“S.O.R.T. – A Four Letter Word”
by Chris Reinhardt, feedlot specialist
Patton is quoted as saying, “No good decision was made from a swivel chair.” So it’s easy for me to sit here and tell you how you “should” be marketing your fed cattle—but “easy” and “right” are seldom the same things.
The questions I would have to ask are myriad, but mostly surround the target (quality grade, carcass weight, grid-type, live vs. carcass value, etc.) you’re trying to achieve. But there is another level that the “consultant” often overlooks, or even avoids: sorting logistics. (See the swivel-chair comment, again).
After sorting, a half-full pen doesn’t maximize yardage (from customer cattle) or maximize facilities utilization (for company-owned cattle). If you feed 80-head pens for logistics of feeder cattle freight, you can’t split those pens into 3 full loads of finished cattle; you could sort into 2 outcome groups but this fails to capture the full value of sorting. If you feed mostly small groups of customer cattle, you can’t easily re-blend non-market-ready cattle from separate original pens into new outcome groups.
It has been estimated that sorting into 3 uniform outcome groups shortly before harvest may increase profitability of the entire pen by $16 per animal. Sorting allows you to remove potentially over-weight and over-fat cattle, which allows you to feed the lighter and leaner animals longer, increasing the total weight sold out of the pen without increasing the percentage of out cattle which, for grid cattle, may bring hefty discounts, and for non-grid cattle, may bring the ire of your packer-partner. Also, an added positive by-product of this opportunity to increase the days on feed for the lighter and leaner cattle is that they also have a greater opportunity to move into higher value quality grades.
The relationship between carcass price and feed costs will dictate the actual endpoint to which cattle can be fed. At high grain-to-cattle prices, cattle may need to be marketed at a low yield grade 3, whereas if carcass value rises relative to grain costs, cattle may be fed well toward mid to upper yield grade 3. However, after cattle reach yield grade 4, efficiencies and cost of gain normally exceed the value of the carcass weight added through additional days on feed.
Finally, if the decision is made to utilize a beta agonist, the logistics of sorting become even more complicated. Ideally, cattle would be sorted into outcome groups prior to feeding the beta agonist, and the marketing date could be determined at time of sorting. If this is not feasible due to lack of sorting pens, another option may be to market the fattest and heaviest cattle from the pen, then initiate feeding the beta agonist and market after that feeding phase is complete.
Sorting does indeed complicate fed cattle marketing. If sorting can be accomplished with minimal stress on the cattle, it can be a source of additional revenue for the astute cattle feeder.
