COLUMNS
Beef
The Fundamentals Were Never More Important
by Dr. John Comerford
The current economic situation in the beef industry
is un-precedented. The price of feed, fertilizer and fuel has put
tremendous pressure on cow-calf operations to be profitable. A recent
survey from Kansas State indicated that the cost of gain in feedyards
increased from 54 cents a pound in 2006 to 74 cents a pound in 2007, and 80
cents a pound is expected for 2008. Losses in spring 2008 exceeded $160 per
head in the face of record prices for beef. Feeder calf marketings this
fall will be under significant price pressure as cattle feeders bid down
the price of incoming cattle to cope with increased costs and recoup their
losses.
Cow-calf producers will need to make a serious
assessment of their management and resources. It will be necessary to
remember the fundamentals of profitability in a cow herd, and to avoid the
discounts in the market.
Reproduction is key
Weaning a live calf for each cow exposed to a bull
is the basic source of profit in the cow herd, and its value is usually
twice that of weaning weight. This result is a complex combination of
factors including fertility, nutrition and health. The breeding season is
over, so producers should focus on what can be done between now and next
fall to get a calf across the scales. A trip through the chute in the fall
is vital to making a cow herd profitable. This will include:
• Pregnancy detection in the cow herd. An
unbred cow is just a cost with no return, and she will not be able to make
up for the loss of production in her lifetime. Feed costs for beef cows are
expected to exceed $400 next year, so just feed the ones that are going to
sell a calf.
• Condition scoring cows.
Cows—-particularly 2 and 3-year-old heifers—that have a
condition score of 5 or less cannot be expected to milk well and get
rebred. Sort the herd by condition for winter feeding and provide the right
supplements (usually energy and not protein) in the right amounts (enough
to gain the right amount of weight) to put condition on the cows that need
it. Distillers grains, corn gluten feed and food byproducts, as well as
corn, can all be effective supplemental feed. Avoid oats and commercial
protein blocks because of cost.
• Vaccinate the cow herd for the respiratory
complex (IBR, BVD, PI2, BRSV) and seven strains of lepto.
Persistently-infected BVD tests are widely available, and identification of
carriers in the herd will provide long-term benefits. Talk to your vet
about a PI-BVD testing and vaccination program.
• Check mouths, udders and feet. With a $400
feed bill coming at you, make sure the cow will be capable of getting a
calf to market.
• Grass is the best feed. When a cow grazes,
there is no harvesting cost, storage cost, loss of nutritional value or
lack of nutrients. Pasture management including fertility, sufficient dry
matter available and forage quality are the key elements. Cut fertility
costs for nitrogen by overseeding clover, soil test to be sure the right
amount and type of fertilizer is used, and use strategic applications so
feed is there when needed. Avoid using annual plants for grazing beef
cows—our research has shown the cost is too high. Get a pasture
rotation in place and use it so pasture quality can be maintained
throughout the grazing season. Stockpile some areas to reduce hay needs
after the grazing season.
• Supplement only when needed. Know the needs
of your cows and the quality of your hay supply, and then determine if
supplements are needed. Purchased feed is the single largest cost to the
cow herd, and this cost must absolutely be minimized in today’s beef
economy.
Get the most out of a calf crop
The days when you could wean calves on the truck on
the way to sale barn, use just any bull and not bother to vaccinate or
castrate calves and get a competitive price for the calves are over. The
discounts in the market outnumber the premiums, and more discounts are on
the way.
• Weaning and vaccination. The single most
important factor to many calf buyers is if the calf is weaned. Smaller,
individual producers will seldom reap any benefits from weaning and
vaccination unless they become a part of a cooperative feeder calf
marketing group. These groups can also sort and market calves in load lots,
and often add significant value to the calves. Check with your state
extension beef specialist to see if a cooperative feeder calf market is
available in your state.
• Castrate male calves. Calculating the added
value of a steer calf compared to a bull and the two minutes it takes to
castrate one, your wages will be over $3,000 per hour for castration. Use a
knife and do it early, from shortly after birth to about 2 months of age.
Throw away the rubber bands as there is an 8 percent failure rate with
them, and it is actually easier on both you and the calf to use a knife.
• Keep the calving season short. Management of
cows and calves is simplified and marketing more uniform groups of calves
has value when calving is condensed to 45 days or less.
• Identify the calves. Mandatory COOL (Country
of Origin Labeling) is here, and discounts will be passed through the
system for calves that cannot be validated as being born and raised in the
U.S. The USDA will recognize any program with RFID tags attached to a
database from birth as validation. Many such programs are available
commercially, with breed associations and with some state Beef Councils. In
any case, the original owner will have to provide an affidavit to validate
U.S.-born calves through the system.
• Breed good ones. The most important
investment in a cow-calf operation is a bull. We have shown in farm
demonstrations that bulls with higher genetic potential for weaning weight
in their calves are worth up to $3,000 more than average bulls in just
three breeding seasons. Selection tools are available for bulls through
EPDs and genetic markers, and they work. Just because a bull is one breed
or another says nothing about his potential to produce lower birth
weights, more weaning weight or better daughters for the herd. Using
the bull with no information available on him and unknown genetic
background will be the most costly mistake made in the cow-calf enterprise.
It’s time to be back to the basics with the
cow herd, but there is some “free money” out there with sound
business and management decisions.
Dr. John Comerford is associate professor of dairy
and animal science at the Pennsylvania State University.
