1/2 frame if he indeed weighed 2400.  Though take into consideration  the embellishments that typically follow this particular storyteller. 

And $6000, in 1969, Mercy.  I was curious so had to look it up: the average annual income in both Canada and the US in ‘69 was between $5,800 and $6,000. With the average price of Saskatchewan farmland at the time being $60 an acre, where would a Western Canadian farmer have acquired that kind of disposable income to drop 100 times that on a bull ?

Ryan, I really don't care if you believe what I say or not.  Despite what you think, there was some pretty good prices paid back in this era for breeding stock. I have spent my entire life in this business and I do remember a few things yet. So I plead guilty to being a bit of a storyteller, even if I don't consider myself to be one. Actually, I feel very fortunate to have been able to do the only thing I ever wanted to do( and contrary to what you think, I did have to buy my farm and I paid dearly for it). I have been able to make my living from raising cattle and have never actually had another job ( other than helping others at a few sales over the years)
I remember my parents going to the Louada sale in Ontario in 1965 and they bought a son of Bapton Constructor at $5000. Another Saskatchewan breeder also went to this sale and he bought a bull at $12,500. He also bought 3 females between $2800 and $8000. The high selling bull in this sale was $30,000, and sold to Argentina.  The high selling Shorthorn bull at the 1968 Regina Bull Sale was $8000. I still have marked catalogs for almost all of the Regina Bull Sales from the early 50s through to when the sale ended just a few years ago. For many years this was the biggest bull sale in the world, and they sold bulls for 5 days from morning to night. I remember there was over 1000 Polled Hereford bulls there one year in the 70s,  and there was 14 bulls that sold at  $10,000 or more.I think the high price that year was $45,000 and very few bulls passed in the sale. In 1976, Crestdale Super Flag 14G sold in the Shorthorn sale at Regina Bull Sale for $41,500. And just like now, many breeders would place a higher price on an animal when someone was interested in it, and they did not want to sell it too bad. This was probably the case, when we asked for a price for Red Max Prince. He priced him and my dad decided he didn't want to pay that much for him. I don't think that is such a strange thing to happen. When I look back at some of the prices back 40-50 years ago ( or more) I really don't think prices for breeding stock have kept up with how costs have increased. Even in the 1990s when we also had a Charolais herd, we sold them privately out of the yard at your pick at $3000. We  sold 12-15 Charolais bulls for several years at this price. When I think of how much our costs have risen in the last 20 years, we are not keeping up with the prices we get for breeding stock today. For several years, we sold our Charolais bulls at $3000 and did not drop our price for the last few to sell. According to a inflation conversion table, $3000 in 1990 would be $5736 in 2019 dollars. We oftentimes sold 2-3 bulls at this price to some ranchers, and I remember one Montana rancher coming and taking 6 bulls at $3000 one year. Most of us don't think of this and still think $3000 is a good price today. My dad is 94 now, and still tries to keep up with what is happening in the cattle business. He attended our bull sale in March, and we averaged $4222 on the bulls. After the winter we had, I was pleased that we were able to sell them and was pleased with the sale average, My dad came to me after the sale was over, and said that compared to what we used to get, we were not keeping up with what our costs were. At first, I was a but upset that he was putting a damper on what I considered to be a good sale, but after thinking about this for awhile, I thought that he was probably closer to right than he was wrong. You can scratch your head on lots of things today, when you consider the price of grain, price of land, price of fertilizer and spray, and price of machinery. I don't understand this either. My neighbor just bought a new JD tractor on tracks and the largest air seeder they make ( I heard it was 76 feet wide). The cost of these two pieces of machinery was $1.7 million ( Canadian dollars) Another neighbor told me the interest alone on this purchase was $500 per day. He said that the guy who bought this machinery had told him this. Now how does anyone figure this makes any sense at any price you want to put on grain crops?

Interest rates must be much higher in Canada, because with the figures you gave, your neighbor would've had to have bought that equipment with $0 down and 10.7% interest... a typical loan on $1.7M (CAD) machinery in the States would be around $280 (CAD) interest per day, assuming they had enough other collateral to avoid a down payment.

And in a quick Google search, I've noticed that the Bank of Canada rate is actually lower than the US fed fund rate by almost 1%. I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on your financial institutions, but I'd say your neighbor is full of it claiming $500/day...

