Promised everyone updates on how this went. I'll probably do one or two more and then call it.
But the model I adopted seems to still work ok. A new bull calf arrived about two weeks ago (we weren't there to see it, so unassisted).
The bull is out of a first calf heifer that we purchased on the cow but raised on the farm from about 2 months old. She got bred at about 14 months and calved on time.
Everything looks good with the cattle even though we didn't feed any hay at all last winter. Also, the 5000lbs of cattle we kept were given a 30% protein tub in November, but they still haven't finished it even now. So feed cost was low. We did put out an 8 dollar salt block and feed about 4 to 5 bags of cubes from November to May.
With all the recent rain it looks like we'll be able to shut the cattle into about 25% of the available acres ( we'll put them into the field with our best crop soil) until at least the fall and let the other fields/pastures have a rest year to recover from the drought.
As far as the finances on this thing, it looks like the value of the on-farm cattle marked to market plus the money I got from destocking last winter already covers the cost of getting started, including the cattle, water troughs, gas, remedy ultra, etc. Excluding the tractor, of course. Will never get that money back, probably, as future income will pay for farm maintenance, taxes and upgrades.
Destocking during the drought was hard to do and, in hindsight, some would say costly, because it would have paid to feed through the winter this time round. But the nice thing about having extra grass is that I can wait to sell my steers until they are a bit older if I don't like the market, and if it keeps raining, I can rest most of my farm through January or February, even. In other words, to have extra grass is to have lots of options. That's nice, and worth the money lost to destocking IMO.
There's already enough forage to last the cattle we do have all the way through December, so I've decided to not buy any backup hay this year, as I think it's a good risk to take. I'll just sell in November again/buy hay then if we don't get any rain after June.
I think the final big test of this model will be to see if the cows I retained through the drought actually bred back on time and will successfully raise a calf this coming fall/spring.
It's been a fun learning experience. Again, I recommend it for anyone out there that is interested. However, remember to think about timing and long-term flexibility. It's definitely not a get-rich-quick scheme. And, if you are risk averse, maybe don't do it, we did lose one calf so far. Also, at current cattle prices, the method I used is likely a money losing deal if someone was to start now at these price levels.