How much can I sell my American\u00a0Aberdeen\u00a0for?<\/p>\n
What most people would like to hear is this: \u201cIf you paid xxx dollars for your
\ncow\/bull then you should be able to sell offspring for the same price. \u009d In fact,
\nthat is rarely a true statement unless you bought your breeding stock at their
\nslaughter value and that value has remained the same. We must remember: the
\nnumber one thing that drives the market for cattle is demand for the end product,
\nbeef. Somehow, we in the Aberdeen industry have failed to communicate that fact
\nto new people entering the business. Cattle like other commodities are
\nconsidered a renewable resource and if there is not a terminal market on the top
\nend for the product, there will come a time when no one will want your cows,
\nbecause there will be more available than the demand.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I experienced this personally about 20 years ago when I realized that my
\nwonderful emus, with such truly wonderful healing oil and low fat meat were not
\ngoing to be consumed by the American public at the rate that the birds were
\nbeing hatched and grown out. We had a glut of emus and no market. What a
\ndisaster! That’s when I decided I was not going to raise anything else that I had to
\nconvince people to eat. I have stuck with that decision and am glad that the world
\nloves Angus meat. There is no problem convincing the American public that
\nAberdeen beef is top quality, tender and marbles well as a grass-fed product. The
\nproblem is convincing Aberdeen\u00a0breeders that most of their calves should go to
\nsatisfy that market. Somehow, we have convinced ourselves that all of our
\nheifers and bulls deserve to be breeding stock—-and that is just not true.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
American\u00a0Aberdeen\u00a0are still in the growing stage of their breed development and so
\nthere is still a demand for female breeding stock. Good breeders always want to
\nprovide heifers and cows that are going to perform well for their clients.
\nConsequently, a breeder \u201a\u00ac \u201e\u00a2s reputation may be made or broken by how well he\/she
\nservices clients. It’s disappointing for both parties when things don’t go as
\nplanned, but sometimes heifers end up going into the beef market.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Bulls are another matter. There will always be a healthy market for quality
\nherd sires. But, I would say that the biggest mistake most Aberdeen breeders will
\nmake is to think that their weaned bull calf should be a herd sire. It is rare case
\nthat a bull calf can be considered as a potential herd bull until he is at least a year
\nold. Not everyone has an eye for making that call. So for most of us who have
\nlimited numbers and limited space, we would be better off and our reputation
\nwould be better off if we would just make the decision to steer out our bull
\ncalves. Let someone else who has the eye, time and the room produce the bulls.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
But the question still remains, \u201cHow much can I sell my American\u00a0Aberdeen\u00a0for? \u009d All
\nother factors being equal, the price should be driven by quality, age and
\navailability. However, other factors such as body condition, temperament,
\ntraining and breeder reputation certainly come in to the picture as well. In
\nregards to heifers and cows, remember that a cow should give you numerous
\noffspring over her productive years and she should perform well. Here’s a list of
\ngood performance traits that I got from the Stockman Grassfarmer in the
\nNovember 2012 issue: 1) She must not get sick ever. 2) She must lose her winter
\ncoat before \u00a0June 1st. 3) She must be 100% docile. 4) When sexually mature, she
\nmust breed. 5) She must stay in good body condition in extreme hot and cold
\nweather. 6) She must be deep chested, exhibit a large gut, wide butt and good
\nudder. 7) She must show good parasite resistance. Not everyone’s list is the
\nsame, so people must decide what is most important for their needs. Also,
\nunderstand that not every one of your cow’s calves may be good performers so
\ndon’t expect to make your money back on the first heifer she drops. I recently
\nsold a bred 10 year old mama cow that had produced a healthy calf every year
\nfrom the time she was 2 years old. She is still going strong and I fully expect her
\nto have at least 5 more calves. She more than paid for her stay at my place, but
\nwhen I sold her I took into consideration the fact that she was 10 years old and
\npast the age that most people were looking for. Look at the SABA and\u00a0American Aberdeen Associaion
\nclassifieds to help you with pricing your animals and ask other breeders who have
\nsimilar situations as yours.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
My best advice regarding young bulls or steers is to use the commercial
\nmarket as your guide. Better still, raise them as grass-fed beef and post flyers in
\nlocal stores to sell as grass-fed freezer beef. A friend of mine does this and sells
\nhis grass-fed steers for about $5.00\/lb. hanging carcass weight. On a 400 pound
\ncarcass you would get $2000 for your finished steer. I do not recommend that you
\ntake your fullblood bulls or steers to the local sale barn. You will be docked
\nsignificantly because the Aberdeen height will not fit in with what commercial
\nbuyers want for feedlots. Some Moderator and Moderator plus calves may sell
\nfor full prices right along with the other animals their age. \u00a0 Many sale barns post
\nweekly reports online to guide listing sale prices per hundred weight for different
\nweights of steers. \u00a0 If you don’t have access to a scale you can measure the chest
\ncircumference to get a pretty close estimate for the weight and then advertise
\nthese animals on the SABA or American Aberdeen Association website for what they are worth on the
\nslaughter market. \u00a0 Recent sales in my area show that 400-500lb. steers were
\nbringing $1.90 to $2.35 per pound live weight. \u00a0 This will vary from week to week
\nand location to location.<\/p>\n
Call or email me if you have more questions about what I have presented here.<\/p>\n
Bill Cabaniss, President How much can I sell my American\u00a0Aberdeen\u00a0for?
\nSouthwest Lowline Angus Breeders Association
\n512-627-5443\/ \u00a0lowlines@pecancreekfarm.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\nWhat most people would like to hear is this: \u201cIf you paid xxx dollars for your
\ncow\/bull then you should be able to sell offspring [ more <\/i><\/a> ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-news-events"],"gutentor_comment":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southernaberdeen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southernaberdeen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southernaberdeen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southernaberdeen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southernaberdeen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/southernaberdeen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1238,"href":"https:\/\/southernaberdeen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327\/revisions\/1238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southernaberdeen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southernaberdeen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southernaberdeen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}