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Kansas | I don't know what the numbers are today anymore but I doubt they are to far from what we used to use that it took 300 bucks to put a calf on the ground...............figure 300 to 350..........and most of that cost was feed.
Your talking 140 bucks off the top if I read right just to calve out a heifer. Which we all know are the worst, but still that calf is going to have to produce like heck to make back that money lost up front in someone else feeding it for a small time frame and watching it.
Now if you can buy a bucket calf for 150 bucks and put it on the cow if one is lost, things ain't so bad but if your laying out 250 or more at the salebarn for a replacement calf or cutting your losses and just plainly selling off the heifer/cow.................where is there any money making in that?
Oh, I agree, you can't do it just for the exercise but at the same time, I think you could probably hire some wetbacks fairly cheap to babysit in a barn or make hourly checks from the trailerhouse and have alot less invested even if you have to buy the feed and bring it in.
My point is, if I'm going to pay good money of 140 dollars a head to calve them out, inevitably, as a livestock producer you can never save them all, but there better be a dang close to 100 percent crop for that sort of cold hard cash laid out. The guy watching them is providing a service. Its of no damn earthly good if he can't save the calves.
If your not going to have a gaurantee, you might as well just throw hay over the feeder every day and then take your chances they'll do fine on thier own while you study the insides of your eyeballs each night. | |
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custom calving
