Doing more with less. In the cattle business, that’s more than a nice idea; it’s the new survival plan.
“In any manufacturing system, if the number of units is reduced, the revenue per unit must increase,” said Pete Anderson, director of research for Midwest PMS, a U.S. livestock feed company. “The cattle industry must focus on maximizing revenue from each animal produced.”
Call it optimism or happiness or a light-hearted spring in your step….the term doesn’t matter, last week at the Cattle Industry Convention and Trade Show you could feel it.
Paying the feed bill has cleaned out bank accounts faster than Jesse James in recent years, as high corn prices left cattlemen everywhere looking for the cheapest, most efficient alternatives. Answering that search, Galen Erickson shared research results and insight on distillers grains at the Feeding Quality Forums in Omaha, Neb., and Garden City, Kan., in August. As of late summer, the ethanol byproducts were selling at near corn prices. Many cattlemen responded by cutting back or removing it, but Erickson, feedlot Extension specialist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said that could be a mistake.
From the bright lights and shining hardwood of a basketball court to the cedar shavings of an auction ring, if there’s one ideal Pat Goggins believes in, it’s competition. Growing up the youngest of six boys born to sharecroppers can do that. It could come from his love of athletics or his early start as one of the most sought-after purebred auctioneers in the country, but whatever gave him that drive, the result is somewhat of an empire around a Billings, Mont., base. At the center is the Vermilion Ranch, where adding value to customer cattle helped earn the 2013 Seedstock Commitment to Excellence Award at the Certified Angus Beef ® (CAB®) brand annual conference in Palm Desert, Calif., Sept. 18-20.
It’s hard to stay at the top. But the “coaches” at Performance Blenders of Jackson, Mo., found ways to work with their team of 130 or more cattle producers to keep a traveling trophy. That’s the Certified Angus Beef LLC (CAB) Quality Focus Award for feeding partners with up to 15,000-head capacity. Last year’s drought and resulting high corn prices forced the team to modify a few strategies, but those challenges did not overcome efforts to raise cattle that hit the CAB and Prime target.
Ford County Feed Yard is a big one. In fact, Certified Angus Beef LLC (CAB) has never licensed a larger feedyard, but the 50,000-head-capacity business runs like a collection of smaller yards. Maybe that’s because it is family owned and operated, and 22-year manager Danny Herrmann is the youngest son of a founding partner. Wheat-stocker and feeder George Herrmann went in with four others, including three from what later became National Beef in Dodge City, to build the feedyard 15 miles to the southeast, near Ford, Kan., starting in 1972.
What’s better than winning first place? Doing that three out of four years, including two in a row and despite one of the worst droughts in history. That’s exactly what Darnall Feedlot, Harrisburg, Neb., managed to do with Quality Focus Awards in 2010, 2012 and 2013 for Certified Angus Beef LLC partners with more than 15,000-head capacity. This year’s mark of 49% Certified Angus Beef ® (CAB®) brand and Prime shot past the previous year’s 40% and 33% in 2010.
Nobody likes to lose a customer, but to see a cattle feeder get emotional over the thought of a ranching client having to sell out… that’s when you know his heart is really in the business. Terry Beller, of Lindsay, Neb., can tell you the last time the Sandhills and points west received a measureable rain. It matters to his bottom line, certainly, but the owner-manager of the 6,000-head Beller Feedlot talks about ranchers dealing with drought as if one of his own children were facing a major obstacle.
No one is automatically insulated from the effects of a shrinking national cowherd, but Kuner Feedlot, one of 12 in the JBS Five Rivers Cattle Feeders group with 1.6 million annual marketings, goes for proactive rather than reactive ways. The management team’s unique approach caught the attention of the Certified Angus Beef ® (CAB®) brand, which named the Colorado yard Progressive Feedlot of the Year at the CAB annual conference in Palm Desert, Calif., on Sept. 18-20.
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