K-State Research and Extension

“The Value of Carcass Gain”

 by Chris Reinhardt, feedlot specialist

 This is dangerous territory; the topic of fed cattle marketing fills volumes and greater men have failed. But there is one aspect of fed cattle marketing of which to be acutely aware this time of year: marketing endpoints.

If you market fed cattle based strictly on live price, the simple rule for when to pull the trigger and send the cattle to town is this: when the COST of a day’s gain (cost of feed + yardage) exceeds the VALUE of that day’s gain (live price × that day’s gain), feeding for more days will cost more than it will return.

If you sell cattle in the beef (carcass weight basis rather than live weight basis) with no direct premium or discount for any specific carcass parameters, the equation changes slightly. Your decision is still based on value of daily gain vs. cost of daily gain, but it changes to the cost of that day’s gain vs. the value of that day’s CARCASS gain.

This is where it gets interesting. Although the dressing percentage of an animal may ultimately be 62-64%, the dressing percentage of each pound of live weight gained during an animal’s time in the feedlot is actually much greater—the dressing percentage of the next pound of live weight added at the end of the feeding period may exceed 80%.

How is this possible? The explanation is remarkably simple: an animal walks into the feedlot with nearly 100% of the head, hair, hide, horns, hooves, and viscera with which it will leave the feedlot. In other words, non-carcass components don’t increase very much during the feedlot life of the animal; nearly all of the animal’s live weight gain is carcass rather than non-carcass.

Another way to look at it is, if the steer is gaining 2.5 lbs/day live weight, carcass gain during that same time period is roughly 2 lbs/day. Therefore, because of the increasing dressing percentage with increasing days on feed, rate of carcass gain does not decrease as rapidly as rate of live weight gain as animals fatten.

The reason this is important is that for the carcass weight-based or for the grid-based seller, net value of gain does not decrease as rapidly at the end of the feeding period as it does for the live seller. If you’ve recently switched from selling cattle on a live weight basis to a carcass weight basis, keep this in mind when determining the optimum marketing endpoint.

“Consider Early Weaning early”

by Chris Reinhardt, feedlot specialist

Normally we only consider early weaning when we are in the throes of a nasty drought. However, given what we now know about calf and cow nutrition, we may want to expand our thinking.

Late summer forage quality in pastures declines, even in good rainfall years. The decreased energy and protein content of late summer grass does not support a great deal of calf gain. Doubly challenging is that this late season forage also does not support a great level of lactation by the calf’s dam, so calf ADG declines considerably late in the grazing season. Assuming you’ve received adequate moisture, late season calf gain may be estimated in the range of 0.5 to 1.5 lb per day; many years on western range late season ADG may drop to near zero.

Although the actual amount of milk and grass consumed by calves varies greatly among calves and from season to season, it can be stated broadly that the calf’s first choice for a source of nutrients, as long as he can get away with it, is his mother’s milk. Calves are fully functional ruminants by 60-90 days of age, and are fully capable of making use of good quality forage, but milk is always their first choice for nutrients, rather than their last. So every day they will go to their mother and consume as much milk as they can. And as the calf grows and it’s appetite climbs, mother’s milk decreases, effectively pushing the calf to go to grass more and more in order to supplement his nutritional needs.

This constant demand for milk by the calf places a tremendous pull on the dam’s nutrient reserves. Early in the season, when grass is both lush and plentiful, the cow can often produce a greater quantity of milk than the small calf can utilize because of the lactation curve and the abundant nutrient supply available to the dam. However, as grass matures and nutrient supply declines, the cow will pull energy from her own reserves (her body fat) to sustain lactation to prepare the calf for the winter.

If we work backwards from calving, the target body condition for beef cows at the time of calving is usually a condition score 5.0, indicating muscling, and a slight cover of fat, but no fat pockets obvious, and 2-3 ribs visible. Cows which are in a thinner condition than this target usually have a longer post-partum interval and delayed post-calving first estrus, resulting in later conception—or even an open cow come next preg check.

So if the cow goes into the winter in poor body condition, we need to feed those reserves back into the cow or risk late breeding next summer and late calving in subsequent years or even open cows next fall. It is estimated that for each 2 weeks we leave cows grazing late season pasture with calves still suckling them, after about September 1, cows lose about 0.25 of a condition score, which is worth about 20-25 lbs. That means if we leave the calves on cows until November 1, we’ve milked about 100 lbs of body condition off the cows.

