AI or buy a bull?

[Royd Wood]

We need to replace the bulls soon, .

You need a Galloway - get some rich blood pumpin around the veins in your herd

An old post - How did you make out Nonees

 

[redtailgal]

I'd love a nice Galloway......wanna donate to my cause?

 

[kfacres]

I have a pdf that I would like to post-- but don't know how.

I'm thinking that you didn't understand what I typed...

I'd like to see a bull that costs less than 2000-- regardless if you feed it or not. Grass is expensive- land is expensive, hay is expensive. Grain isn't needed in most cases..

I'd also like to see a bull that wasn't worth 2000 on the market as a fat steer instead?

 

[redtailgal]

I must be missing something. I do that sometimes, lol.

How is the grass expensive? It grows in the pasture...........we dont do anything to it, except spread a little chicken litter once in a while and over seed every couple years. We dont run our pasture full, instead, we have few cattle on a larger pasture, and rotate them to a new pasture every six months. Our pastures right now are standing tall, knee high to me, in nice green grass. A poor pasture is expensive, but a well maintained pasture (maintained by proper herd management) is nothing short of FREE feed, IMO.

Same thing with the hay......we mow and bale our own, it costs us nothing more than the fuel, but we sell enough extra to cover the fuel costs, so our hay is "free" too.
For example, FIL put up 400 round bales last week, reserved 100 for our use, and sold the rest on a hay contract that covered all the expense of making the hay.

Shut up, (i'm not callin' you names, thats our bulls name because he is a talker), cost us 4500$ to purchase initially. We've leased him out to two other farms, so that we dont have to house him when he needs to be away from our girls. The other two farms and us, rotate him, but they pay us a fee each year to use him. We've gotten back every dime that we paid for him, so while that initial cost was there, we were able to regain it.

Now, it's time to sell him (probably in the spring). We'll put him out there for the other two farms to have first choice. IF they dont want him, he'll go to auction, but since we've already gotten our money back on him, we cant cut a loss.

We are all different, do things our own way, I guess. I've done AI before, not a fan of it, but I can see how others would prefer it. For us though, the cost of buying semen, tanks etc, then having to crawl up inside every cow on the place would be a step backward. We've got our bull situation worked out pretty good, and are able to PROFIT from having a bull on the place, as he brings in his own paycheck. AI, for us, would be just money out.

As for Shut up, maybe he'll go to auction when he is sold......But I am pretty confident that one of the other farms will buy him and put him on a lease in their own operation, which would be nice, we may want to outsource to him in the future.

edited to add: I have no idea on how to post a PDF, unless you can upload it somewhere else, and post a link to it.

 

[Stubbornhillfarm]

I have a pdf that I would like to post-- but don't know how.

I'm thinking that you didn't understand what I typed...

I'd like to see a bull that costs less than 2000-- regardless if you feed it or not. Grass is expensive- land is expensive, hay is expensive. Grain isn't needed in most cases..

I'd also like to see a bull that wasn't worth 2000 on the market as a fat steer instead?

Can you open your PDF and then take a snapshot of it, save it in another program like paint and save it as a JPG, then up load? That's what I would try.

 

[redtailgal]

Hey thats an idea.........I'd love to read it, so I hope that you can get it on here.

 

[kfacres]

My PDF is about 10 pages long. I can email it- kfacres@hotmail.com

Your grass is expensive- due to land prices. Currently, in my part of the world- it's not uncommon for farm land to bring 10,000-12,000-- poor timber hunting ground more than 2k.

Pasture rental rates are also out of the roof.

Do you fertilize your pastures? If not, you should be-=- N was also through the roof.

It is proven that the only feedstuff more expensive than hay-- is corn silage. You have to have equipment, timing, storage (barns are expensive), and whatever else you need. In almost every case-- it's cheaper and more sure fire to buy your hay--- and in that case-- not so cheap.

My wife and I are looking at buying a new 40 acre farm-- for $400,000-- 35 plus acres of pasture, almost zero trees, plus barns, house, and some yard- which will be reduced into more pasture for the most part...

NOW tell me that's cheap grass?

I take great pride in my pasture skills, and managment. I work for the USDA- and the state grazing specialist is my career goal. I also live in the best soils, the highest quality most productive soils-- that grow the best, most, and quickest forages in the world.

I sometimes wonder why we are going to spend 400k to feed sheep and cattle grass-- are we crazy? Would it not be cheaper to buy 10 acres, open up a drylot operation, and feed hay all year? I think it might be.

 

[kfacres]

I forgot to mention- I don't know that I would be leasing out my herd sires to just anyone.. From potential disease standpoint, and liability-- I question sending a multiple thousand dollar beast anywhere else? I have a closed herd/ flock-- and do not inject new genetics into it.

