Back in the saddle? Need a business plan.

[OSUCowboy]

I want to start raising steers again for slaughter. I haven't done it for several years so I'm a little rusty.

I want to put together a cash budget of inputs/outputs. I can probably get prices from the local mill but I need help with the quantities and timing. Suppose I buy a few head of angus or angus cross calves weighing about 400 lbs. They will be on Oklahoma pasture. I won't use implants roids/hormones so I can market natural. In the past I have used a 14% creep feed.

How much feed do I need to suppliment during the spring and summer?
How fast should they grow?
How long do I wait and what should they weigh before I move them to a pen to finish?
Then how much feed and hay during the finishing period and for how long?
How much weight gain during that period?

 

[Running Arrow Bill]

IMHO, several issues here:

• 1. Are you wanting a "Business Plan" or a "Cattle Feeding Plan"?
  2. If a "Cattle Feeding Plan" then unless you are planning to operate a computerized beef or dairy operation then "in the mouth, process food, excrete waste products" is a crap shoot at best. Too many variables to predict statistically.
  3. If you are talking about a "Business Plan", then your program plan, goals/objectives, advertising and marketing plan, infrastructure issues, overhead, operating costs, etc., would be self-evident from your "Chart of Accounts" (if you don't know what a C of A is, contact an accountant).
  4. One cannot accurately use cost of feed, etc., X time to = finish weight & quality & return on investment. However, if you have a sophisticated and computerized "feedlot type operation" then you may be able to calculate all this with maybe ~ 90% probability. Otherwise, there are many statistical variables that one probably cannot control in a feeding experiment.
  5. One cannot ever accurately control or predict future market conditions and/or prices of any commodity.

Bottomline: One cannot take X amount of starting weight times X amount of food times "time" and safely and accurately "predict" the outcome in weight and/or costs and/or profits.