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Cattle Boards
Grasses, Pastures & Hay
Fertilizer Value of fed hay
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<blockquote data-quote="Rydero" data-source="post: 1717033" data-attributes="member: 38101"><p>Assuming a 1200 lb bale if you feed 35lbs/cow a day you're looking at $437.50 </p><p>for a 200 day feeding period. If you're selling $1200 calves there's almost $800 left to work with. </p><p></p><p> So how do you make a profit? Most of us who feed for long stretches put up our own feed - so we can pay wholesale instead of retail for hay. We learn about nutritional requirements so we can feed as little of that $75/bale hay as is reasonable and fill them up on less expensive feed. Shorten and time our calving windows to utilize the grass growth to maximize calf growth (high weaning weights). Concentrate on maximizing $/calf without expending excess feed (I like $1200/calf average). We figure out that generally speaking beef cattle production is a high volume, low margin business so average herd size generally increases. Big herds that don't figure it out often don't exist very long, small ones don't grow beyond their owner's ability to subsidize the operation. </p><p></p><p>I'm fully in favour of doing whatever's practical to minimize fed hay and I think many of you have the climate to accomplish that. But there's definitely room to be profitable in environments where feeding is necessary but it requires scale and efficiency.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Rydero, post: 1717033, member: 38101"] Assuming a 1200 lb bale if you feed 35lbs/cow a day you're looking at $437.50 for a 200 day feeding period. If you're selling $1200 calves there's almost $800 left to work with. So how do you make a profit? Most of us who feed for long stretches put up our own feed - so we can pay wholesale instead of retail for hay. We learn about nutritional requirements so we can feed as little of that $75/bale hay as is reasonable and fill them up on less expensive feed. Shorten and time our calving windows to utilize the grass growth to maximize calf growth (high weaning weights). Concentrate on maximizing $/calf without expending excess feed (I like $1200/calf average). We figure out that generally speaking beef cattle production is a high volume, low margin business so average herd size generally increases. Big herds that don't figure it out often don't exist very long, small ones don't grow beyond their owner's ability to subsidize the operation. I'm fully in favour of doing whatever's practical to minimize fed hay and I think many of you have the climate to accomplish that. But there's definitely room to be profitable in environments where feeding is necessary but it requires scale and efficiency. [/QUOTE]
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