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Napanee, Ontario | Was talking with someone earlier.... they were saying how much more money there was in cows vs row cropping right now. He figures there is about $400 a head profit to the cow guy on a 800 lb animal selling for 1.75.
I said sure, maybe even more but lets use the 400.
He started off saying 2 acres a cow for pasture.... I replied that was likely only achievable on prime soil, and that nationwide average is probably closer to 4-5 acres / cow.
Then i said what about the winter feed? On 5ac/hd ground you're going to need another 2 acres of winter feed for the cows and the weaned calves.. So basically 7 acres per hd/year.
So we did the math, $400 per hd profit / 7 acres = $57/ac profit
What about your livestock labor? Cows are a year round deal... whats the price on pulling calves at 2am in a January blizzard when it's 30 below? feeding every day, needling, roping up sick ones, trucking them around, tagging, castrating, worming....
So we said another $30,000 for say 250 cows to calve out and winter feed them to pasture time, which is probably cheap. That works out to $120/hd
so $280/hd / 7 acres = $40 acre. He didn't seem so convinced anymore.
I said wait, wait.... it gets way better: Consider that for the better part of the last 15 years or so, cow/calf averaged $50/hd. At best maybe 75-100. Well you can see where this is going....
50/7 = $7 /acre
100/7 = $14 /ac
It seems cows have only just caught up to grain at best, when you consider that many folks are shooting for $50 acre in crops this year. And that's even on $4.50-$5 corn, which is the sad part. When you think that $7+ corn was bringing $300+ for those that had it, that works back to about $1500-2000 profit / head if it was on animals.
The whole exercise really put into perspective, just how little the ROI there used to be in cattle on a per acre basis.
And now, $57 an acre before labor isn't really all the glamour and profit that some seem to expect from 170+ sticker price on feeders. It's really not even that good at all on a per acre basis, considering how much more work is involved, i say it's still got a ways to go since it is only approx as good as $4.50 corn.
I said to him "doesn't that just want to make you go out and buy a few truck loads of cows??"
Edited by OldMcdonald 4/5/2014 16:37
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Cow-Calf vs Row Crop Profit