If calves are only gaining 0.5-1.0 lb per day on their dam late in the season, we can do better. By weaning (especially utilizing low-stress weaning methods), we can improve the nutritional supply available to the calf, meeting all the needs for energy, protein, vitamins, and minerals. Weaning during favorable weather also has the advantage of reducing stress and the risk of disease brought on by inclement, cold, wet, fall weather.

In turn, the now dry cow can maintain and oftentimes actually increase body condition without the demands of lactation, resulting in cows going into winter in better flesh, requiring less supplemental nutrition to achieve the target body condition 5.0. That means less out of pocket cost to maintain the herd.

The disadvantages of early weaning are lower weaning weights, and weaning and feeding calves separate from cows requires good quality feeds, equipment, decent facilities, and labor. But the advantages are reduced disease, improved daily gains late in the season, and improved cow body condition going into the winter.

It’s usually true that your standing forage is your cheapest feed resource. But I’m not advocating NOT using that precious resource, only re-directing it’s use to optimize it’s value: allow the cows to graze themselves into good body condition rather than feeding that same condition onto them later in the winter with costly purchased feeds, and provide the calves with extra nutrition other than the relative pittance of milk Mama is putting out at the end of lactation. It’s time to reconsider what we do and why we do it. “Because we’ve always done it this way…” is the worst reason to do anything. If there are legitimate, defensible reasons for what you do on your operation, then keep on truckin’. If not, seek wise counsel to find perhaps better, more efficient, and more effective practices that may lead to better outcomes for your calves, your cows, and hopefully, your bottom line.

“Market Weight”

 by Chris Reinhardt, feedlot specialist

The world wants your product. And they want more of it. And they’re paying more for it than ever before. So your market signal is to produce more of it for them. But how?

The shortage of beef relative to domestic and international demand has created a sort of vacuum for beef, which has led to greater demand for feeder cattle, resulting in increased price for replacement heifers and for herd bulls. But it’s commonly believed in the feedlot world that the cheapest feeder animal you can purchase is the one already standing in the feedlot—in the form of a 1,200 or 1,300 lb fed animal.

Carcass weights for 2015 are running 10-20 lbs greater than in 2014, and 2014 ran 10-20 lbs greater vs. the previous 5-year average. Feedlots are, and have been for quite some time, feeding animals to heavier end weights.

The substantial increase in final live weight of feedlot animals can be attributed to a number of factors such as genetics and technology, but much of the increase over the past decade has come from simply feeding cattle longer. Based on K-State Research and Extension data, cattle are fed for 2-3 weeks longer than they were 15 years ago (figure 1).

Figure 1. Days on feed for steers fed in Kansas feedlots marketed in December from the Focus on Feedlots report (http://www.asi.k-state.edu/about/newsletters/focus-on-feedlots/monthly-reports.html).

If cattle are gaining 3.00 lbs or more late in the feeding period, and assuming 80% of late-term live weight gain is carcass gain:       21 days × 3.00 lbs × 80% = 50 lbs Hot Carcass Weight

USDA data indicate carcass weights have increased approximately 68 lbs over this same time frame, indicating that the combination of additional days on feed, genetics, and technology changes have all probably played a role.

Although increases in mature cow size have slowed in recent years, carcass weights of the offspring of those cows has continued to climb. Although we cannot, for a variety of reasons, increase the mature size of cattle through genetics, we have certainly found very effective means to continue to produce more beef in spite of limited feeder cattle supplies.

“Watch the Fat – an Update”

by Chris Reinhardt, feedlot specialist

 Since the advent of cattle feeding, we learned early on that cattle make very good use of by-product feeds that monogastrics—pigs, chickens, and people—can use very little of productively, especially if cellulose—fiber—makes up the majority of the feed. The corollary to that guideline is that if cattle have to compete with humans for a feedstock, humans win.

Three decades ago, wheat was a common ingredient in feedlot diets throughout the high plains. Today, the opportunity only occasionally presents itself due to temporary pricing inversions. We like our bread and Twinkies—humans win.

A similar, but more subtle phenomenon has taken place gradually over the past few years, since the ethanol industry boom began. Corn oil is worth more marketed to humans as that—corn oil—than to livestock in the form of distillers’ grains (DG), and the ethanol plants have developed novel technologies to extract an increasing amount of that oil from the by-product.

Early on, the fat content of corn DG was commonly between 11 and 13%; however, today, some corn DG with fat levels near 8%, and some as low as 4%. Fat in cattle feed contains 2.25 times the energy of carbohydrates, so removing fat such that the void left is filled with predominantly cellulose, would be expected to result in a lower energy feed.

