– Garth Ruff, Beef Cattle Field Specialist, OSU Extension (originally published in The Ohio Cattleman)
“No matter how your Granddaddy or your Daddy did it, if you are trying to do exactly like you did last year you are probably wrong.
If you’re trying to farm like you did last year you are probably wrong. Unless you did it wrong last year, and that might be the case. Then maybe you get it right this year because every year is different.”
The above quote was one of the many valuable pieces of insight during our 2022 Beef Outlook webinar taught by Dr. Andrew Griffith, Associate Professor of Agriculture and Resource Economics at the University of Tennessee. You can find the recording on the OSU Extension Beef Team YouTube page.
That thought really stuck me as timely. We know fertilizer, seed, feed, and chemical inputs are going to cost more for the foreseeable future. Inflation and increasing interest rates are daily discussion topics. Weather continues to be a wild card, not just with drought in the west but with excess moisture here at home. Even though commodity prices look favorable, especially cattle and beef, it is borderline insanity to think about farm management the same way we did one year ago, let alone like Dad and Grandpa did years prior.
Not evaluating our operations and allowing “tradition” to impede progress is more detrimental than I think we tend to realize.
Since this originally appeared in the Beef Expo issue of the Ohio Cattlemen magazine and we are approaching bull buying season, this is my annual PSA that your next herd sire is an investment and should be thought of as such.
Purchasing a herd sire can be a classic example where unwarranted tradition often inhibits progression and improvement of a cow herd.
The first example that come to mind is that over the years I have observed several producers who only want to make a minimal financial investment to purchase a herd sire. Every bull purchased is going to have impacts on a herd for years, not just the upcoming calf crop. Can you afford not to purchase a herd sire that is going to move your herd forward and make your cattle more marketable?
In today’s bull market there maybe something for everybody, however in terms of genetics, phenotype, and reproduction, value and quality might not always go hand in hand. In my mind, there is a big difference between a herd sire and a cow settler.
If you only have a handful of cows, I get it. Herd size is a key piece to the bull value equation, but not the only piece.
Considering the price of cull bulls over the past several years, the overall financial investment of a young bull has been more than reasonable for commercial cattlemen. When slaughter bulls 1,800-2,000 pound bull are selling for $0.75/lb, to $1.00+/lb, it is more cost effective than ever to upgrade and improve genetics.
As I have written before, I encourage producers, especially smaller producers to think outside the box in terms of improving genetics. Heifers are another source of genetic improvement.
We have just started a study looking at the cost of developing beef heifers here in Ohio. While we do not know that cost figure today, however we are fairly confident that if heifers (and two-year-old cows) are not managed and developed separate from mature cows, that they are at higher risk of not reaching their genetic potential.
If you can’t manage different groups of females due to small cow numbers, or limited pasture consider purchasing your replacement heifers. Another strategy could be to artificially inseminate all your heifers to a calving ease bull and purchase a moderate birth weight herd sire for your mature cows. Another strategy could be to utilize one or two rounds of synchronized AI breeding potential replacement heifers and sell any open heifers as yearlings. The market looks to be strong for yearling cattle for the foreseeable future.
If you ever have questions or want to discuss different management strategies, feel free to reach out.
Once again Happy Bull Buying and don’t get caught with open cows in 2022!