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Paul is right, not way to cover all the aspects in a few paragraphs. I cant make money on steers, not to be worth the time it takes. Down side is risk of price drops (buy in the spring and sell in the fall puts you on the wrong side of the price spread), death loss is a huge risk (one bad case of BRD and it spreads to 1/2 the others and you lose big). I always liked cows better, lower death loss, calves to sell. I bought thin broken mouthed head cows in the fall, ran them on stockpiled grass, rough hay, and distillery slop all winter. Sold the open ones as weigh cows in the spring (right side of the price spread) and the ones with calves as cow calf pairs to go out on grass. Made a lot of money for a long time doing that. Overhead has been too high since 2000 for me to do it, not enough good thin cows on the market in the fall. As we start to see Canadian cattle coming in and start in the down side of the price cycle should be some more opportunities. With steers, if you buy 5 weights in the spring for $1.10 and sell them as 9 weights in the late fall for .80 thats less than $200 gross per head. Take off vet, feed, fence, and death loss that puts you clearing about $100 each. But, if the market breaks and you sell 9 weights for .70 you are down to breaking even and if they fall to the 60's you are in the red. Been there, done that, worked all winter feeding steers and wound up with $11 a head profit to show for it. Also started another year with $50,000 in cattle and my net check at market was $42,300 on a down price break 6 months later.
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