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New Mexico | Ben, I've thought the exact same thing more than a time or 2.
Matter of fact I asked one of my older banker cowboy friends ( Jack is 79 ) the Exact same thing last year...
We had hauled out plenty of Breds / Pairs for the 2nd year in a row, 10 year dry cycle here and cows, breds, and pairs just keep on coming.
He told me: "This is a big country down here. It never runs out of cattle."
We are actually a better area for making calves into yearlings than running cows ( MO ).
On a bad summer, calves will only gain say 220 to 250 lbs for the grass season....decent year though, everything will gain approx 300 lbs ( don't matter what incoming weight is )....and the real good programs will gain close to 400 lbs.
Takes about 40 to 50 acres to run a cow year around.
Only takes 10 to 14 acres ( varies with area ) for the afore summer grass season to make a yearling calf ( starting with framey 5 weights ).
Starting with light calves, say 350 lbs, one can DOUBLE their weight over the summer on 8 to 10 acres.
Plenty of calves hauled in here every Spring...don't matter if it's dry...we just start dusting em in earlier on the dry years. ( they might not gain much...but they ALL grow frame )
Plenty of those are hiefers, so some of those hiefer bunches do go into breeding programs.
When it gets dry here, guys that run cows generally Sell cows.
They keep hiefer calves, then develop those into the next set of cows.
Bout everyone I know develops 30 to 300 hiefers annually.
Lot of rough country here Ben, so there's plenty of "off the map" cattle too.
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Right at an $8 UP in
