Longevity Percentage

[Silver]

Do you have your calves custom fed or do you grass them to fat, or feed them yourself? I've got no experience with fats.... how to market them etc. From the stories I've heard I don't have the courage to retain ownership through the feedlot.

 

[Northern Rancher]

We place cattle on feed at different times-we usually winter calves planning to grass them but if we get a heavy end we'll go on feed with them in spring-then grass some and place late summer and them some dry heifers etc in early winter-I try to avoid selling fat cattle during summer if I can. If grass cattle are getting paid well sometimes we just sell off grass too. This year we sold the yearlings off because of this cancer deal so will just have some calves to feed later. I don't have enough courage to haul my year in for one days sale lol. The yard I work with does all the marketing for me-your calves look like they'd fit in that Laura's Lean Beef grid-mine don't but I heard that deal is pretty good. We sell onto Cargills grid but since AAA Y3's are even money now instead of a premium it took some money out of it-guess we'll have to ship a bit quicker we average 95 percent AAA's or better so the marbling thing seems to be covered ok. The yard I use has some smaller pens they let me use so I can feed smaller groups then most-I tested the waters there with a gooseneck full of cutback yearlings-they made decent money so we kept feeding there.

 

[Silver]

We place cattle on feed at different times-we usually winter calves planning to grass them but if we get a heavy end we'll go on feed with them in spring-then grass some and place late summer and them some dry heifers etc in early winter-I try to avoid selling fat cattle during summer if I can. If grass cattle are getting paid well sometimes we just sell off grass too. This year we sold the yearlings off because of this cancer deal so will just have some calves to feed later. I don't have enough courage to haul my year in for one days sale lol. The yard I work with does all the marketing for me-your calves look like they'd fit in that Laura's Lean Beef grid-mine don't but I heard that deal is pretty good. We sell onto Cargills grid but since AAA Y3's are even money now instead of a premium it took some money out of it-guess we'll have to ship a bit quicker we average 95 percent AAA's or better so the marbling thing seems to be covered ok. The yard I use has some smaller pens they let me use so I can feed smaller groups then most-I tested the waters there with a gooseneck full of cutback yearlings-they made decent money so we kept feeding there.

That's interesting. It's too bad we are so far from anyone that feeds. We've sold calves and yrlgs to Laura's in the past, but it sounded like they were done last year. I guess they're back at it now. Neighbours went through Laura's with a retained ownership deal but I think when the dust settled it wasn't as good a deal as they hoped for.

 

[Northern Rancher]

Yeah we used to feed down at Strathmore but now we feed at Highland Feeders in Vegreville-they do a pretty good job and are about four hours closer-I actually get a look at some finished cattle of mine once in awhile. Probably going to breed more cows Hereford this year to get my yield up a bit.