By savanna simmons

Short-term cows, long-term plans

Story and photos by Savanna Simmons

heifer versus cow. each has its benefits and risks, but the short-term cow is something to consider when a feed source is available.

“if you have feed that fits a short-term cow, it’s an option to consider,” said JD Williams, manager of Four Three Land and cattle in redbird, Wyo. “A short-term cow is like any other kind of fixer upper in that they’re sold at a discount. She’s discounted because of her potential to go downhill, but a lot of those cows are going to last three years.”

Four Three Land and cattle runs both raised and bought heifers and young cows, as well as purchased short-term cows and all stock is run on grass only, without hay or cake supplement.

“A good cowman will not often buy short-term cows; she’s someone else’s cull. The good businessman is all over it. A cowman is real interested in the fancy long-term cow because he can build his program around her, but a shortterm is just purely business,” Williams said. “take a lesson from a businessman, a good cowman is prone to leaving some money on the table.”

“We lease our ground, so we can fluctuate our leases with bought cattle and keep that core herd pretty steady. When we have a lot of hay or a lot of grass, instead of running 100 cows, we may be able to run 120 cows. We use short-term cows to fill that void. We can’t create 20 mama cows, so it’s easier to adjust with short-term than fluctuate a traditional cow calf herd,” said chris Veal, of Meadow, S.D., who operates a ranch that has pastures and feedlots available and farms hay and other crops. in order to figure if a short-term cow will fit your situation and be a sound investment, a few factors must be considered.

“Figure your worse case scenario. if your best case scenario is break-even, don’t touch it. if the worst case scenario is break-even, then there’s room on the top side.

We ain’t ranching to break-even,” Williams said. “i figure Williams said ranchers running short-term cows need to them working for one year and to break-even in that first either wean a little earlier to allow for gain on the cow, and year. half of the short-term cows you’re going to get more maybe a slight loss of gain for the calf, or keep the calf on than one year out of. We have a big string of cows we for the calf to gain, but the cow to lose a little. bought to run one year, so that’s working.” “Assume for your short-term cows, you’re going to wean

Williams offered the situation of purchasing a bred as early as you can, so you can salvage that cow. you’re short-term cow with ample grass available. in order for the probably not going to leave the calf on her until November, deal to be worth proceeding, Williams figured the sum of until she’s a shell,” Williams said. “i’ll expose her and run the price of a calf, salvage value of the cow, and the price of her another year if she has teeth and can take it and that’s grass. gravy.”

“if you’re honest on your numbers, you must consider As for this year’s moderately dry conditions in most of if the purchased short-term cow doesn’t breed back and the tri-state area, purchasing short-term, or any, cows may include the price of grass,” Williams said. “consider the not be ideal this time of year. opportunity cost if you were to lease the grass, and that’s “if you’ve got some hay or grass, you can buy her. Any what to figure for your cow. it’s about $30 a month per of this dry country, unless that cow is really affordable, you head for us.” might be pretty careful.

Veal purchases chances are anyone short-term cows, when can winter them he is in the market, cheaper than the guy in by staying within the dry area,” Williams a window of the said. “you’ll pay more projected cost of an in the spring for a cow open cow. someone fed all winter,

“i like to stay within but you’ll still likely be a certain price of the paying less than if you weigh-up animal, of winter her yourself in a the cull cow,” Veal said. drought area. if a guy “if you’re at $1,000 for has her locked up in weigh-up cows, i stay the feed yard, what she within $150, though costs in the spring is it’s a moving target. i still going to be cheaper stay within 10 to 15 than if you winter percent of the value of A short-term cow is sometimes a cull cow that may have a broken or missing tooth but isn’t her and pay the feed a dry weigh-up animal. old. she may be 7 or 8 and was culled because of that tooth. Photo by Bree Poppe. bill and she will be in if i can stay fairly close better shape, so you’ve to that money i can usually make them work.” got a bit of a cushion. She’ll be calving in better shape than

Both Williams and Veal retain a large percentage of the if you wintered in dry country.” short-term cows for more than one year. “recently we had some water issues, so we dry-lotted the

“We’ll go through them and assess and i’ve had years short-term cows and threw feeders out for the calves,” Veal where we’ve bought big wads of them, and a lot of times said. “We had a shortage of rain and grass, so we’ll probably keep more than half of them for at least one more year,” put a lot of the cows in and finish them out as fat cows and Veal said. “Many times they just have a broken or missing sell them. i would rather feedlot the short-term cows and tooth, and they’re not necessarily old. They could be a 7- or save the grass for the heifers, so that works well.” 8-year-old cow with just a broken tooth.”