Every cow-calf producer strives to produce the best cattle that their unique resource base allows. Right now, you are likely making — or have already made — decisions for your current calf crop based on: 1) the resource constraints that you face; and 2) the market opportunities available to you.
A quality calf crop starts with a quality herd as its foundation and includes good management to achieve the goal of producing calves that you are proud of and that maximize the returns to your efforts. The process also involves a lot of planning. But the plan isn’t complete without both a calf health management program and a marketing plan for those calves.
When you market your calves, buyers can visually observe some indicators of quality and management for themselves — characteristics like frame, muscling, hide color, fill, fleshiness, castration, horn management and lot uniformity. Some of these characteristics are determined by herd genetics and while they are changeable, that change is a longer-term decision with no impact on the calf crop already on the ground. The rest of those characteristics are the result of current management decisions, as are unobservable calf characteristics such as vaccination status, weaning status, weaning period length and certification. All are important components in the overall price of feeder cattle.
Perhaps the most famous quote of Peter Drucker, the father of modern management in the business world, is “What gets measured gets managed” – sometimes restated as “You can’t manage what you don’t measure.”
Are you measuring the impact of your current calf management decisions? And assessing the potential added value of implementing management practices that you currently don’t employ? Measure both the expected cost and expected benefit and consider whether you can implement a “new to you” management practice. And if you do make the change, measure the realized cost and benefit and use that as input into next year’s decision.
With this year’s calf crop, consider the decisions that you can make now that can make a difference in the value of those calves in a few months at marketing time. For example, if you are not weaning calves at least 30 days prior to marketing, what constrains you from doing so? Is it facilities?
Data from the Oklahoma Beef Management and Marketing (OBMM) survey indicate that access to preconditioning pens is highly correlated with implementation of 45-day weaning minimums, respiratory vaccinations and feed bunk training. If you have no place to hold calves separate from cows, consider whether you can build pens — even for part of your calf crop — and consider whether you could expand it next year. Can you remedy that before weaning time? If not, gather cost and benefit information and consider it for next year’s calf crop.
How many weaned or preconditioned calves would it take to pay for the initial cost of those pens?
If you are already weaning calves for 30 days, you presumably already have a place to separate them from their dams. Can you hold them for two more weeks to hit a 45-day weaning period? Sixty-three percent of producers who responded to the OBMM survey are weaning calves at least 45 days prior to marketing, but our research indicates that markets are also rewarding significantly longer weaning periods with higher premiums — up to 100 days.
Assess what constraint keeps you from holding calves for longer weaning periods before marketing. Is it a need to use that space for something else? Is it forage/feed availability? Is it time? Is it tradition? Does the expected benefit outweigh the expected cost?
And then walk through this process for other potentially value adding management practices.
Every producer’s resource base is different. Presumably, your management and marketing strategies reflect the availability of those resources and their value to your operation. An annual or even semi-annual assessment of your strategy is a healthy exercise. At every level, record keeping about inputs, management practices, marketing successes and failures provides crucial input for future decision-making.
Ask yourself some important questions. Who am I marketing my cattle to? Do my management practices fit the buyer audience that I want to target? Is there a recommended practice that I currently do not utilize, and could it be beneficial to do so? What is the best way to access the buyers who are looking for cattle managed like mine?
For this year’s calf crop, find the market where buyers are willing to compensate you for the management that you have put into your calves. And in preparing to breed for next year’s calf crop, be sure to get a strategy in place for their management and marketing too.
“When you keep doing what you’ve been doing, you’re going to keep getting what you’ve been getting"… Henry Ford.
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