The other difference b/w your or my case and most people who visit this site-- is that you have the property, and you have enough mamma cows to justify having a walking bull. Most people, have one or two cows- and 5 acres-- a bull will eat the same as those two cows- and tear up way more stuff on a 5 acre tract of land.

 

[redtailgal]

My PDF is about 10 pages long. I can email it- kfacres@hotmail.com

Your grass is expensive- due to land prices. Currently, in my part of the world- it's not uncommon for farm land to bring 10,000-12,000-- poor timber hunting ground more than 2k.

Pasture rental rates are also out of the roof.

Do you fertilize your pastures? If not, you should be-=- N was also through the roof.

It is proven that the only feedstuff more expensive than hay-- is corn silage. You have to have equipment, timing, storage (barns are expensive), and whatever else you need. In almost every case-- it's cheaper and more sure fire to buy your hay--- and in that case-- not so cheap.

My wife and I are looking at buying a new 40 acre farm-- for $400,000-- 35 plus acres of pasture, almost zero trees, plus barns, house, and some yard- which will be reduced into more pasture for the most part...

NOW tell me that's cheap grass?

I take great pride in my pasture skills, and managment. I work for the USDA- and the state grazing specialist is my career goal. I also live in the best soils, the highest quality most productive soils-- that grow the best, most, and quickest forages in the world.

I sometimes wonder why we are going to spend 400k to feed sheep and cattle grass-- are we crazy? Would it not be cheaper to buy 10 acres, open up a drylot operation, and feed hay all year? I think it might be.

Yes, I suppose that makes sense. We are on old land, owned by this family for generations.

We do fertilize, sparingly and with chicken litter that we get free (lol, I am a tightwad) for cleaning out chicken houses with our tractors. These fields have been fertilized this way for along time and do well for us. We have had the fertilizer truck come out a couple times, after the soil testing showed that it would be be beneficial, but we dont apply N unless the soil testing shows that it is warranted.

Might be cheaper to drylot a few.......but I like the beef that we get off our grass.

For a smaller operation, I still like the co-owner method of bull ownership.

I'm pretty big on solid stock, and keeping overhead down while maintaining quality care.

And from your second post.......I couldnt agree more. We lease out to people we know and have dealt with for a while, their grand-daddy dealt with our grandaddy and the like. Cost effectiveness must be seasoned with well thought out choices.

I can see how AI would be beneficial to some folks, but it's just not for me except for a rare occasion. I'm fortunate enough to have enough pasture to manage easily and neighboring cattlemen that I can trust. When I get old and decrepit, we will have to cut back on our herd. I'll still have my bulls then, lol, cuz I am already old and set in my ways. One of our leasers only have 2 cows...........they pay us 200$ to have him long enough to get their cows bred. Their pasture connects to ours, so we dont even have to load him up, just push him thru the gate and its a done deal.

I guess I just need to admit one thing.......I HATE doing AI...........I get poop in my ear everytime cuz I have short arms. I dont mind poop, really. Just not in my ear.

 

[jhm47]

RTG: In the thousands of heifers and cows that I have AI'd, I've come to the conclusion that the poop doesn't taste nearly as bad as it smells. All in what you get used to. Also, having the proper facilities and equipment is very important.

As to cost of AI vs bulls---in this area, you would be very lucky to find a decent bull for less than $5000. Figuring that a bull can cover 30 cows in a season, that figures out to about $166 / pregnancy. Figure that this bull will be used for 3 years, brings the cost down to $55.00 in bull outlay. Then, there's feed, insurance and vet costs. These would conservatively run around $1000/year, so you can add another $11 per pregnant cow. Brings the total to around $66/cow bred by this bull. Consider that he will be 92% effective, and you get $71.00 per pregnant cow.

AI costs---Semen at $20, labor at $8, and supplies at around $10 brings you to $38. Consider that you will get around 70% bred, brings the cost / pregnancy at $54.00.

Figure in the added value of using elite genetics, which are highly proven---??? for a value to that. I do know that in my own herd the AI calves are superior to the ones from the cleanup bulls, and the AI females are almost always my best cows.

There is also the safety factor, and that's another thing that I cannot put a value on. I do know that my own cleanup bulls are terribly destructive to the feeders, fences, shelter, etc. I have been very lucky that I've never had a mean bull of my own, but I have neighbors who have been severely injured in the past by "gentle" bulls. And there's also the advantage of having a pretty good idea of when a particular heifer will be calving. Synchronization also enables one to choose the timing of calving quite accurately, and that's another convenience thing that's hard to put a value on.

I have many customers who breed 100+ heifers each year to proven calving ease AI bulls. If they were to buy calving ease bulls to breed all of them natural service, they would need 4 (yearling bulls should be limited to 25 or less). Figuring $5000 per bull, that's $20,000. They can breed all these heifers AI once through, spend $5400, and only need 1 or 2 cleanup bulls.

You do the math.