|
| small herd . sold calves and not sure if my thinking was correct or not . we are still very inexperienced at this game and have not really figured rate of gain on calves in the past . These were 2 mid September and early October calves . normally put a creep feeder with grain out , free choice alfalfa/grass and the mothers . Normally when we sell this time of year they are around 530-550 lbs .
because it seemed prices were so low over the winter we tried to keep inputs down . did not implant and no grain until weaning on Easter Sunday . All they had was hay and the mother for growth . At weaning the got cut and hand fed in the mornings and grain after work . very mild winter and mothers kept condition well . At the sale two averaged 720lbs and the later one 550lbs . Sold at 1.48 and 1.60 . We have never came close to 720 with implants and the creep feeder . we kept a couple for a year one time a year ago when the were low and they ended up around 800. Did we get lucky because the weather was decent ? what if anything did we give up by not implanting and feeding stronger ? sorry this is so long but trying to figure out if this is something to try again or not .. thank you | |
|
sold calves .. hindsight question
