The Cattle Business

[Carpenter]

     We had a heck of a year.  Sold our yearling steers for record high prices.  For about a minute I had more money than I knew what to do with.  Then, I paid back the cattle loan and the feed bill and the land payment and now I'm trying to figure out a plan for next year and with these high feed prices unless cattle prices continue to rise I am having a hard time figuring that this is going to work.  I've been over every scenerio that I can think of too.  I'm pretty good with cash flows usually I'm pretty close to right on the money and I've been to college in an agribusiness major, that has helped some. 
     To make a long story short, when we first moved back to Nebraska it was to get into the cattle business.  I've been in the cattle business my whole life really, but as an owner operator for 7 years now.  At first we bought about 100 weaned steer calves per year in December and sold them as yearlings the following August or September.  That worked out pretty well to get us started.  At the time I was working with my Dad who owns a section of ground and a 40 cow herd and he was basically leasing me the ground in exchange for labor to help us get started.  I would buy his steer calves and buy the others at auction.  A piece of ground with a house close to my Dads place came up for sale so we bought it, 80 acres of pasture ground.  I think about 35 more payments and it'll be mine.  The cattle do make the land payment every year there's just not a lot left over, that's fine, it's almost like a free place to live just with a lot of work involved.  And, I can handle that I like to work.
     We started our own cow herd when we bought this place and we quit buying calves at auction, we just keep mine and my Dad's steer calves to sell as yearlings.  I buy my Dad's steer calves at a pretty reasonable price, and I am still having trouble making everything work out on a cash flow.  The price of weaned calves is high, the price of feed is high and the price of land is through the roof.  I'm just not exactly sure how this all is supposed to work out.  I've gone over several cash flow scenerios and I can't decide wether to hold onto the yearling steers or just hold some of them and sell the rest as weaned calves or to sell some extra cull cows and keep extra heifers.  There's a lot of options and none of them really works out on paper at this point unless the beef price is on the upswing. 
     I know all agriculture is like this, I remember just a few years ago paying 2$/bushel for corn.  My Dad quit raising corn because he could buy it cheaper than he could raise it for.  It just seems like such a rat race to basically starve ourselves and compete against each other to feed a few ungreatfull people.  Most of the people may be greatfull, they just have no idea what it takes to get their food to the table.  I'm glad I don't actually try to make a living with agriculture, it would be pretty darn tough.

[beenthere]

Perk up Carp.
It's not all that bad. 

[zopi]

Farmers made this country...unfortunately, the country got away from the farm.

Big agribusiness has been allowed to starve the little guy out...and not just agribusiness...the big lumber interest controlling the grading of softwood lumber is no different...

There is a better way, but getting off the big economy into smaller local economies is a tough nut to crack....consider alternate farm outputs..a whole buttload of saleable produce can be produced in not much room...

[bugdust]

I don't know about others, but I really appreciate you guys.  

[shelbycharger400]

what is a 600-700 lb beef steer goin for at auction?   i was looking at buyin one from a local farmer at 2.25/lb plus process.... something seems a bit high with the fact that i will loose 1/2 the weight just in bones and guts alone

[Carpenter]

what is a 600-700 lb beef steer goin for at auction?   i was looking at buyin one from a local farmer at 2.25/lb plus process.... something seems a bit high with the fact that i will loose 1/2 the weight just in bones and guts alone

Lately I've seen 400# calves bring close to $2/lb. at local auction.  But, they really won't be ready to butcher untill their between 1200-1400#s.  I just checked the fat cattle report, yesterday out of Souix Falls they brought 125-132/cwt.  It takes a lot of feed to get one fat.  Were you looking at buying a 6-700 lb calf on the hoof and feeding it?  6-700lb feeder steers right now are bringing about $1.45/lb at auction. 

[sandhills]

Carpenter I hear ya, my dad and I run about 180 head of pairs, most pasture is rented and the land prices are absolutely rediculous.  We have had a pretty strong market around here for cattle (thankfully I'm on the selling end but we don't sell until march) but the feed costs are about the same as land.  I just bought my landlords share of the hay for 125 a ton, put that together with $6 plus grain makes for a pretty tight go of it, still I'm glad I'm not on the finishing end of the business.  Sounds a lot like the loggers here, if it was easy everybody would do it.

