Steer Planet - Show Steers and Club Calves Forum

Interesting article.  The author states in bold letters that the best indicator of profits is pounds weaned per female exposed.  That's basically true, but in our area, feed costs have been way out of line for several years, topped off by last year's fiasco.  Feed costs have perhaps become the most important factor.  The article shows a $172/head profit based on feed costs that are not even 1/3 of what mine are.  The stored feed costs (silage, grass and alfalfa hay) have been at least double what is shown in the graph for many years around here.  Last year, they would have been easily tripled.  You couldn't get alfalfa hay here for under $200/ton and prices were often well above that.  Grass hay approached $200/ton.  3.33 tons @ $150/ton compared to $45.67/ton equals a big loss instead of $172/head profit.  Unfortunately, there's a limit on the number of grazing days available.  I can get more days on pasture than someone in Canada, generally speaking, but somebody in southern Missouri can get a lot more than I can.  If you assign a reasonable value to your hay, there's not a lot of profit left, if any.  Smaller cows eat less, but there may be a reduction in pounds weaned/cow exposed.  Big cows might wean heavier calves, but they eat more.  We can feed cornstalks, been straw, etc., but now we have competition for the cornstalks from the new cellulose ethanol plant.  They have a government subsidy.  I do not.

With no consideration given to stocking rates, I don't know what all you can conclude.  Without question, if I culled my herd in half, next years weaning weights would increase substantially.  Lbs per acre relative to the price of land per acre in your area.   Almost like a cap rate. How many lbs or how much money can 1 acre return over or divided by the purchase price of 1 acre. 

 

Some operators may want to cull their herd in half and substantially lower their weaning weights.Its all about finding the optimum.The only conclusion is that after hundreds of detailed records for a period of 18 years in one state weaning weights don't wag the dog and rapid turnover of the herd is expensive.

this is a good article. I think each breeder has to find out what the best way to make a profit is, and for his/her herd, it may be totally different than someone else down the road or in the same breed as you. Making a profit is not the only reason people raise cattle, but it certainly is the main reason to be in business for most people. There are lots of other reasons people raise cattle, and making profit is not necessarily their main one. I agree totally that your highest performing calves are not necessarily the most profitable, and this is especially true with breeding stock.