Near Rio Grande City in deep South Texas, Starr Feedyard is built to handle heat, high‑risk calves and high‑stakes markets. Manager and co‑owner Dillon Scoggins leans on a large stocker base, disciplined hedging and practical cattle choices to keep the yard moving forward through low cattle numbers and a shifting policy landscape.
“We own and lease cattle or pasture about 20,000 to 25,000 acres. So, we have a pretty extensive stocker operation,” Scoggins explains.
Most U.S. feedlot managers talk about corn basis and cost of gain. Scoggins also talks about grapefruit pulp. That detail — unexpected — says a lot about Starr Feedyard, the family-owned operation located just 40 miles from the Mexican border. Here in the brush country of South Texas, feeding cattle requires resourcefulness that the feedlot corridors of Kansas or the Texas Panhandle simply don’t demand. And for Scoggins and his family, that resourcefulness has been decades in the making.
Built From the Ground Up
Starr Feedyard traces its roots to 1974, when Scoggins’ grandfather and his brother, Ken, along with partner Lou Waters, started the yard specializing in heifers. The region was well-suited to the business at the time — there were multiple packers nearby, and proximity to Mexico meant ready access to cattle.
Decades later, the yard has grown into a 20,000-head operation. The model is integrated: cattle come in light, get straightened out, move to grass and eventually move to the feedyard to finish.
Today, the yard focuses on high‑risk sale barn cattle and a strong stocker system.
“We buy high‑risk sale yard cattle,” Scoggins explains. “We buy them around 400 to 500 lb. and then get them straightened out and turn on pasture. We bring them in around 700 to 800 lb. We used to finish them at around 1,400 lb. Obviously in the past year and a half, that’s changed. We’ve increased our out weights to around 1,500 to 1,600 lb.”
For Scoggins, the stocker acres and heavier finish weights are critical tools in a short‑cattle environment.
Buying For the Climate
One of the things that makes Starr Feedyard genuinely distinct is its environment — and its purchasing philosophy reflects that. Summers in South Texas routinely exceed 100 degrees, and unlike feedlots in the central and northern Plains, nighttime temperatures don’t offer much relief.
“At night, the big issue is having temps above 80 degrees,” Scoggins says. “It just does not cool down like it does up north, and it can be hard on these cattle.”
That reality shapes the type of cattle he buys. “We need cattle with a little ear,” he explains. “We need cattle that can survive down here in these hot climates and perform as well.”
He’s focused on a balance of heat tolerance, structure and genetics. What he’s not chasing is the cheapest ticket at the sale barn.
“As far as taking those risks and buying the cheapest animal there at the sale, you can’t really outsmart the market,” he explains. “If they’re cheap, they are for a reason.”
Every pen at Starr Feedyard is equipped with shade — a capital expense Scoggins considers non-negotiable.
“The cattle really benefit, especially in these hot summer months,” he says. “They need that shade, and I think it helps them perform.”
Winter, by contrast, is the feedyard’s quiet advantage. When northern feedlots are fighting snowstorms and frozen water lines, South Texas enjoys mild conditions that Scoggins says allow cattle to gain nicel during those months.
A Localized Feed Program
Corn is still the backbone of the ration, and Scoggins says locking in a strong corn basis is critical at this latitude where basis has historically run higher than in the Corn Belt. But the operation layers in locally available feedstuffs that reduce costs and take advantage of the region’s unique agriculture.
Dry-land silage has been a growing part of the program in recent years. Dried distillers grains (DDGs) serve as the primary protein source. And each fall and winter, the yard brings in grapefruit pulp — a byproduct of the citrus juicing operations that dot South Texas — as an energy feedstuff. It’s the kind of localized, practical nutrition management that reflects a genuine understanding of the region.
“We flake corn just like everyone else,” Scoggins says. “But we can be very competitive, especially during the winter months.”
Hedged Against Uncertainty
Starr Feedyard stays at minimum 90% hedged at all times. It’s a strategy that limits exposure to price swings — but it also caps the upside. On paper, high feeder and fat prices look like a windfall for a yard like Starr. Yes, the yard is making money — but margin calls and protection costs eat into the highs.
“We have to be hedged up,” he explains, adding he tries to stay 90% hedged. “I don’t tolerate a lot of risk, and so a lot of those profits that we make are lost on the hedges.”
For cow‑calf producers trying to understand feedyard economics, his explanation of what a hedge does is straightforward: “That hedge, or that option that you buy, or if you sell the futures, that protects your price, and so really you’re only dealing with weather and death loss at that point, because your price is fixed and you’re protected.”
The process is systematic:
- Buy a lot of cattle.
- Call the broker and discuss whether to sell futures or buy puts.
- Stay covered until the cattle are sold.
It’s a risk management philosophy shaped by operating in a region where drought and distance from major markets add layers of vulnerability most feedlots don’t face.
A View From the Border: Disease vs. Cattle Supply
From Scoggins’ perspective, the closure of the Mexican border is a classic case of trade‑offs. The yard once relied on Mexican cattle as a steady pipeline of preconditioned feeders.
With that supply cut off, Scoggins has had to lean harder on high‑risk sale yard cattle, and it’s showing up with an increase of morbidity and mortality at the yard.
He recognizes the screwworm risk that drove the decision, but he doesn’t sugarcoat the economic pain for feeders. For producers, his comments underline a bigger point: disease-control policies ripple all the way through the chain, from border to feedyard to packer and back to ranch country.
Despite everything — border closures, tight supplies, weather and hedging — Scoggins remains rooted in optimism about the U.S. cattle industry’s future.
“I have a lot of pride in the U.S. cattle industry,” he says. “I think we’re the best in the world at it. We really can produce food in a very efficient way. And I hope we keep doing that.”
That pride, and that practicality, are woven into every pen and pasture at Starr Feedyard. The Starr Feedyard story offers a snapshot of what it takes to compete today: Cattle that fit the country, disciplined risk management, creative feeding strategies and a long‑term belief that the U.S. cattle business is still worth betting on.