[WildDog]

Carpenter I hear what youre saing. Its the same down under, fortunately we have 2 off farm incomes. I breed some cows and most years sell off the weaners, our farm isn't suitable for fattening with light soils, native grasses and cold winters. On the other hand dad is 5hrs away near the coast and has an ex-dairy farm that has high carrying capacity with no frosts and buys in weaners to fatten. He'd let me fatten there but cattle from up on top don't do well down below.

Rainfall over the last couple of years has been the best on record so I have retained the weaners over winter feeding bypass protein, more to eat the grass than chase the extra dollars. Producers this year on the good country are suffering losses to bloat and pulpy kidney.

There is a lot of cattle guys diversifying into sheep again especially since the Dorpers have taken hold and don't require shearing or suffer fly strike. At work today I was in a room with 4 cattle producers, one guy said he was resurecting the old shearing shed in case he needed it, another said there hadn't been sheep on the place in 70 years but that would change after he upgrades the fences, another had just got back into sheep for the 1st time since 1983 and the last guy said he would but couldn't because the Wild dog problem was to great.   

sell some extra cull cows and keep extra heifers.

This comes with its own problems e.g no return for at least 20 months, management issues with keeping bulls away from the heifers, calving heifers down.
 
I have some caste for age cows but with the high prices and uncertain future I won't be buying replacements, instead I will enlarge my Boer goat breeder herd by breeding replacements. This comes at a cost because normally they would be exported to Malasia. At leaste with goats I get the added benefit of them improving the rougher country and the higher stock numbers allow me to chase more lucrative markets.

The way I see it, if your not in it for the love of it or for the tax incentives there is probably better ways to invest your money and effort.           

[Roxie]

If you are finding yourself at zero after making all your land payments and loans, then you are doing good, based on the standards in this area.  The only way to begin to make money is to own your land, and have no loans. 

After you have payed off the land, you then take the money you would have paid and buy your stock.  That will be the first year that you don't need a loan. 

I remember when I began going to auction with Cowboy Bob, and I was amazed because he could make more money in a day than I made in a week.  He could also lose more in five minutes than I made in a month. 

[Woodwalker]

The drought has caused a lot of folks to sell out around here. Hay is out of sight. 4X5 rolls of cow hay 800-1000#'s selling from $80.00 to $100.00. I've seen horse quality hay advertized as high as $140.00 for 4X5 Bermuda grass.
This is last weeks sales results from where we usually haul to. Calves are selling good, but everything else goes to slaughter.
NAVASOTA LIVESTOCK AUCTION CO.
FOR SATURDAY NOVEMBER 19, 2011
Volume:
1758
Total Sellers:
298
Total Buyers:
93
Trend of Market:
$ 4 --$ 6 Higher
WEIGHT:
STEERS:
HEIFERS:
150-300 lbs.
1.25—2.25
1.20—1.70
300-400 lbs.
1.10—1.75
1.15—1.475
400-500 lbs.
1.10—1. 65
1.15—1.41
500-600 lbs.
1.10 --1.50
1.05—1.39
600-700 lbs.
1.05—1.41
1.05—1.30
Slaughter
Bulls:
.50—.77
Slaughter
Cows:
.30--.65
Pairs
$ 575-- $ 870
Stocker
Cows:
$ 575 -- $ 975

[Bandmill Bandit]

I was in the cattle Business till 88. Grew up with cattle and all other manner of live stock you can grow on a farm. By the time I was in my early teens Dad had "bought" Grandpa out(grandpa carried mortgage for Dad) and we had a 80 ish cow dairy and about 90 moma cows, with 20 of them pure bred Saler. Total ranged from around 330 to 340 at weaning/penning time in the fall with 70 to 80 in the dairy barn.

We had room for about 380 to 400 head total in the winter feeding pens and just like you would buy 60 to 100 weaned calves from 2 of my uncle neighbors to fill out the feed lot for the winter.

