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Central, IA | I have to agree with Russ on the frustrations from a dairy guys perspective. My dad used to milk and it was annoying with guys calling up wanting a "day old" calf all the time, You would tell them, no, but we have a 10 day old one. Nope - gotta have a newborn. And then they would act like they were mad that you didn't have one. We only had 50 dairy cows, it doesn't take a genius to figure out you are not going to have a calf born everyday, plus all the dairy heifers were kept as replacements. We would always kind of know the going rate at the sale barns for holstein bull calves and then charge an extra $25 or so for our own. These were always healthy calves that were given colostrum and treated as if we were keeping them as our own. Response was always - "I can get one at the barn for $X". Ok, Go ahead and spin that wheel, I don't really need or want to sell this calf anyway. I'm doing you a favor IMO. (This was 15 yrs ago when holstein steers were actually worth something as feeders)
The best was guys calling needing colostrum. Dad would charge $5 a gallon for frozen colostrum in 2 2qt jugs. Guys would haggle like heck thinking that he would just give it away........ Dad's response was always - "Well, here it is, Or go get one of your cows in a stanchion and milk her out then" He usually got the money pretty easily. I always figure $5 was a steal if you didn't have to milk out a cow and could save a calf. | |
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Graft Calf Price?
