For the 70% or more of beef calves born last spring, more than the usual share veered from traditional roads to the feedyard come fall. Backgrounding those calves opened gates to several new revenue paths, though not without risk.
Choosing a feedyard is a bit like selecting a life partner. Feedyards offer different marketing opportunities and strategies. A manager should be able to look at a customer’s pen and know, “I have a good market for those cattle. I can handle it.”
“Do we just sign up? Or get special ear tags?”
Those are questions we hear quite often from producers who want to raise cattle for the Certified Angus Beef ® (CAB®) brand.
Stress of any kind affects performance and health, but also well-being and behavior, a special focus for CSU animal scientist Lily Edwards-Callaway. Her team’s literature review found shade benefits vary by location, structure type and the weather.
“Nobody likes to hear this in the middle of a trial, but it seems often true in life and business: the thing that feels so hard now, won’t always feel hard.” Miranda’s Black Ink® column for November touches on the idea of growth, and how it often feels better in hindsight.
M&M Feeders now includes two yards, with Jamie Huyser tackling the daily tasks at Elm Creek and Daron helps manage operations at Lexington. Mel does everything from keeping up customer relations to driving the feedtruck, while Marvin handles commodity trading from his home in Idaho.
It’s not the work of fancy technology, though spreadsheets of data and consultants lend their hand. It’s six generations of meticulous puzzle masters who focused on making better each piece of the bigger picture.
M&M Feeders does business based on honesty. The Huyser family lives by that code, and runs their cattle feeding business the same way. For building beneficial relationships and their drive to produce the best, M&M Feeders earned the 2020 Feedyard Commitment to Excellence Award from the Certified Angus Beef ® brand.
The owner-managers of Morgan Ranches learn and teach through such wisdom gathered over decades. Every day is a choice, and they choose to make it good. That positive philosophy only begins to tell why Morgan Ranches earned the 2020 CAB Commercial Commitment to Excellence award.
One feeds, the other breeds and stocks a steady supply, ready to fill the pens as they empty. Wilson Cattle Company harvests the grass in Baker Valley while Beef Northwest, started by the fifth generation of Wilsons, finishes the cattle. It’s a symbiotic relationship, both dependent on each other.
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