What we did when the livestock market and feed prices were high is not fill the feedlot that fall, sell the extra feed and the weaned steers, heiferets, & cull cows in late October ish.  We grew about 30% more feed than we needed for a full lot on average anyway.

We held the money (after inputs were paid) from the feed & stock sales to put grass calves in the 200 ish acres pasture ground (read "free" feed ground) in late May early June and then depending on how the summer went and the feed and live stock markets looked/responded they would go to market in late october or into the feedlot pens.

It worked out pretty good most of the time but I dont think we made a heck of a lot more money margin wise than cattlemen do now. One thing for sure inputs are higher now as a result of the Mad Cow scandal and a few other stupid political moves on beef markets around the world but I think a herd of moma cows will still do you right. I still miss it, especially calving time in the spring, and then haying and silage time. 

Land cost was lower for sure and a good portion of ours was home stead land.

Made a few decisions that turned out to be bad when the provincal Gov was handing out cheap money in late 70s jsut before interest went out of site to buy more land and expand that side of the farm. turned out to be a dumb move. Should a bought another 60 moma cows and rented the 2 1/4s (1 was pasture) I bought and I would probably still be there.

That tells you how close the business of farming is to the line when you are carrying external financing.

If I had left the Mortgage with my dad and grandpa the debt load would not have been over the top when the interest spiked to 23 ish % in the early 80s.

I understand that even internal family financing is getting real hard to do now because of the cost of a retirement home in town for dad and mom (in this part of the world any way). so looks to me like not much has really changed from the norm of rising cost on the farm and diminishing returns at the farm gate.

2 things that will never change.

While farm kids graduate from college (and should) FARMERS do not. You can take the boy off the farm but you will never take the farm out of the boy. When a farm shuts down you lose generations of education that you can not teach in any school along with with the most qualified and best "professors" that pass that education and experience down the generations. Farming is a genetic occupation.

Same applies to the Forestry industry IMHO. 

Food does not GROW on a grocery store shelf. 90% of the people in this part of the world dont seem to understand that.




 

       

[SwampDonkey]

The beef cattle business around here is about as bleak as hog farms where the past two decades. Everyone is about gone broke with beef cattle. One big farm just up the road closed up this spring and I know of two other farmers that shut the doors in the last two years.

I would like to say a whole lot more, especially about who is coming in and taking up farms and not producing enough to pay for them, whereas anyone else at their level of production would go broke. But, I'll stop while I'm ahead. You would have to live here to see what I do and a lot of others.

[DR_Buck]

I'm not in it a serious as some of you are.  I have full time off farm (non-sawmill) income.   The cattle keep me in the 'AG' catagory for tax purposes.  I currently have 24 head black angus.  The last calves I sold 2 months ago were right at 600# and sold for $1.65 lb.   Thats the highest since I started 9 years ago.   It took me around 3 years before I started to turn a profit off of my initial stock investment.  From then on I've been able to cover all costs for feed, hay and vet with sales and take in a little xtra cash as well.   Profit is good, but in my case the tax benefits are much better.

[paul case]

Its sure changing.
When I was a youngster, noone kept their calves and weaned them. They were sold to ''backgrounders'' who raised them on some cheap input like wheat pasture or the like an those fellas sold contracts to feedyards. Heavy cattle,700lbs, at action only brought as much as 400lb calves that were right off the cow. So that is what I got set up to do, raise 400 to 500pound calves. I have enough land and 4 years ago I had the 100hd of momma cows to fill it. Now the heavy cattle are bringing a premium, probably because the feedlots starved all the backgrounders out of business.
I am now hung with a 1 time a year land payment in November that forces me to sell most of my calves at weaning. Thanks to some other things I am down on cow numbers and in a couple more years, my mortgage will be paid off, so I will be able to wean my calves and sell the in the spring with more pounds going across the scale.
My whole point is.... You got to roll with the punches. Be careful about getting to tied into any one scheme of thinking. A backup plan for your ground is a good thing. Some years you won't be able to afford to keep those calves. Many folks here ar dealing with that scenario right now, as hay is real expensive and in short supply and feed is double what it was 2 years ago.
Some of my land can be baled for hay when I am short on cows and some cant so since I am short on cows we bale a lot more hay. Some folks can plow their pastures and plant crops, and many near me are renting their pastures to folks who are trying to hold on to their cows through the drought time. Keeping your options open is a good idea.
I still enjoy raising cattle and owning land. When you can no longer enjoy it get out. That may be the only time you really make any money. PC

[red oaks lumber]

 with corn prices hovering around the 6 dollar mark, i don't think you could make that cash flow. maybe growing your own corn.until all of these markets (beef corn ect.)settle down. the only way to be profitable is sell the calves at weaning and don't put any grain into the animals.

