Does preconditioning pay?

[gertman]

To all of you who precondition calves (wean, deworm, vaccinate, castrate males, break them to a feed and water trough for at least 45 days) is the premium you receive worth the extra labor and the extra feed costs. I'm not worried about the deworming and vaccination costs because I do that anyway.

 

[Bez>]

To all of you who precondition calves (wean, deworm, vaccinate, castrate males, break them to a feed and water trough for at least 45 days) is the premium you receive worth the extra labor and the extra feed costs. I'm not worried about the deworming and vaccination costs because I do that anyway.

While we do almost everything mentioned above, most of the sales here do not provide anything more than those who wean on the truck and ship asap.

Because of this we have stopped holding over anything that does not go directly out the front gate to a client.

Some may see the premium - but it does not happen in this area.

Bez>

 

[Brute 23]

In our area they claim you do.

I personally have not tried it yet. I am going to do a test run on a few out of the calves on the ground right now.

 

[MoGal]

I think you get at least 10 cents more on the pound for steered calves over bull calves.

 

[dun]

We do it and it's paid. Last year we did the RFID deal too and ended up getting abouty an extra $6 cwt over what we did wwith just the vac 45 day calves. But we put them in a special sale for calves that were IDed, age, source and process verified.

 

[Jogeephus]

If you sale at the barn here and the buyers know your cattle, you do. But with that kinda cattle and/or reputation, most will never get to the barn.

 

[rockridgecattle]

We do everything but keep them back. We age verify, RFID, Boosters and deworm atleast three weeks prior to weaning. Here that pays the $. Keeping them back has not paid. When we first started out we were with the inlaws. they sold 4 weeks after weaning and we brought home a few poor ones everytime. we did not get great prices either.
I got fed up and asked a buyer what was wrong with ours. He said you had weaned 4 weeks ago right? I was stunned. He said they would not perform well in the feedlot would need lots of drugs cause they would get sick. He gave me two choices. Wean off the truck or 6-8 weeks.
Mind you at that time we did not vacciante for anything other than one shot of two way black leg. In laws ran the farm and they were their cows. Not much you can do.

Once we started getting our own cows we stared a herd health program and sold the day we weaned.
Last year we weaned and sold the same day. Several guys in our area kept for 8 weeks. Prices dropped and per animal we made more money than they did. We both made 600 a steer average but he had 8 weeks of feed to pay for we did not.
Now we are at a cross roads.
Now that our herd health program has proved benifical we are thinking on preconditioning 45 days. Our animals are healthier than they were 10 -12 years ago.
Our preferred way of selling would be a satilite sale though. They would be sold on the yard, by pass the sale barn and if the buyer wanted us to feed after weaning a contract could be worked out. Satilite sales just came into the area about two years ago maybe three.
We just did not have enough animals for a truck load. they want a truck load from a farm. This year we might have enough for a load.
Our auction mart does not do presort sales and sales start at 9 am and can go as long as 2-4 in the morning if they have 3000 head in. In order to sell late morning or early afternoon the calves have to be loaded by 7 am the previous morning. They do not get any feed just water in the pens. But what can you do when the next sale barn is 5 hours away?
So you see we are still not sure what we are doing. I guess it depends on the hay we put up.
End of the book

 

[Limomike]

I think you get at least 10 cents more on the pound for steered calves over bull calves.

Around here, whether you steer your calves or not.. they will call em "steers" if you take them to the sale barn BEFORE they are about 600lbs. So, it doenst make any difference.

 

[Jogeephus]

rockridgecattle, what you might want to consider is grouping yours with someone else to make a load. This would be beneficial to both parties. I have done this before and it worked very well. Everyone was pleased.

 

[novatech]

To all of you who precondition calves (wean, deworm, vaccinate, castrate males, break them to a feed and water trough for at least 45 days) is the premium you receive worth the extra labor and the extra feed costs. I'm not worried about the deworming and vaccination costs because I do that anyway.

I cannot see that it would make a difference unless the buyer was aware of what you have done. At a regular sale barn this probably will not happen. If you can market directly with a feed lot in should be profitable, given that you also have the type of cattle they want to buy.
As with any business you should do a market analysis. Ask your customers what they want and produce it.

 

[MrBilly]

Yes, the last time we did this with a couple other producers to produce truck load lots, we got $10/cwt more than if we had not.

Billy

 

[denoginnizer]

Yes, the last time we did this with a couple other producers to produce truck load lots, we got $10/cwt more than if we had not.

Billy

Do you know how much extra it cost you to make the the extra 10/cwt?

 

[Brute 23]

To all of you who precondition calves (wean, deworm, vaccinate, castrate males, break them to a feed and water trough for at least 45 days) is the premium you receive worth the extra labor and the extra feed costs. I'm not worried about the deworming and vaccination costs because I do that anyway.

I cannot see that it would make a difference unless the buyer was aware of what you have done. At a regular sale barn this probably will not happen. If you can market directly with a feed lot in should be profitable, given that you also have the type of cattle they want to buy.
As with any business you should do a market analysis. Ask your customers what they want and produce it.

They will announce that the calves are precomditioned when they enter the ring.

