buying vs breeding

[JPiantedosi]

Is a person better off to try and breed to keep numbers in a small herd of cattle, or are you better off to raise a portion of your herd with the intent of selling them to replace sold critters?

I am trying to consider the cost/gain associated with breeding cattle whether it be AI or natural breeding, vs buying a bull VS just replacing the herd every tear or 2.

Im talking about a herd between 15-20 head

Jim

[PaulNKS]

I'm not sure I understand your question. What is the purpose of having a herd of cattle if you're not breeding and getting calves?

[SCRancher]

I think your better off with that small of a herd to AI and keep replacement heifers rather than buy replacement heifers. You can buy a small herd of ok quality cows and through selective AI breeding you can build a herd of really nice cows in a few years.

I defiantly would not replace the herd every year or two that's a little extreme.

In my case my carrying capacity is about 20 cow/calf pairs - since I had never in my life been associated with a farm I bought 10 cows and am slowly growing my herd out to the 20 cows I can carry. I did buy a bull but if I was to do it over again I would not have bought a bull and just used AI instead. I plan on going AI route later this year after calf crop in the belly's drop.

I am hoping to have another small farm by that time so I'll keep the bull putting him at the hopeful other place - he's good quality bull and I'll use him to clean up after the AI since I already have him.

[oregon woodsmok]

I don't usually see any rancher doing both.

Either they keep a breeding herd and sell calves as soon as they are weaned, or else they buy weaned calves and raise them to the size that the feedlots want.

Dairies rarely raise up their own cows. They sell day old calves and buy springing heifers.

I think it depends upon what sort of grazing and weather you have and how much land. If you keep a breeding herd, you must feed them every winter.

The guys who raise weaners to sales weight buy them in early spring, feed them until the grass is gone in the late fall and then sell them. The guys with breeding herds are feeding that grass to their brood cows, not to growing young stock.

However, if you've got the feed, there is no reason that you could not keep a breeding herd and raise the calves all the way to market weight.

The breeders with quality Angus keep a breeding herd, raise the bulls until they are yearlings and then sell them as breeding stock, mostly to go out with the range cattle. So the Angus breeders are running on calves longer than anybody else, but then they are getting a lot more money for those calves than anybody else does, so they can afford to buy hay in the winter.

[rancher1913]

depends. do you have a separate pasture for the heifers that ANY bull can not get to, do you have a heifer bull for breeding or do you want to chance your regular bull breaking their backs during breeding, do you know enough about genetics to get a calf you won't have to pull, do you have a way to work or preg check them. have you weighed the cost of raising or buying, I bought some blackbaldies from CSU last fall for 1300 bucks and raised some myself that last time I checked I had 1500 plus in them.