[shelbycharger400]

carpenter... lookin at buyin for food...slaughter
and i believe his price at 2.25 was on the hoof
i thought it seemed a bit tooo high priced

[Carpenter]

with corn prices hovering around the 6 dollar mark, i don't think you could make that cash flow. maybe growing your own corn.until all of these markets (beef corn ect.)settle down. the only way to be profitable is sell the calves at weaning and don't put any grain into the animals.

     Well, it's a gamble either way of course.  I always sell the heifer calves this time of year anyway to cover feed costs for the steers.  I've got the hay and the pasture for the steers payed for and I own half of the steers right now as it is.  So, my major cash input into the steers is the grain.  I'll put about $200 worth of grain each into them.  Right now I could probably get $700-800 a head out of them, (and the scary thing is there's been several years that I've only gotten that much out of yearling cattle) the futures market indicates that August feeder cattle could be worth 1.50/lb which means that next August those steers at 800 lbs will be worth $1200 each.  The opportunity cost for the hay is approximately $135/ head, the opportunity cost for pasture rent would be approximately $100/head.  So, if I use the $700 as a base worth now I would need to get $1135/head as yearlings come fall just to break even and that doesn't include any potential death loss which I normally figure in at 2%. 
     The 5 year average price for yearling cattle according to USDA numbers is $1.10/lb. Our target weight is 800#s, so that would make the yearling steers worth $880/hd.  We normally do quite a bit better than the 5 year average price, but there's been a few years that I've been lucky to get the average price.  No banker in his right mind is going to loan money to buy $700 steers in the hopes that they will be worth $880 after putting $435 worth of inputs into them.  Of course they may be worth $1200 and they may be worth more.  The thing is, this year I could really pull this off without a loan at all, just barely.  I'm afraid that if I sell the steer calves now that I will be stuck selling weaned calves though just to make the land payment in future years.  If prices continue to rise and I sell the income bearing assets I won't have enough cash on hand to get back into the game.  And, if the calf prices fall and I am forced to sell just to make the land payments I could potentially lose money every year and I've got to tell you I can't do that for very many years in a row. 

     Things are really not as bleak as I make them out to be, I like to analyse every possibility though, it's so much easier to do this on paper before hand than to make a mistake and wish I had done things differently in a few years.  I generally figure business plans several years in advance and keep the plan somewhat fluid. 

     This really has been a bang up year for cattle producers though as far as prices have gone.  I know that Texas has been hit hard by a drought for the last few years.  I lived in Texas for 2 months, never saw so much rain in my life, but that was in 2003.  It would be really hard to be forced to sell out due to a drought. 

     I'm not thinking about selling out by the way, I'm just trying to figure out how best to stay afloat.  I started this thread to vent a little and to get some conversation going.  I know that there are several people on this forum involved in the cattle business and agriculture on this forum. 

     If you eat you are involved in agriculture!
     Just some food for thought.
     Jeff Carpenter

[Coon]

If you ate today thank a farmer!!! 

[Norm]

Do you have a source for DDG's in your area? My buddy I farm with has switched over to it hay and corn stover for finishing rations and really cut his feed expenses.

You do have my respect for raising cattle though. Nothing easy about it dealing with 1200# beefers that do what they want when they want.

[red oaks lumber]

iv'e been thinking more about your operation, a few questions come to me.
1) why sell the heifers to keep the steers? a smaller framed animal will finish out faster than larger animals, you should go for target condition not target weight. less input costs
2)do you treat your pasture ground like a good producing hay ground?  do soil samples evry year put on the recommended fertilizer rotate pastures so they can rest.
3)at weaning what are you weights? 8 month olds should be weighing around 450 lbs on good hay at 10 months should be around 600lbs..all depends on your breed .  i run black angus
4) do you condition your cows before calving? if you could put about 200lbs on the cow in the winter, your weaning weight will go up noticably.i side feed my cows corn silage.