You are probably correct. I did not do any calculations as I have no idea what interest rates are on machinery, or anything else really. I only heard this second hand, but I have heard it now from two people, both of which are very good farmers and usually not people to make stuff up. In any event, I do know that the $1.7 million is what the price was, which by itself makes my knees weak to think about. I wish my neighbor well, but he has now purchased over $4 million in machinery in the last 6 months. One of the things I have always thought was that how differently most people consider the price of a good herd bull and most everything else we have to purchase. In 2015, we sold a bull in our sale for $32,000 which is by far the highest price I have ever received at auction. After the sale, I thanked the runner up bidder for bidding so high on my bull. He looked at me and said" I really didn't bid that much... my baler cost me more than that!  I just thought he was a good bull and deserved to sell for what he was worth". I thanks this man again and told him I liked how he thought.

 

[beebe]

I have a few calves coming from Krakatoa in about a month. Dan Stephenson thinks he can drum up a picture and was going to send one to me. In the mean time here is a daughter from Braun Ranch in Sask.

Thanks for the picture, I like her that encourages me.

 

[justintime]

I have a few calves coming from Krakatoa in about a month. Dan Stephenson thinks he can drum up a picture and was going to send one to me. In the mean time here is a daughter from Braun Ranch in Sask.

Thanks for the picture, I like her that encourages me.

I know I have a picture of Krakotoa someplace as well. Unfortunately I do not have it on my computer so I will have to try to find it in some old magazines and scan it. I remember this bull very well and wish I could scan my mental picture of him to my computer. I think you would really like him. He certainly was a bull that made them thick and easy fleshing. Far ahead of his time!

 

[764wdchev]

The price of corn in 1973 was $2.50/bushel, in today's dollars that would be $14.78/bushel. Feeder calves were less than .50/lbs, but using .50 that would equal 2.42 today.

The world wants cheap food. Even if it takes expensive equipment to produce it. So far in history, farmers have little control over prices. Maybe one day, when we have consolidated into very large farms, the market can be controlled by the producer. Deere and CNH control prices, because while they are producers, they don't have a neighbor that will sell it for half what it is worth. It also helps that their product isn't sold on the board. 

 

[RyanChandler]

Producers do control the market.  They consciously choose to participate in a market where vast overproduction takes place.  I realize it’s an easy option to stay home and take the tractor another round but when everybody realizes that’s the easiest life option, vast over production takes place.  And then they cry to the givernment that prices aren’t keeping up.  As if they didn’t realize the market was OVERSATURATED when they CHOSE to ‘farm.’ 


JIT asks, “how does it make any sense to be paying that kind of money for equipment considering grain prices.”

Well it doesn’t.  Just as it doesn’t make sense to drive a Ferrari to commute to work.  But for rich people, it doesn’t have to make ‘cents.’    Return on investment isn’t the goal or even a consideration; having the newest coolest shitt to impress passerby’s is the goal.  Just as paying $6000 for bulls in 1969 was.  Weaned calves were bringing a quarter and might’ve weighed 400 pounds at this time// that’s $80 bucks.

It’s not so much that modern prices aren’t keeping up as it is that the affluent WHO WERE DISTORTING MARKET PRICES AT THE TIME have now moved on to embracing different status symbols.  Though, like with the buyer of JITs bluebook bull that vanished into the abyss, there are still a few of these old money types still out there who are willing to sprinkle their loot in Ag’s direction for one last name drop.  But these folks are few and far between and becoming fewer every day.  As far as seedstock is concerned, I think we re getting closer to aligning market price with INTRINSIC VALUE than we ever have.  The more generations the white-collar folks are removed from the farm, the more alignment there’ll be between market and intrinsic values.

 

[shortybreeder]

Producers do control the market.  They consciously choose to participate in a market where vast overproduction takes place.  I realize it’s an easy option to stay home and take the tractor another round but when everybody realizes that’s the easiest life option, vast over production takes place.  And then they cry to the givernment that prices aren’t keeping up.  As if they didn’t realize the market was OVERSATURATED when they CHOSE to ‘farm.’ 


JIT asks, “how does it make any sense to be paying that kind of money for equipment considering grain prices.”

