Figuring commercial bull value
Most commercial producers answering BEEF’s survey paid $2,500-$5,000 for bulls purchased in the last three years.
January 1, 2020
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Depending on who’s running the numbers, commercial bulls represent a bothersome, necessary cost; an inestimable opportunity to advance herd genetics and goals; or something in between.
In every case, deciding what to pay for a bull boils down to determining value—the intersection between a buyer’s perceived worth of a particular bull and how much the buyer is willing to pay for that perceived worth.
Primary sources of bull worth include getting cows bred, genetic progress, the number of calves sired and the relative value of calves sired compared to those sired by another.
For many commercial buyers, pricing bulls starts with determining value relative to calf or feeder cattle prices at a given point in time. For instance, you’ve likely often heard that a bull is worth five or six weaned steer calves, a predetermined number of replacement heifers and so on.
“Calculated cost per calf and per hundredweight of calf weaned per cow exposed are good indicators to compare bull investments,” says Jim McGrann, noted agricultural economist and Texas A&M University professor emeritus. “The number of calves required to pay for the bull is a good indicator to monitor the investment (see “What’s a bull really worth?