5) why gain fed? is that how its always been done ? have you rthought about other methods ,so you are not trying to sell animals to the same saturated  markets as thousands of other producers.
these are just my thoughts, 

[Corley5]

  I grew up with a small cow calf herd.  We sold them in 1990 with no regrets    We took our calves to auction at weaning in Oct.  Some years we did good some years we didn't.  We did a bit better selling at the special beef breeder sales.  Lose a couple calves or have a piece of equipment breakdown and it was all for naught.  Grandpa retired from his herd at 70.  He didn't do it sooner because he didn't know what he'd do when they were gone.  It didn't take long for him to realize he should have gotten rid of them sooner    The one thing I really miss about them is having our own beef but I've got a deal with a guy.  I supply the hay he supplies us with beef.  Seems to work 

[Carpenter]

iv'e been thinking more about your operation, a few questions come to me.
1) why sell the heifers to keep the steers? a smaller framed animal will finish out faster than larger animals, you should go for target condition not target weight. less input costs
2)do you treat your pasture ground like a good producing hay ground?  do soil samples evry year put on the recommended fertilizer rotate pastures so they can rest.
3)at weaning what are you weights? 8 month olds should be weighing around 450 lbs on good hay at 10 months should be around 600lbs..all depends on your breed .  i run black angus
4) do you condition your cows before calving? if you could put about 200lbs on the cow in the winter, your weaning weight will go up noticably.i side feed my cows corn silage.

5) why gain fed? is that how its always been done ? have you rthought about other methods ,so you are not trying to sell animals to the same saturated  markets as thousands of other producers.
these are just my thoughts, 

 
1) Steers are worth more per pound and they are more feed efficient than heifers.  I don't finish the animals out and around here cattle are sold by the pound on the hoof.  Some years feeder heifers will work maybe even better than the steers.  Steers are a little easier to run though, I don't have to worry about them getting out with the neibors bull and they consistently bring the big dollars at auction in the fall.
2) No, we don't furtilize the pastures.  We do rotationally graze and spread the manure from the corrals.
3) Our cows are F1 Black baldies either breed Hereford or Angus.  Weaning weights are consistently around 450.  It's a little optimistic to expect 450lb calves to gain 2.5lbs/day on nothing but hay.
4)  We feed cake sometimes in the winter, some years when we had it they have gotten ear corn and cake.  Some years we feed silage.  Some years depending on feed availability and cost they just get hay.  This year I can guarantee they'll just get hay.  We've got plenty of that.
5)  Well, the markets aren't saturated.  When the buyers are in town looking to buy yearling cattle is when you want to have yearling cattle to sell.  You actually can get higher prices even with small bunches of cattle if you sell on a big sale.  You'd think it would be the other way around and that they'd fill all of their orders and go home but for some reason they just keep buying cattle like there's no tomorrow. Don't even try to figure out the cattle buyers, they're a different lot and all seem to drive nice vehicles.

Norm,
     yes we do have DDG in this area.  It is a cheap protein source, but it is not a very well balanced protein source.  I tried it with the calves one year and really didn't like the results.  I will have to look around for an alternative feed source though.  I had been buying ear corn from a local farmer and grinding it with an alfalfa pellet and soybean meal.  That works pretty well, but this year due to equipement breakdowns he only put up enough ear corn for his own use. I like feeding ear corn, there just aren't a lot of people still putting up ear corn.   

[sandhills]

Carpenter, how do you feed your cattle, do you have a mixer wagon or feed wagon of any type?  A few winters ago I watched my neighbor feeding some cows that were out running on cornstalks, he'd unroll big round bales for them and his son would follow right behind with the feed wagon dribbling out either DDG or gluten (can't remember which for sure) on the hay.  Those cows ate that hay right into the ground, I couldn't believe how well they cleaned it up and the hay was pretty marginal at best.  It was pretty tuff weather and a lot of snow but it kept those cows in real good shape.

