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  • From: "Lynn Wigglesworth" <lynnw1366 AT hotmail.com>
  • To: <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] SE PA going to identifiablenon-cashsmartcardsfortransporta...
  • Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2008 14:41:12 -0500

These are newborn bull calves. They are useless at a dairy. The farmer has to pay $10 to have them hauled to the auction, where he MIGHT get $10 for them, if they don't die on the way...he'd much rather have me come and pick them up and give him $10, and do something useful with them. Everybody is happy, including the calves, who get a good home. It is odd; A $10 bull calf, butchered at 9-10 months, will produce 300-400 pounds of meat. A baby lamb, who needs the same care and will produce less than 50 pounds of meat when it's butchered, costs a lot more around here....$50-75. Go figure.

The calves have to be fed, and if you don't have a cow to nurse them, they need to be bottle-fed. It's still a good deal; $50 worth of milk replacer will get them started, by then they can survive on pasture. At one point I had 5 calves, all bottle-fed 3 times a day. That kept me jumping, and makes the calves into total ninnies...it's cute being affectionately butted when they are little; not so cute when they are 900 pounds with horns. It's much easier to just get as many calves as the cows will adopt...they do a much better job than me raising calves, anyway.

Lynn Wigglesworth
----- Original Message ----- From: "bob ford" <bobford79 AT yahoo.com>
To: <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Monday, November 17, 2008 2:18 PM
Subject: Re: [Homestead] SE PA going to identifiablenon-cashsmartcardsfortransporta...


I have a hard time imagining calfs being sold for 10 bucks each. You can't buy two packs of smokes for ten bucks. Maybe I will raise one cow.........bobford

-------------------------------------------------------------------


--- On Mon, 11/17/08, Clansgian AT wmconnect.com <Clansgian AT wmconnect.com> wrote:

From: Clansgian AT wmconnect.com <Clansgian AT wmconnect.com>
Subject: Re: [Homestead] SE PA going to identifiable non-cashsmartcardsfortransporta...
To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
Date: Monday, November 17, 2008, 12:07 PM
> >Once they are butchered, I can
> net over $1000/bull in beef sales. That's the
difference between regular
> economics and old-style 'pastoral
economics'...money I didn't spend is not a
> loss to me.
>

And it's the difference between the agribusiness model
and the pastoral or
homestead model.

Let me round the numbers for convenience's sake and say
Lynn has $90 worth of
hay along with the $10 purchase price. That's $100 at
risk. Let's suppose
over X period of time she has ten of these bulls. If one
sickens and dies late
in the operation (rare, since farm animals that are going
to die generally
die young, guess the never heard that James Taylor song).
That's still $1000 at
risk grossing $9000.

So what if one is lost??

But in the agribusiness where feed, labor, medicine,
interest on the loans
totals $950 and you are hoping to get $50 out of the deal,
in a likewise unit of
10 bulls, the loss of one means you are $500 in the hole on
the operation.

The difference in the models is vast.



James
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