Feeding Cost?

Help Support CattleToday:

I think I'm happier not understanding the cattle business and being new to the business...my costs would never encroach 1$ a day per head. I have no steel, no equipment, i don't include my labor...i don't over tax the land (cows/acreage). Quick calculations I'm around 75 cents a day for feed alone and then add in the vaccines, dewormer, minerals and other...so ok, I'm right at $1. So, I'll be the controlled "test subject farm"...let's see if my costs increase or I go out of business. You maybe correct Lee. I don't buy steel other than barb-wire, so there's almost no fuel, fertilizer and equipment costs to speak of. I sold my old vintage 1946 Avery Model-V last year. My Ranch probably looks like something out of the 1930's to 1950's, complete with wooden head gate (literally 1954 design i hand built for $120.) I might be too cheap for my own good...but I love the land and cattle.
TR> Any response I give on these pages are based on my own experiences, observations, prejudices flavored by love, rejection, egotism,
self doubt and hopefully a modicum of common sense. My life time batting average in this game of life is .001 with a BOB (base on balls) of maybe 500 which means I make safe to 1st base when I walk about half the time!
I would commend you on not letting iron and oil come between the sun and the ground. Nothing wrong with a wooden head gate
although I do detest a 3 wire gate. It would be my position that it is not so much what you spend on your cattle (common sense a
given) but how much of the cattle income one spends on self that determines the outcome. While it is on my mind you mentioned
lambs quarter. That and ragweed are a bane to me as well. My approach is to put as many hooves as possible in the smallest practical
area and have them eat and tromp it into oblivion. Do this while it is still small and hit it again as often as practical plus a little weed
killer as well. I put on a S-pot of fertilizer last year and got one cutting of hay and good grazing in places until it dried up. No way am
I spending $1000+ for nitrogen. I moved the cows 74 times this past year and should have done it more often. More moves
often equates to more palatable grazing over a longer period of time. On barb wire, not sure if you use it to cross fence but you may
think about barb for perimeter and electric and rope for cross purposes. The size of my paddocks can change by the day as the season
progresses and the grazing pressure increases from the calves. I never had the privilege of running an Avery. I guess that would
put you in league with WWII aviators! Observe, read, study, learn and keep on doing what works for you and never consider town.
You wouldn't like it,
 
There are 2 different ways to figure the feed costs... one that adds in all possible charges against the cattle... and the actual costs of the actual feed consumed, not taking in to consideration the secondary costs of land, taxes etc.
If you are going to have the land regardless, then the cattle feed costs are not near as high since you are not assigning a value to the land and such. But if you rent/lease land then you really have to assign that to the cattle keeping costs.
Since we are paying mortgages and some lease/rent costs, that is all figured in. If you are going to let the land sit there and do nothing, or run cattle on it, then maybe you don't figure it in. And there are different ways to figure in things that are "capital improvements" like fences, and waterers, and gates and whatever....
If you figure it like @Dave does, he assigns a "winter cost" and a grazing cost for the different times of the year... and that makes more sense in areas that you don't keep the animals year round....
 
Exactly...barb-wire and gate fencing....corrals....that goes on your Schedule F, but those are long-term improvements to the land...i'm not going to saddle those costs to my innocent cattle, my beloved business partners.
When those cattle "innocently" tear those things up who pays for it?

Yes long term improvements are valuable to your investments. The truck bed you feed with also has a truck under it that you use for daily life…but each time you put a bale of hay or sack of feed on it your taking away from its daily life giving it to your cows.

The calculation to feed a cow vs keeping a cow are different calculations. Charge your cows for what they use up. If ya got chickens and eat them and their eggs, the cows don't have to pay for that….charge those costs to your grocery bill. 😁

I think have your feed costs well accounted for, it's the incidentals that are missing…those are keeping costs.
 