[SwampDonkey]

At the time, about 32 years ago, the government was instituting Milk Marking Boards. This was nation wide. Dad had a herd of about 12 or 14 milk cows. He got an allocation of quota for the milk produced. Dad sold the cows and quota. The quota was worth more than all the cows could produce for milk revenues and more than the cows was worth. We had lots of work to do besides being tied to cattle. Dad never mentioned wanting another cow.

Sandhills, Good hay beats corn for a healthy cow. In areas of poor hay ground I saw in travels south of the border the ribs was sticking out of the cows as they grazed. Some of the stuff looked like straw they was eating, but it was not. Dad always had good hay here. Some people around here now just cut weeds year after year. Poor stuff.

[zopi]

There is alot of poor turf management in haying...at least around here..

[red oaks lumber]

high quality forage is the best tool for growing healthy animals yet, it also is the most overlooked area for improvement.

[sandhills]

SD, I'm not going to argue with you on that one bit, but a little grain goes a long way in keeping cows in shape, quality in hay does make a huge difference, the point I was making was that the quality of that hay wasn't very good and the DDG made up for that and also helped with the palatability of the feed at a reduced cost, and kept the cattle in very good shape.  I have to add that it was alfalfa and not native hay that was being fed (sorry, left that out) but I still think a little grain goes a long way  .

P.S.
I raise and sell both beef and grain so I'm pretty much up a crick no matter what 

[Kansas]

DDG has its place and works well at lower levels. You can usually get by using it for a protein source for overwintering calves, if have some decent quality hay. They have a lot of programs for figuring rations. Most any feed company will run scenarios for you. The State of Nebraska may well have a program for you to use yourself.

Not all protein is created equal. Soybean meal is an excellent source of protein for hogs. Not so much for cattle. Different animals need different levels of the building blocks of protein, and different food sources vary on those levels. Back in the feed mill days, we used to get a lot of loads of sunflower meal. That was an outstanding source of protein for cattle. Some of it came from a processing plant somewhere up in your area. Can't remember the name of the town anymore. I would look to DDG and possibly sunflower meal for your protein source. Seems to me you didn't want to go more than about 3 lbs or so of DDG. So much depends on availability and cost per unit of protein. Every year may be different.Sometimes a commercial protein pellet having some urea in it makes financial sense. When I backgrounded calves, I would shy away from that choice when I bought flyweight calves. Once they hit 500-600 lbs, I wasn't scared to use it. I had alfalfa, oats hay, and brome hay, along with some native so protein wasn't too much of an issue. I love alfalfa for cattle, but alfalfa pellets are usually a higher priced source of protein. Might be different in your area.

200 dollars for grain per head seems high. At one lb per 100 lbs of body weight, figuring an average of 7 lbs, you should be around 100 dollars with an expected sale time of May 1. You will have to feed a bit more than that to get the 2.5 lb gain, but I'm not sure its worth it. Fleshy yearlings might bring more per head, but it doesn't pay most of the time. Being corn is cheaper in western Kansas and Nebraska, makes more sense to let the big boys out west fatten them out. And they discount for flesh at the sale barn on yearlings.

I don't know what you have for shelter and facilities, so maybe it takes more grain up there. A good nutrition program should be able to factor all that in.

[Carpenter]

Kansas, this isn't my first day on the job.

A bovine needs 9 essential ammino acids.  They are called essential ammino acids because the bovine cannot synthesize them fast enough to meet its needs.  I can't remember all of the essential ammino acids off hand but they are PVTIMHALL.  I'll try to do this from memory.  Pheonalthalyne, Tryptophan, Lysine with Lysine being the most limiting, OK thats 3 out of nine, maybe I should dust off my college textbooks. 

 As far as figuring rations I have known how to do that since highschool.  I've taken several feeds classes at the college level and wrote a computer spreadsheat to help me balance rations.  It is better than the one at the local feedstore and I know because I worked at the local feedstore for a couple of years when we first moved back here.  All of that has been a while ago.  At any rate I did balance my last ration for ammino acids and vitamins and it was pretty good on paper and worked fairly well in a real life situation.  I also checked an equivilant DDG ration and it fell short on certain ammino acids.  I never have checked sunflower meal, we don't have sunflowers around here as far as I know, but there is some alfalfa available and alfalfa is a very well balanced protein source for a bovine.  As I recall it's calcium phosphorus level is approximately 2:1 which also just happens to be the ratio in milk and bones. 

