Category: Cattle Feeding

Cattle on feed, friend or foe?

Date: Nov 15 2013

McPherson County, as in Feeders

Date: Oct 23 2013

Last Saturday afternoon, Gary ventured down to McPherson County Feeders, a stellar CAB Partner located south of Marquette, Kan.

Ethanol byproducts still pay their way in feedlot rations

Date: Sep 25 2013

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.

Where realistic meets high quality

Date: Sep 24 2013

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.

More than business

Date: Sep 24 2013

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.

Mapping herd improvement

Date: Aug 12 2013

When Daryl Strohbehn retired as an Iowa State Extension beef specialist there was one project he wasn’t ready to give up the reins to.
Since 2003, he has tracked the profit values for sires of calves enrolled in the Tri-County Steer Carcass Futurity (TCSCF). “To make things work in the cattle business today, it takes information based on sound data,” Strohbehn says. “I enjoy figuring out what that sound data is and what it might tell us.” The cooperative’s Sire Profit Analysis has grown from data on 35 sires in the initial report to 3,451sires evaluated in 2012.

Feed Conversion and Profitability

Date: Jul 29 2013

But there is one thing I DO know, and that is we have high calf prices (if you’re buying to put on feed) and we have high corn prices (if you’re buying corn to put in those cattle), and the feedlot sector has been sustaining some horrible losses during the last 15-18 months.

End meats help drive

Date: Mar 22 2013

T-bones, sirloins, filets and strips—these are the beef cuts referred to as “middle meats.” Such steaks make up 12% of the carcass, but represent just under half of its total value. That and the difference in cooking method lead many to believe it’s the only place where beef grades matter. Not according to experts like longtime market reporter Bruce Longo, of Urner Barry, and the data he tracks.

Value-based cattle marketing dominates

Date: Mar 04 2013

Selling fed cattle on a live basis is no longer standard practice, and some day it could end up as no more than historical reference. “The old selling-them-live method has given way to formula sales,” says Mark McCully, assistant vice president for Certified Angus Beef LLC (CAB). Data from Cattle-Fax and the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows a sharp decline in cash sales in the past seven years, from 52.1% in 2005 to just 26% in 2012. The inverse of that is the steep gain in negotiated sales, like grid marketing and other arrangements, which moved up from less than half of sales to more than three-quarters during those years.

Fewer cattle, more pressure

Date: Oct 05 2012

Getting cattle bought right. That’s normally a feeder’s first challenge, but today it’s just plain getting cattle.
“The total size of the cattle industry has been shrinking, and shrinking rather abruptly for the last couple of years,” said Mike Sands, Informa Economics vice president.