Cow calf vs pastured weaned calves.....

Ok, Not gonna have enough hay for winter, pasture toast about 3 weeks ago. Going to sell 90% of the cows. Since I have pasture available, with adjacent crop land fenced for fall grazing, am I better off buying calves, get a grain feeder out there, and spring to winter graze them? The cow calf just does not pencil out of you have to buy hay, and my only hay after this year will be 95% alfalfa, I, as I learned this past 8 months, would have been 3 times as profitable had I sold the bred cows last fall, and held the hay to sell over the winter /spring. Any thoughts. Landlord wants cattle over there for Ag prop tax designation, and I would rather farm the tillable than have it seeded to all pasture.

(quoted from post at 07:59:09 08/07/13) Ok, Not gonna have enough hay for winter, pasture toast about 3 weeks ago. Going to sell 90% of the cows. Since I have pasture available, with adjacent crop land fenced for fall grazing, am I better off buying calves, get a grain feeder out there, and spring to winter graze them? The cow calf just does not pencil out of you have to buy hay, and my only hay after this year will be 95% alfalfa, [b:6dbde1e7d5]I, as I learned this past 8 months, would have been 3 times as profitable had I sold the bred cows last fall, and held the hay to sell over the winter /spring.[/b:6dbde1e7d5] Any thoughts. Landlord wants cattle over there for Ag prop tax designation, and I would rather farm the tillable than have it seeded to all pasture.

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f i guy would have a crystal ball hindsight would be a thing of the past.
Selling a known good breeding herd that took years to develop is hard to replace.
There is usually a big price diff when selling cows in drought stressed situations and buying back when the weather turns around.

There really ain't much profit anyway in feeding cattle whether they be calves yearlings or cows.
I would not make my decisions on what the landlord wants either.

Life is though and farming makes it only tougher.

my 2c

Ya,you kind of hate to eat your seed,so to speak. I finish all of my calves,and have never had to do this,but I figured if I have to I can sell the calves in the fall and put all of my feed through the cow herd if feed is too short to feed'em all.

I went through the same thing last year in central Illinois drought. I sold every cow and calf that wasn't the very best, culled the entire herd and then started binding corn to feed what was left . I was chopping down corn the last week of July feeding it to cows with rationed hay till the hurricane came in mid August it rained for four days straight the pastures greened up and the 3rd and 4th hay crop came back strong and we made it.

Better stated then I could have.

If you are going to sell the cows then you need to put the pencil to the cost of livestock/cattle of any kind on rented ground. The problem in the livestock segment right now is high feed/rent costs. There is not a profit to be made in cattle if you include the market cost of hay and corn. If the feed cost come down there maybe a window of profitability coming.

On rented pasture and little hay. I would buy light feeder calves 350-450 LBS and creep feed them on the pasture an sell them in the fall when feeder cattle climb after harvest.

This will take some capitol because you are going to be able to run more head than you currently are but you are having to buy every pound of them.

You are already out of the game for this year. In the future if you do build up another cow herd you need to have more feed reserves. I bale just about anything I can get that can be made into feed. It maybe low quality hay that I may have to tub grind and blend but if the price per pound of dry matter and protein is below a certain price I do it.

I run about 100 pairs. I usually have a 300 bale cushion in my hay inventory. I can just about make it a year without any "new" hay. Grind the hay I have and blend it with corn silage or wet gluten feed. Then if hay is short in the fall add ground corn stalks to the ration. You can make a cheap feed using other things besides boughten hay.

How about keeping some of your best cows and some of the best heifers. If you do this you know what you have. I have had to do the same thing, didnt get rich but I stayed in the game, Dont sell all at once as you may end up having some rain yet and getting the pastures to green up and a cutting of hay. Can you get some stock bales this fall and limit feed your hay with some grain and protine? Talk to your feed dealer to see what they suggest to meet your cows nutritional needs, you arent the first one and wont be the last one, have a plan and dont let your cows get thin.