As a capitalist, I am in favor of ethanol companies finding a way to increase their revenue from secondary product streams. But as a cattle nutritionist, I must also be aware that removal of oil from DG will dramatically reduce the value of the by-product for cattle feed.

Recent research conducted at the University of Minnesota concluded that for every 1% decrease in fat content of the DG, we should expect nearly 2 Mcal NEg / cwt reduction in energy value. Or, if your DG are 8% fat instead of 12% fat, the NEg for those DG is 65 instead of 73. So if DG makes up 40% of the finishing diet, and fat content of those DG was formerly 12% and is now 8%, we’ve lost 3.2 Mcal NEg in the final diet. We’re feeding a 61 Mcal NEg finishing diet when we used to feed a 64 Mcal NEg diet. That’s a substantial change. If the DG has 4.5% fat, we’re feeding a 58 Mcal NEg finishing diet—a “hot” grower diet really. Low-fat DG has less value for finishing cattle than does high-fat DG.

Fat content is a major reason DG have value in the finishing diet. If the fat percentage in DG has decreased over time, the feed value of DG for a cattle finishing diet is also decreased, and the astute cattle feeder should adjust pricing expectations accordingly.

“Deworming Feeder Cattle”

by Chris Reinhardt, feedlot specialist

The value of deworming pasture and feedlot cattle has been clearly demonstrated to the livestock community; the research is definitive and media surveys indicate that ranchers and cattle feeders have gotten the message loud and clear.

But if you dig very deep into the science of deworming, into specific parasites, life cycles, and mode of action of different dewormers it is very easy to become overwhelmed with the seeming complexity of the situation and potential solutions. The good news is you don’t have to dig very deep to understand the issue.

Parasites live most of their life inside the animal, but require green grass, moisture, and relatively warm temperatures to start the life cycle over. Eggs are laid by mature females living inside the animal and excreted in feces; warm temperatures stimulate the eggs to hatch and release larvae; larvae reside in dew drops on blades of grass and are consumed by the animal; the larvae then mature inside the host. In short, if there are eggs in the feces, the cattle have mature worms inside their digestive tract.

If you receive cattle which have been grazing green grass, they are likely carrying some level of internal parasites. If you receive cattle which have been in drylot and were effectively dewormed upon arrival in that drylot they should have little to no parasite burden leaving the drylot; there’s no chance for them to have become re-infected. There is a simple test that your veterinarian can conduct, using a small amount of fresh manure, to determine the level of internal parasites and the effectiveness of your deworming program.

Parasites make it difficult for cattle to respond to vaccination and to fight off viral infection because the 2 different types of immune battles are competing for immune resources. If you are having unexpected health problems several weeks or months into the feeding program, you may wish to have the cattle examined for internal parasites.

“Mud Season….Again”

 by Chris Reinhardt, feedlot specialist

 Consider the humble Box Blade.

As a feedlot nutritionist, you’d think my favorite piece of equipment or technology would be the steam-flaker, the feed mixer, the small-ingredient inclusion system. No. I love the box blade.

Why? Because the nutritionist owns performance. BRD belongs to someone else, but when closeouts are chronically below expectations, the nutritionist often takes the heat.

As we come into Spring, lots can become muddy, and mud has devastating impacts on performance.

Cattle need a (relatively) dry comfortable place to lie down. If winter moisture has resulted in destruction of the mound, it’s time to run the box blade. Cattle that cannot rest do not perform.

Cattle should have 20-25 square feet of mound area on which to lie down. The top surface (5-10 feet wide) of the mound should be crowned side-to-side, and longitudinally have a mild grade similar to the direction of the slope of the pen, which is normally between 1 and 6%. The sides of the mound should have a slope of 1:5 to enhance drainage yet still allow cattle to lie on the surface.

The end of the mound should connect directly to the concrete bunk pad so that, especially during muddy conditions, cattle can move freely and easily between the mound and the bunk and water areas. This will encourage both feed consumption and resting behavior, both of which will enhance performance during inclement weather.

“There’s Still Time”

 by Chris Reinhardt, feedlot specialist

 As we approach calving season, there may still be time to “save” your thin heifers and cows. If you have bred your cows to begin calving in late March or later, there’s time. However, if your cows have already begun calving, it’s too late to dramatically improve the reproductive performance of thin cows this coming breeding season.

Cows that are still 45 days from calving can be moved upward on the body condition scale, but care must be taken. Body condition score is primarily an issue of energy balance between what they’re consuming, what they require to maintain their body and grow the fetus, and what they are putting onto or taking off from their body stores. But feeding too much energy in the form of concentrates (grain or grain by-products) can lead to acidosis and wind up causing more harm than good.