     I'll do some more checking around, I just don't really have the time to do it right now.  If I could get some alfalfa I could cut their grain significantly and probably use a cheaper mix as well.  My $200 estimate was high, I rounded up a lot but also I am feeding the replacement heifers and the bred yearling heifers and will only have the steers to sell, so I was taking the total cost of the feed divided by the number of steer calves to be sold, it really works out to about $165/hd per steer calf, but if I figured just the steers on an enterprise budget it would be considerably less than that.  At any rate yes the steers themselves will make money.  Everything as a whole will make money as well, and as usual just barely enough to make it worth while but enough to keep me hoping that next year will be better.  So, situation normal.

[red oaks lumber]

why are you feeding grain to feeder cattle? i know you think my gains are optimistic but, they are realistic. i could push some grain through them, in reality all that does is cost more money.
 the 2 areas that return the most money 1) genetcis 2)feeding the highest quality hay or grass possible.
 my calves from weaning time get 3rd & 4th crop alafalfa long stem hay also every day they get 1st crop halage. they have acess to free choice balanced mineral.
 if your not making money now with high cattle prices, i would look at making changes to how things are done.

[Carpenter]

OK Red Oaks.  I can see those gains on alfalfa.  Alfalfa makes a very good cattle feed on paper and in real life.  It's got plenty of energy, protein, calcium and phosphorus at a 2:1 ratio if I remember correctly.  And from what I remember on an ammino acid level it's got a lot of the right ammino acids for the cattle.  So, I'll unwave the BS flag. 
     Were in different parts of the country.  There is some alfalfa around here but not a lot.  I tried to grow alfalfa and got hit with a few dry years and it didn't amount to much.  When I first started balancing rations I came to the conclusion that I could just about substitute alfalfa for the grain mix.  At any rate the hay that we have around here is native grass hay.  It's called prairie hay for a reason.  The cows do pretty well on it and it's good for maintenance but the 450lb calf rumen is not developed enough to gain much weight on it.  I do feed the calves free choice prairie hay but if that's all I fed they wouldn't weigh much more in the spring than they do at weaning.  I don't feed them enough grain mix to make them fat either, its mostly just a protein supplement with a little extra energy.  And, extra energy is never a bad thing especially in the winter.  Our winters can be severe. 
     Don't worry about my operation.  I've got things under control.  We preg checked the cows a few days ago and had a really good breed up rate.  So next year may be even better.
     I appreciate the advice everyone, but I really didn't start this thread to be a pick on the poor guy from Nebraska thread.  Nebraska used to be called the beef state, now it's called the cornhusker state for the football team.  The only state that produces more pounds of beef per year is Texas.  This is ranching country, this is not farming country and there is a difference. 

[red oaks lumber]

i don't think any one was pickin on the husker   just trying to give some outside perspective.
 the cornhusker got their name from the early farming days  corn was husked by hand. they had an annual celebration when i lived in lincoln.

[paul case]

We feed our replacement heifers and herd bulls a little grain along with free choice hay through the winter. Would alfalfa be better? maybe but it is almost as expensive to get as the grain and not as easy to get.We dont want our heifers to get fat but continue to grow through the winter. We only grain them 3 days a week, since cattle can store protiens for up to 3 days. They only get about 3 pounds per head per feeding. Some would say this is not enough to make a difference, But it does!

I have learned to put the pencil to any operation at least yearly to look for a better way to make it more profitable, and I think that is what Jeff is trying to do here. I applaud your efforts Jeff.
I truly don't think we are making as much profit as we think most of the time.  Cattle prices may be at an all time high, but so is gasoline, feed, and hay.
I personally think as long as we can keep the goverment out of the cattle business we will continue to do ok. Watch the bottom line Carpenter. I am pulling for ya, we are all in this thing together. PC