 

[rockridgecattle]

rockridgecattle, what you might want to consider is grouping yours with someone else to make a load. This would be beneficial to both parties. I have done this before and it worked very well. Everyone was pleased.

We have tried to do this but up here not everyone has simillar cattle, not everyone vaccinates/deworms or age verifies. Most farmers are entrenched in the idea of the sale barn and don't want to consider sat. sales or "outside the box thinking". The idea of working together to sell your calves is just, well, plain crazy...not my words.

 

[novatech]

To all of you who precondition calves (wean, deworm, vaccinate, castrate males, break them to a feed and water trough for at least 45 days) is the premium you receive worth the extra labor and the extra feed costs. I'm not worried about the deworming and vaccination costs because I do that anyway.

I cannot see that it would make a difference unless the buyer was aware of what you have done. At a regular sale barn this probably will not happen. If you can market directly with a feed lot in should be profitable, given that you also have the type of cattle they want to buy.
As with any business you should do a market analysis. Ask your customers what they want and produce it.

They will announce that the calves are precomditioned when they enter the ring.

Good sale barn. Around here they don,t.

 

[MikeC]

If anyone "Pre-Conditioned" their calves and did not get a premium it's their own fault.

Taking calves through a good program and not letting all the potential buyers know is your area are doing a "half-a$$ed job of "Marketing", which is an integral part of the cattle business.

 

[Bez>]

If anyone "Pre-Conditioned" their calves and did not get a premium it's their own fault.

Taking calves through a good program and not letting all the potential buyers know is your area are doing a "half-a$$ed job of "Marketing", which is an integral part of the cattle business.

Well Mike I suspect your situation is very different from many in Canada. Trying to find a buyer within 200 miles that might compete with the sale barn is easier said than done. In fact you may have to go out to about 500 for a major buyer.

Our nearest competition that is a possibility for us to sell through is more than a four hour haul away.

Billy Bob the local buyer - who lives down the road might buy three culls a week - but a major buyer with a real bank account is tough to find at times.

A lot has to do with sale options.

In this country for example there is a province - for the uninitiated - a Canadian State equivalent - that is a major cattle producer and there is not one slaughter facility.

And probably only three sale barns of any size.

Those can literally be 500 mile hauls.

Canadian provinces from Quebec - west to the Pacific are all the size of or larger than Texas.

So, the buyer has your nuts in a vice. As well, buyers are so few that they often divide up a territory - so one will never intrude into another.

The challenges are immense and when a province that is similar in size to the State of Texas has less than one million in population it also highlights the challenges.

This is one more reason why the cattle industry in Canada is in dire straits.

The options are truly few for many.

That is why you will so often find folks weaning off the truck in Canada - the castrating and dehorning and vaccs will be done - but it does not pay the vast majority of folks to hold them over for the difference. And that is because despite all of the talk - the buyers do not pay enough to make it worth while.

They are in a position of power and any premiums are kept in their pockets. You may sense there are not many buyers I have a high opinion of - and you would be correct.

Alabama - approx population - 5 million
- approx sq miles - 52,400 sq miles.

Province examples:

Manitoba - approx population - 1,115,000
- approx sq miles - 251,000

Saskatchewan - approx population - 968,000
- approx sq miles - 227,000 sq miles

When it comes to marketing options, I wish I was in your situation,

Bez>

 

[Victoria]

We castrate, vaccinate, RFID tag, and age verify. We wean the day they get on the truck. We keep them on the cows pretty late though, average is about 7 months old before they go. We don't have the setup to wean the calves before leaving and still have them conditioned well. Besides their really isn't a premium that I have seen in preconditioned calves here.
Go to the sales in your area and check prices and then put the pen to the paper yourself to see what works best for you. Each operation is different.

 

[rockridgecattle]

Bez and Victoria are right. up here we don't see a premium for preconditioned calves, and we have few options for trucking.
Canada is different than the US in the way calves are marketed. We have a few small local feed lots in our area but the guys buys small stuff, males and such, stuff others don't want so they can buy cheap. Now some of them are starting the custom feeding so the big guys buy and bring in to their feed lots.
Our sale barn sells one day a week because the buyers work a circut and do 6 diferent sales a week. So a feed lot of 700 1000 fills pretty fast when when the animals come from other auction marts as well as your own local.
we are limited to what we can do especially if you have less that a full truck load.
Bez, what about Alberta?
AND NO SLAUGHTER EXCEPT SMALL GUYS WHO DO CULLS

 

[Bez>]

Bez and Victoria are right. up here we don't see a premium for preconditioned calves, and we have few options for trucking.
Canada is different than the US in the way calves are marketed. We have a few small local feed lots in our area but the guys buys small stuff, males and such, stuff others don't want so they can buy cheap. Now some of them are starting the custom feeding so the big guys buy and bring in to their feed lots.
Our sale barn sells one day a week because the buyers work a circut and do 6 diferent sales a week. So a feed lot of 700 1000 fills pretty fast when when the animals come from other auction marts as well as your own local.
we are limited to what we can do especially if you have less that a full truck load.
Bez, what about Alberta?

I am no longer in Alberta. We used to ship south to Grande Prairie - but it actually cost us money - we started shipping to Westlock outside Edmonton and that helped, but the haul was long and expensive - ate up a lot of profit.

Bez>