The first step must be to sort off the very thin animals so that they can be provided a diet that targets their specific needs. There’s no sense in making thin, weak, young, or old, cows continue to compete with large, fat, aggressive cows. We’re trying to get additional nutrients to the thin cows and the aggressive cows will continue to take more than they need.

Next, visit with your extension professional or nutritionist as to the best way to get those thin cows some additional groceries. Grain, grain milling by-products, cubes, and high quality hay all can contribute to making up substantial ground on the body condition battle.

At a time of record-setting calf prices, the return on an investment of additional feed, focused on and directed toward those cows or heifers that will benefit most, will likely be positive.

“Feeding Cows to Maintain Body Condition Score”

 by Chris Reinhardt, feedlot specialist

 The “optimum” or “target” body condition score for beef cows, at the time of calving, is a Body Condition Score (BCS) of 5 on a 9-point scale. BCS of 1-3 and 7-9 are rarely seen in most herds. A “5” is typically considered moderate condition, showing no obvious fat deposits, but showing full expression of muscle through the round and shoulder, and with only 2-3 ribs obviously visible prior to morning feeding. The reason this level of body condition is important to lifetime productivity is that energy is the first limiting nutrient when the cow’s biological systems are trying to determine whether there are sufficient nutrients available after calving to (1) maintain her own body, (2) provide milk for the calf, and (3) begin to cycle prior to the breeding season.

A BCS “4” typically has no obvious fat deposition anywhere on her body, has less than complete muscle deposition in the round and shoulder, and clearly has 4-5 ribs showing prior to morning feeding. A cow in BCS “4” will typically delay cyclicity and may breed late in the breeding season. Unfortunately, if a thin cow calves late in the calving season she may miss the breeding season entirely. This is possibly the primary cause of infertility in the beef herd.

A BCS “6” is what most producers would consider a slightly “fleshy” cow. This cow has small but obvious fat deposits around the tail head, in the brisket, and in her flanks. She will have sufficient fat cover over the round and shoulder so that separate muscle groups are not clearly defined. The reason a cow is a BCS “6” at the end of the grazing season would be an “easy keeper”. But a cow that maintains a BCS “6” throughout the winter feeding season is probably a boss cow and is probably eating 2-3 times her given allotment of supplemental energy and protein every day.

Young cows often do not winter well for a number of reasons. Two-year-olds are still growing so some of the nutrient intake is going to growth of frame and muscle, in addition to maintenance. Also, they do not have the size, strength, or social status to out-compete older cows for feed and may be pushed out of the supplement line or the feeding area. Older cows may come out of the grazing season in poor body condition, and may lack the strength to compete in the feeding area. For these reasons, it is often recommended to find a way to separate off thinner cows from fleshier cows to provide additional feed.

Some producers worry about creating “welfare cows” who chronically require additional feed resources during the winter to simply stay up with their herd mates. Although this is logical, good record-keeping will help you to identify those individuals who simply cannot complete a production cycle without this “welfare”. Use good records to get one more calf out of her, then move her out of the herd. Simply allowing cows to fall out of the herd because of malnutrition cheats you out of several months of feed, and forces you to sell an open female rather than a bred female or a pair.

“Body Condition Scoring Beef Cows”

 by Chris Reinhardt, feedlot specialist

 In spite of the high cost of feed, ranchers need to be vigilant to the condition in which our cows go into calving. If cows are thin at calving time, there will be reductions in quality and quantity of colostrum, calf vigor, and subsequent fertility during next summer’s breeding season.

Cows which calve thin will delay their return to estrus and breed back late. If these cows do not maintain a 365-day calving cycle, after 1-2 late breedings they could effectively “cull themselves” due to being open at preg check time. Young cows are especially susceptible to this possibility because they are gestating a calf, nursing a calf, and still growing frame and muscle themselves. Unfortunately, young cows are the future of your herd and possibly your most progressive genetics. Hopefully these cows aren’t culled simply for lack of nutrients.

Body condition score (BCS) on a beef cow is the closest thing we have to a dip stick for determining, at a glance, her nutritional status. But scoring cows properly and really benefitting from this tool requires a bit more effort and observation than simply looking at the herd as a whole and thinking, “They look a little thin”. We need to look at each cow individually and make a record. For typical spring-calving herds, there is still time to adjust nutrient supply to get the cows into the target BCS by calving time.

