Along with my vet, we weaned and worked my small herd the other day. This includes vacinations, preg check, bangs, new rfid ear tags, pour, weighed...lots to be done and seems like each animal gets something different. They also go different directions out of the chute as part of weaning.

In preparation for the hectic time in the corral I make a check list ahead of time for the vet and I on what needs to be done on each animal.  I noticed the checklist was getting much longer than in the past.

 The spring 2010 calves are mostly in the 700-850 lb range and no longer cute little calves but growing rapidly and using a lot of hay in addition the the tail end of the grazing. There is a lot of Hereford beef in the small corral pasture!

I decided to cull my three largest cows, totalling about 5200 lb of 4-5 mo pregnant cows. My vet does a great job of sorting them into the tub without getting everyone riled up. At the end of the afternoon everyone had the right shots and was on the correct side of the weaning fence and these three largest cows were left in the corral. I got the trailer, backed up to the loading ramp and to my surprise they went back through the tub, alley and chute and onto the trailer with no problem (no lawn chair or beer required as with my bull this summer).

What jumps out at me is that by culling these three large cows totalling 5200 lb and using 3% of body weight of hay per day consumption I have reduced my winter hay requirement by 5200 lb x .03 x 150 days (in WI to greenup) = 23,400 lb = 16.71 1400 lb & $60 bales of hay = $1002 of hay alone.

These three cows are due to calves around April 1, greenup and turnout on grass is usually about May 1.  Therefore these THREE cows' calves, assuming everything goes ok are costing me $333 EACH in hay alone between now and May 1 at which time they will be one month old.

This $333. per calf is just in hay alone and ignores many other costs and is just the additional expense between now (mid Nov) and May 1.  If I add other expenses such as mineral and any other cow depreciation, vet visit, land, facilities, time/machinery costs the cost of each of those 3 calves just to May 1 could easily be $500. As of May 1 those cows last years calves were in 190-200 lb range. So my actual cost of those 3 culled cows' calves as of May 1 2011 would be in the $2.50/lb range.

I don't sell calves myself but I do see 300-400 lb calves selling for 1.30 or 1.40/lb. Maybe the cost of that gain from 200 lb on May 1 to say 350 lb is less expensive but there is still something in this process that does not compute to a profit selling calves. 

In any case it made sense to cull these three large cows and the winter hay calculations work out a lot better now. Note that if these had been more like my target 1200 lb cows the numbers work out quite a bit differently. I think it is very important in my particular situation to reduce cow size to the 1200 lb range as soon as possible. FWIW.

Jim at Dawn