On Monday January 20th, 2025 I took my family and some friends to the field at 7:30 AM, just as the sun rose. The temperatures were well below freezing.
Within a few hours, we had the calves sorted off the cows. I kept back two of the steer, #40 and #44 as they looked the best in my eye. I also sold #24 as she was too skinny and she never gained weight. Maybe someone else will do better with her.
There were some other good ones but they weren’t that much better or worse. We drove the cattle back to their row and then my neighbor brought his truck and trailer.
We loaded up the calves fairly quickly. We threw some cattle cubes in the trailer and put some pressure from behind. I’d been training them for several days to eat cattle cubes. It took a few moments before the first calf dared put her feet on the trailer, but once the first one went on, the rest started to follow. We weren’t able to load the trailer with all the animals, so we had to leave 4 behind.
Because of the cold, my neighbor’s truck wasn’t running quite right. The tires on the trailer were a little low too. A quick stop at a gas station fixed the tires.
Once we got the calves unloaded, we returned home. If he couldn’t get his truck right, then we’d have to try again next week. But he figured it out, so we loaded the last of the calves and dropped off a second load.
Prices were really good, much better than I expected. The calves all sold at an average of $2.57 per pound, with a high of $3.35 and a low of $1.55. Their weights were much less than I expected, though, an average of 434 lbs, with a low of 305 lbs and a high of 545 lbs. (I should’ve kept that one!) If you’re counting, that’s an average sale of $1,100 per calf. Not bad.
#24 sold for only $750, which was a little less than I expected. She was really thin, though, and likely she’s already turned into hamburger meat. If the new owner gave her some feed and some dewormer, I am sure she might give him some more calves.
The goal isn’t to get big calves or to maximize the price per pound. The goal is to maximize profit per acre. Profit is income minus expenses. I can’t control income, but I can control expenses. The expenses for these calves was the cost of hay, minerals, and water for the cows, plus the labor. Net, the profit was something like $10k, which is decent for roughly 40 acres or so. (The rest of the acreage will be going to sheep soon…)
I keep the cows not just for profit but because of what they do to the pasture. They create soil. They grow grass. They kill weeds. If I wanted to make a living doing only cattle, I’d need to get 600 more acres and run 10x as many cows. Or, I’d need to run half as many cows and keep all the steer and sell them direct or at weight. Either way, the profit is about the same.
My money is on the sheep, however. Sheep prices are double or more than the cattle prices, especially if you sell at the right time of year. Sheep produce more lambs than cattle do calves. Pound for pound, sheep just make more meat per acre than cattle every could. I’m estimating that with the same acreage for sheep I could probably bring in 10x as much revenue for about the same expenses.
Together, sheep and cattle should boost forage production even higher, as long as I don’t overgraze, of course. The sheep target weeds that the cows don’t like, and they tend to destroy the seeds, whereas cattle don’t chew the seeds to powder and poop them out in supercharged patties.
But there are other side businesses I can run besides cattle and sheep that supplement them as well. I want to bring in chickens and hogs. I can also run bees, mushrooms, or even microgreens. All of these are sympathetic businesses that don’t compete for limited forage, and in many cases should help increase forage production.
Again, the goal is not to get big, expensive cows. It is to turn sunlight, rainfall, and carbon dioxide into edible farm products that people want to buy and that will make them healthy. The more I can grow from the same acreage, the more successful I’ll be.
Next year, I won’t be selling calves at all — or very few, just the ones who don’t do well. I expect cattle revenue to be a few thousand dollars at most. But in 2027, I’ll be selling half my cows as the heifer calves born in 2025 will be giving me their first calves. In 2028 I’ll be selling finished steer, hopefully direct to consumers, along with the rest of the cows. And this pattern will continue for the foreseeable future: Sell heifer calves or cows, sell steer, and keep everything else.
Expenses? Just hay and some supplements and water. And as forage improves, maybe I’ll need less and less of the hay and supplements.