$230,000 for a Heifer!!! Holy Cow!!!

Doofy · Nov 9, 2017

She can't kill me now, not with a new tractor. That would just be rude!

quicksandfarmer · Nov 10, 2017

Kentuckyfarmer said:
Back in the 70's we had purebred Holsteins and when my uncle decided to semi retire we had a dispersal and our best went for 7800.00. We averaged 2800 for 70 cows. The highest I ever seen sold was 72 thousand at a dispersal. I didn't think they were bringing that kind of money any more. After they started doing embro transplants using brood cows and stuff we seen prices go way down. Haven't milked a cow since 1980 but I think in the next year or two I will get and old one just to have fresh milk, cream off the top and make my own butter. All I raise now is bottle feed Holsteins and finish them out to 11 to 13 hundred pounds for family and friends to eat. Love Holsteins.

This is my impression of the dairy business as well. The big cost is the facilities, the barn and the milking equipment. The cows have gotten so relatively cheap that they're almost disposable. I hear a lot of vets are getting out of the large animal business because it doesn't make economic sense for a lot of farmers to give their cows veterinary care.

The video seems light on specifics and details but I get the impression that a quarter of a million dollars is for a cow that will be an embryo donor and produce 20 offspring a month, probably for years. If the farmer is counting those when he says he gets an average of $20,000 per cow it would seem that the price for a non-superstar cow is going to be quite a bit lower, even if it's a valuable milker. I gather that he produces five types of calves:
* Superstar cow -- worth up to a quarter million.
* Milker cow -- probably a few thousand dollars
* Cull cow -- worthless, possibly a cost to dispose of
* Superstar bull -- probably about the same as a superstar cow
* Cull bull -- worthless as well

I wonder if they're able to sex the embryos and implant them and cut down on the number of bulls produced.

There's really three pieces to what they're doing. The first is AI, which allows a single bull to have thousands of offspring. The second is embryo transfer, which allows a single cow to have thousands of offspring. The third is DNA testing, which allows the breeder to know the value of an animal as soon as he can take a DNA sample, which is basically when it's born. Selection for desirable traits is something livestock breeders have been doing for millenia, this process just turbocharges it and lets the breeder do the equivalent of hundreds of generations a year.

Interesting too that with all the technology at the end of the day each calf is still a roll of the dice.

Mace Canute · Nov 13, 2017

Mendonsy said:
That's awfully expensive hamburger.

That reminds me of an old joke.

A young man named Myron, knowing his old mother was hard to please, finally came up with a truly inspired birthday present, a gorgeous mynah bird that spoke six languages. He paid an extremely high price and arranged to have the bird delivered to his mother in an antique cage. The evening he came by for his mother's birthday dinner. "So, Mom," he asked, "did you get my present today?" "Yes, Myron." she replied. "So, what did you think of it?" he asked. "Delicious!" she said.

Dadnatron · Nov 13, 2017

quicksandfarmer said:
I wonder if they're able to sex the embryos and implant them and cut down on the number of bulls produced.

Interesting too that with all the technology at the end of the day each calf is still a roll of the dice.

They actually have developed a way to 'sex the sperm' up to around 80-90% accuracy, thereby almost guaranteeing that there will be only heifers in your calf crop. It is truly amazing what has happened in genetics in animals.

Whether it will all come crashing down with some bovine superflu or something, will be the bigger question.