To properly evaluate an individual cow, you should look at her topline, brisket, ribs, flank, round, and tail head. The “ideal” or “target” BCS for cows at the time of calving is the BCS = 5. This cow will show the last 1-2 ribs first thing in the morning before feeding, have good fullness of muscle in the round with definite muscle definition, the spine will be apparent but individual vertebrae will not be discernable, and there are no obvious fat depots behind the shoulder or around the tailhead. We would say this cow has a good “bloom”, but isn’t fleshy. A borderline thin cow (BCS = 4) will clearly show 3-4 ribs first thing in the morning, will have no fat depots in the brisket or tailhead, and you can see the individual vertebrae along the topline. The cow still shows some muscle through the round, and you could say she looks “healthy but thin”. In a borderline fleshy cow (BCS = 6) the ribs and vertebrae will not be obvious, as they are covered by fat. The muscling down through the round will be plump and full, but muscle definition is still apparent, and there will be small but noticeable fat deposits behind the shoulder, in the flank, brisket, and around the tailhead.

BCS 4 (borderline thin) cows will cycle back about 2 weeks later than BCS 5 cows, and BCS 3 (truly thin) cows will cycle back 3 weeks later than BCS 4 cows. A change in BCS (from BCS 4 to 5, for example) requires addition of from 75 to 100 lbs live body weight, depending on the mature size or frame size of the cows. If you’re still 3-4 months from the start of calving and need to add 1 BCS, you’ll need to feed the cows for maintenance, last 1/3 of gestation, and an additional 0.5-1.0 lb/day gain. This means increasing the amount of good quality hay as well as the amount of supplement. Thin cows (BCS 4 or below) can be separated off and fed a higher plane of nutrition.

The argument can be made that this creates “welfare cows”. However, good record-keeping will indicate whether these cows are perennial “hard-keepers” or if they are simply too young or too old to compete with the mature cows. If they’re too young, another year of maturity should cure this; if they’re too old, you may consider culling them after weaning time. The key here is that good record keeping allows YOU to cull intentionally based on productivity, as opposed to the cow “culling herself” due to nutritional infertility because of lack of observation and management. Cow/calf profitability is seeing unprecedented levels; ranchers will want to have as many productive cows and wean as many healthy calves as possible for the next few years.

Body condition scoring the herd is a simple process, and can be done on a large paper tablet. BCS 4’s can be easily fed into the 5 range; BCS 3’s could potentially not cycle in time to stay in the herd. If 3’s can be fed up into the 4-range, they’ll at least have a chance to breed, albeit late during the normal breeding season.

Take a little time to critically evaluate the nutrient status of your cow herd this winter, and use this simple, but powerful tool to manage the fertility and health of your herd going into next spring, and give yourself full control over the genetics and productivity of your herd for years to come.

“Value Equation”

 by Chris Reinhardt, feedlot specialist

 For those ranchers who’ve received adequate rain this year, the combination of high calf prices and inexpensive feed creates a unique opportunity.

Weaning onto the ranch and backgrounding, if logistically feasible, may have never been a more potentially profitable venture. But also, the question of what to do with open cows is not as cut-and-dried as “normal” years. One option—the conventional option—is to stay the course and market those open females through conventional channels as not fitting their present environment and production system. Open cull females are in demand and have value this fall and can be a ready source of capital.

Another option, depending on the flesh status of the open females, would be to feed them for a period to add flesh and pounds to their selling weight. If feed is plentiful and inexpensive and feeding is logistically feasible, this may be a way to profitably increase the value of open cull females. One key consideration is that, like fish in your refrigerator and visiting in-laws, feeding cows have a very limited shelf-life. Thin cows can be fleshed up and convert feed to gain fairly efficiently and cost effectively for approximately 45-60 days, depending on beginning condition; after that period, nearly all of added gain is fat gain and conversions erode rapidly.

A third option, again depending on cost and availability of feed resources—this is somewhat outside of the box—is to convert open cull females to bred cull females. The current marketplace is actively trying to expand the cow herd and increase the number of calves available in 2015. Breeding open cows this fall and over-wintering them may increase their value by transforming them from likely slaughter cows into a ready-made calf supply for producers who are eager to increase their cow herd and calf marketings, but may not be eager to buy open cows now, feed them throughout this winter and next spring until breeding season, and then feed them through another winter before they calve the following spring.

The rather unique combination of calf value, cow value, and abundant feed supplies provides a very exciting opportunity for ranchers to consider numerous alternative feeding and marketing plans. Some options may not have been on the radar but this is not a “normal” year.