Well it doesn’t.  Just as it doesn’t make sense to drive a Ferrari to commute to work.  But for rich people, it doesn’t have to make ‘cents.’    Return on investment isn’t the goal or even a consideration; having the newest coolest shitt to impress passerby’s is the goal.  Just as paying $6000 for bulls in 1969 was.  Weaned calves were bringing a quarter and might’ve weighed 400 pounds at this time// that’s $80 bucks.

It’s not so much that modern prices aren’t keeping up as it is that the affluent WHO WERE DISTORTING MARKET PRICES AT THE TIME have now moved on to embracing different status symbols.  Though, like with the buyer of JITs bluebook bull that vanished into the abyss, there are still a few of these old money types still out there who are willing to sprinkle their loot in Ag’s direction for one last name drop.  But these folks are few and far between and becoming fewer every day.  As far as seedstock is concerned, I think we re getting closer to aligning market price with INTRINSIC VALUE than we ever have.  The more generations the white-collar folks are removed from the farm, the more alignment there’ll be between market and intrinsic values.

I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but I think you're a touch off the mark on the bolded part. Truly rich people don't blow their money on this stuff, and people who gain actual wealth care very much about ROI. It's the wannabe rich people buying that fancy equipment and cool "shitt" to show off--they just aren't about to show you the balance sheets that come with it. I think this is an important point for people (especially younger people like myself) to keep in mind so that they can avoid trying to "keep up with the Jones's"

 

[knabe]

Truly rich people don't blow their money on this stuff, and people who gain actual wealth care very much about ROI. It's the wannabe rich people buying that fancy equipment and cool "shitt" to show off--they just aren't about to show you the balance sheets that come with it. I think this is an important point for people (especially younger people like myself) to keep in mind so that they can avoid trying to "keep up with the Jones's"

i'm thinking maybe they buy mega yachts and large plots of land instead.  walmart kids have lots of land with lots of cattle. football team owners seem to keep up with each other and so does the largest temp agency in the US, he's got the priciest angus herd and all the best people working for him.

 

[beebe]

I have a few calves coming from Krakatoa in about a month. Dan Stephenson thinks he can drum up a picture and was going to send one to me. In the mean time here is a daughter from Braun Ranch in Sask.

Does anybody have any birth weight/ calving ease information on him?

 

[Willow Springs]

I will know more in a month. CSA has 18 calves from 4 herds with 83 lb average and 103 index (lighter than average) born since 2007. His BW and CE are both situated that he should be a calving ease type bull, but did see a few pulls on first calf heifers in the data.

 

[beebe]

Thanks, Phillip Butterfield told me that he would be easier calving than Able Seaman.

 

[Willow Springs]

A couple more that were sent to me.

If anyone has pics of these bulls as well that would be great

NVS Valley Shadrack
High Time

 

[trevorgreycattleco]

Ridge Runner looks like an old school Maine lol. But with a shot of milking shorthorn.

 

[trevorgreycattleco]

And CF Total........ looks like a total train wreck. What the hell was everybody smoking back then? The bad hashish? Wut in tarnation was going on

 

[Willow Springs]

I think Ridge Runner is mostly Dual purpose by pedigree (Columbus son). Total was probably not as extreme as he looks as most pictures of that era were taken with hips towards camera to give the appearance of more hip height, with bull elevated or camera person low down to the ground and bellies shaved again to give appearance of size. And again the industry is always in the newest fad - I ask the same question about a lot of the show/popular cattle I see today - what the hell IS everybody smoking? The cattle of the 80's early 90's don't hold the monopoly on poor structure.

 

[trevorgreycattleco]

Totally agree. Trends change and I was just trying to have a laugh. Those are way before my time. Show cattle is about extremes and that is ok. I’ve stood behind some club calf bulls and was in awe of how wide their ass is. To each their own. If show cattle is a way in for the youth to get into Ag, I’m ok with that.

 

[oakview]

Ridge Runner was indeed 100% dual purpose, Milking Shorthorn if you will.  He was a pretty good bull in his day, as were so many other bulls at every end of the spectrum in every era.  There will probably come a day when he's "good" again.  Believe it or not, there was a time when Leader 21 was laughed at, before and after he became popular.  What's old is new again. 

 

[GM]

Things do have a tendency to come back around.  I just can’t imagine the giants ever walking the earth again.  I have a Drovers Journal from 84 and it’s just unreal.