Last edited:
TR> Any response I give on these pages are based on my own experiences, observations, prejudices flavored by love, rejection, egotism,
self doubt and hopefully a modicum of common sense. My life time batting average in this game of life is .001 with a BOB (base on balls) of maybe 500 which means I make safe to 1st base when I walk about half the time!
I would commend you on not letting iron and oil come between the sun and the ground. Nothing wrong with a wooden head gate
although I do detest a 3 wire gate. It would be my position that it is not so much what you spend on your cattle (common sense a
given) but how much of the cattle income one spends on self that determines the outcome. While it is on my mind you mentioned
lambs quarter. That and ragweed are a bane to me as well. My approach is to put as many hooves as possible in the smallest practical
area and have them eat and tromp it into oblivion. Do this while it is still small and hit it again as often as practical plus a little weed
killer as well. I put on a S-pot of fertilizer last year and got one cutting of hay and good grazing in places until it dried up. No way am
I spending $1000+ for nitrogen. I moved the cows 74 times this past year and should have done it more often. More moves
often equates to more palatable grazing over a longer period of time. On barb wire, not sure if you use it to cross fence but you may
think about barb for perimeter and electric and rope for cross purposes. The size of my paddocks can change by the day as the season
progresses and the grazing pressure increases from the calves. I never had the privilege of running an Avery. I guess that would
put you in league with WWII aviators! Observe, read, study, learn and keep on doing what works for you and never consider town.
You wouldn't like it,
Well said Lee, I do run steel gates all around...7 of them, great for sorting. Yeah, I put down corn bails on top of the lambsquarter this winter. I'll close off 1/2 field and force them to eat the tasty juvenile lambsquarter in the early spring when it's palatable. I'm considering weedkiller too...and then mowing in july-august long before the seed-tops develop. VanRoss I'm a big fan of yours...you have great intellect, experience and observations.
 
When those cattle "innocently" tear those things up who pays for it?

Yes long term improvements are valuable to your investments. The truck bed you feed with also has a truck under it that you use for daily life…but each time you put a bale of hay or sack of feed on it your taking away from its daily life giving it to your cows.

The calculation to feed a cow vs keeping a cow are different calculations. Charge your cows for what they use up. If ya got chickens and eat them and their eggs, the cows don't have to pay for that….charge those costs to your grocery bill. 😁

I think have your feed costs well accounted for, it's the incidentals that are missing…those are keeping costs.
I laugh when my cattle tear up things....and enhance the fencing, bring out the big hammer and make new welds. Cows are children, I talk to them and show them the new barb wire and enhancements I made and tell them not to do that anymore. They actually understand me and that issue is solved. I'm having too much fun...those incidental costs go into my farm receipt steel box and are logged...for the Schedule F. The only thing that I count against the cattle are what actually goes into their mouth, on their skin and just below their skin. I run my farm/s lax...lots of allowances...i do not have to make money. Money is a tool that i valued and respected all my life, that why i have it, everywhere around me.
 
Holy Mackerel that's high isn't it? You're in east Texas...should be more forage there. Winter's are light here. Are you running enough acreage per cow? Standing cow for me per year for feed is around $150., my labor is free. ..and I'm being overly generous, with the cubes and corn hay...leaving lots of winter stockpile forage uneaten. I'm going to try start bringing that amount down to around $90. per head. I don't have any steel equipment costs, fuel to speak of....big round corn hay ($30.) is on the way to the ranch 7 miles away. My biggest headache is lambs-quarter...a nightmare. This year I'm going to get tough with my cattle...and force them to eat the young lambs-quarter (less toxic) before I start having to mow in the cattle field. I'm going to look awful stupid mowing in a cattle field but I have to.
I mow most of ours every spring to clean up any old grass growth and give the grass an even starting point with whatever spring weeds are in the pastures. It also helps to combat the patches of greenbriar we get around the treelines and fences. Regarding the cattle, we skip the sale barn for the most part and feed out, process and sell beef with any of our steers that we raise. Profit margin is a lot higher that way. We're not making a big profit off the heifers yet because we've been swapping bulls a lot and keeping them to grow the herd. We've added significantly to our land over the past two years and I won't be able to quit my day job any time soon, but it's covering the mortgage on the new land. At some point we'll be done growing and our main lines of business will be beef and replacement heifers.

I'm also doing a lot of pasture renovation to the land we bought. It was leased for many years and therefore overgrazed and had little maintenance done. I'm buying all our hay right now, and feeding it over the areas that have had all the topsoil washed out due to overgrazing. Seems to be working but patience is key there...
 
