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Shipping steers

S

SMN Herf

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 1, 2005
Messages
602
Location
NC South Dakota
I sent all my steer calves yesterday to a feedlot in Kansas to go onto a feedout test. I will get complete performance, carcass and feed efficiency data on my entire calf crop. They are out of my purebred cows and commercial cows. I think it is a pretty good way to evaluate my genetics to others around the country.

The pictures aren't that high quality as it has been overcast and foggy that past couple days.

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I'm a firm believer in retained ownership-it's a real eye opener for sure-I think you'll be pleasantly surprised when you close your pen out. Last year a buddy of mine fed his cutback grass cattle-we had quite a debate over how they'd do-I was accused of being too optomistic imagine that. Well the cattle did great-his quote was-"They've been stealing from us." I'm sure someone grampa fed Hereford steers and lost money in the 40's but I'm sure you'll do just fine.
 
Northern Rancher said:
I'm a firm believer in retained ownership-it's a real eye opener for sure-I think you'll be pleasantly surprised when you close your pen out. Last year a buddy of mine fed his cutback grass cattle-we had quite a debate over how they'd do-I was accused of being too optomistic imagine that. Well the cattle did great-his quote was-"They've been stealing from us." I'm sure someone grampa fed Hereford steers and lost money in the 40's but I'm sure you'll do just fine.
Click to expand...

I have a pretty good idea how they will do. I have been feeding out my own steers for a number of years now and my family has been doing it for probably 25 years on our commercial herd.

A lot of cattle in the sale barns get sold on averages and the good cattle aren't bringing near the premium they should compared to how much better they will perform than the average. A few years ago I had the opportunity to purchase all the baldy steers from a customer. The market was kind of depressed and I tried to talk him into retaining ownership on them because I really felt the market was going to improve but he really wasn't interested. I figured I could make money on them if the gained 3.7 lbs a day at current feed and fed cattle market prices. Well, they gained 4.33 a day and the market improved nicely and all worked out well. The feedlot owner told me not to tell the owner how they performed and just go buy the steers next year no matter what. That is a problem in the cattle feeding industry. Dont let information filter down to the cow calf level so they can make improvements.

I would love to develope a relationship with a feedlot who would be committed to providing my bull customers feedback so that they can improve their cattle.

Brian
 
Pretty hard to make genetic decisions when you don't have any information-calves that are the same weight and colour on a given day at the stockyards are assumed to be equals-most times pretty far from the truth. We worked cows yesterday and the vet was commenting on how good a condition they were in-not being babied very much-I'm pretty into benign neglect lol. It's frustrating when you run cattlea bit different than the silage bunk yard feeding crowd it's assumed your cattle will be rough. Ohh by the way I did find one more EXT bred cow in the bunch-the banging steel alerted me and an eartag confirmed it lol.
 

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