Now we're being played.
I just saw where you had mention NCRS too...i wasn't fibbing about my farm agenda and proposal to NCRS....it's a fact..i have my DUNNS # SAM ID #, Farm #'s, I'm going for the gusto...why not, it's my right to develop and target proposals to RCPP onto NCRS. I'm winging it Hoss...I will do my best to provide milestones and deliverable/s,,,the entire schedule. NCRS, RCPP will either laugh or be blown away. I'm ahead of my time...THEY need to catch up to what i'm proposing.
 
You have to be careful with NRCS and a lot of those programs. Their stipulations tend to cost more than they chip in.

My favorite is they will chip in $1000 for a solar pump ($3k) but require you to have like 15g per head for 3 days in storage. At a little over $1 per gallon on cheap water storage you are better off not participating. They want you to spend thousands of dollars to get their one thousand dollars. 🤔
 
I worked for 23 years for a conservation district. We supposedly worked side by side with the NRCS. We said that an elephant is a mouse built to NRCS standards. I know of one where a lady wanted a slab poured outside her barn for her sheep. Concrete 6 inches thick with 1/2 " rebar going two directions 18 inches on center for a dozen sheep to walk on.
 
Neighbors had NRCS look at a windmill they wanted to convert to solar and pump to an additional 2 tanks in adjacent pastures that needed about 300 feet of pipeline. By the time NRCS got done engineering the project was over $50K and included drilling a new well because the old one has a steel casing (it is only 100' and water is less than 30'). They can do the project for about $5000 just dropping in a solar pump and digging in the lines themselves. It won't have the 6000 or whatever gallons of storage, but it would do better than the windmill.
 
Neighbors had NRCS look at a windmill they wanted to convert to solar and pump to an additional 2 tanks in adjacent pastures that needed about 300 feet of pipeline. By the time NRCS got done engineering the project was over $50K and included drilling a new well because the old one has a steel casing (it is only 100' and water is less than 30'). They can do the project for about $5000 just dropping in a solar pump and digging in the lines themselves. It won't have the 6000 or whatever gallons of storage, but it would do better than the windmill.
Yup. We had a good water well with in a couple hundred feet of a stock pond. We asked them if we ran the solar to a big trough and put the overflow to the pond would that count as the water storage? They said no because the do not encourage people to have livestock drinking from ponds. 😬
 
You have to be careful with NRCS and a lot of those programs. Their stipulations tend to cost more than they chip in.

My favorite is they will chip in $1000 for a solar pump ($3k) but require you to have like 15g per head for 3 days in storage. At a little over $1 per gallon on cheap water storage you are better off not participating. They want you to spend thousands of dollars to get their one thousand dollars. 🤔
Agreed, Keep your eyes open, mouth shut and wallet in your pocket until you know the details,,,,,
 
NRCS has some really good programs and some that just require too much $$$$ to be feasible. I've worked with them on several projects but only do the things that make sense to me. Most of the agents aren't ranchers or business people so only know what they were taught in school. School learnin is good and all but the only real lesson I've ever learned is one that took the hide off me or cost me money.
 
Last edited:
Pipelines, tire tanks and some key fences have been the best EQIP projects here. We only look at EQIP for projects we intend to do anyway and see if it makes sense to add NRCS requirements. Have not had any problem with their pipeline, tire tank and fence requirements.
 
NRCS has some really good programs and some that just require too much $$$$ to be feasible. I've worked with them on several projects but only do the things that make sense to me. Most of the agents aren't ranchers or business people so only know what they were taught in school. School learnin is good and all but the only real lesson I've ever learned is one that took the hide off me or cost me money.
I've done a few projects with NRCS and am currently in the middle of a pipeline/tire tank project, our current NRCS person is retiring next month and I really hate to see her go. She's a pleasure to work with and very knowledgable, she custom grazes and owns her own cow herd as well. Most things she has put to practice and perfected before she pitches it to us, gonna be hard to replace her.
 
What is a reasonable profit each of you can accept? Years ago steer guys would figure $100 pure profit would be ok. I'm not sure at the costs some of you quote that it's much better than that now.
$100 per cow and 40 cows is $4,000. Not much profit for the amount invested.
Let's double that to $200 per head. $8,000 still isn't much.
At $300 per head and $12,000 still not going to live off of it.
At $600 per head profit you might eat, but not good.
I would talk about how much it cost to feed the 120 "Kudzu Corriente" cows, that weaned off calves averaging $700, but it might get the pigeons stirred up again. :eek:
 

Latest posts

Top