Info some mind find useful on backgrounding

[bird dog]

This is a topic that comes up occasionally on backgrounding calves. These are the results of 18 calves that were sold at the OKC stockyards on 6-20-22
I am not a large operator first of all and my calving period is not real tight plus I had a few calves weaned early for various reasons
The calves were shipped early in the morning of 6-19 and sold about 11AM on 6-20. They had feed and water while there. They are kept together in a pen suitable to their quantity. They were weighed up on 6-17.
Shrink for the heifers was 3%, for the steers it was 2% which is pretty darn good for a long trip and hot weather.
Quality was not real uniform and the 13 steers were split accordingly. Heifers were a mixed bunch. two were white, three were black, one had horns, one still had a winter coat one was just ugly.
7 steers averaged 660 and brought $1.76, 6 steers averaged 698 and brought 1.56, 5 heifers averaged 651 and brought 1.48. Commission, fees and feed ran $34.06 per head.
Anyway the calves were on pasture and fed in a bunk roughly 5 lbs of 14% pelleted feed twice a week. They were vaccinated twice and implanted.
10 calves were weaned 80 days, 2 @ 53 days, 3 @ 124, 1 @ 19, 1 @ 143 and 1 @ 165
average daily gain of the 18 was 89 days at 1.85 lbs per day. Two were in the 1.20 lbs per day range while one was 2.60 lbs per day. Most were right around the average. I had no sicknesses.

All in all I was pleased with their daily gains and the shrink. Prices were about what was expected. It would not be worth the effort to ship this far without the shrink savings.
Selling locally at the sale barns is not a real good experience right now due to the large runs and the heat. I know from experience that calves standing in a commingled lot for 6 to 10 hours will lose 8 to 10%. There is just not enough water locations and the timid calves will not get any.

I ran all this for my own information but I thought some of y'all would get something out of it.

 

[Lucky]

I'd say you did good. I've shipped mine to OKC for the last 3-4 yrs but sold them locally this year. 99% sure I'll be shipping them next round. They really weren't that far off OKC prices but I just feel like if you sell at OKC you're not leaving any money on the table. The shrink was interesting, it's something I always wondered about. How far did you hual them?

 

[bird dog]

Its 292 miles from the ranch. A easy drive mostly highway. A long haul for sure and why almost everyone says I'm crazy but they are also the ones that don't have scales and think their calves only lose 2 or 3% at the sale barn. I believe water is the big deal. At OKC they have a trough in each pen. The calves love that fresh cool trough water after having to wade out in knee deep mud just to drink warm nasty water from a pond.

 

[TCRanch]

I think you did great and I'm a firm believer in backgrounding.

 

[J+ Cattle]

I know that some don't think it is worth the time or money for backgrounding calves. I do think it pays because most of the yearly expenses go against the cow to raise the calf to weaning, after that the calf itself only has a few expenses, vaccinations, feed while backgrounding, etc. Shrink is money that is loss by the seller and is recovered by the buyer after a few days back on feed and water. Also, sale barn commissions are paid by the head, it's the same for a 400 lb calf as it is for a 800 lb calf.
Maybe you can put your profit/loss calculations into different terms for the forum. You talked about ADG and final selling weight, etc. but as a group of 18 head what was the total starting weight of the group, the total selling weight of the group and what was your total expenses (feed, implants, vaccines, etc.) to gain the added pounds?

 

[kenny thomas]

Barn commission is not the same in many places. In KY and some TN yards it's a % of what they bring.

 

[bird dog]

J+ that would make a lot of sense and really help out. Unfortunately I can only estimate. The calves were weaned at different times and three of them actually came from the sale barn. I almost always have some calves in the backgrounding program that I do so some costs get spread out for many many months or years if you are talking about equipment like pens or trailers. Right now there is 47 in the program. There are almost allways a dozen or so. The largest part of the group was weaned 80 days. At the 1.85 lbs per day they gained 148 lbs.
Two rounds of shots, worming and implants and materials to give them is about $20. Feed at 10lbs a week for 12 weeks is $25. Where i have no idea is labor, equipment costs, fuel or an amount for pasture usage. Its a good question, I am just not setup to track it that close. A group all bought or all weaned at the same time would be much easier.

Kenny, Our local barns also all work on percentage. OKC Stockyards and OKC West are the only ones I know that do it by the head and there are no set rules. Each commission company acts independently but from the couple that I have used and what I have been told is they are all very close. OKC West has slightly lower commisions because the yard acts as there own commission firm. The actual fee per head to the commission company per my paycheck was $10.10 each.

 

[kenny thomas]

J+ that would make a lot of sense and really help out. Unfortunately I can only estimate. The calves were weaned at different times and three of them actually came from the sale barn. I almost always have some calves in the backgrounding program that I do so some costs get spread out for many many months or years if you are talking about equipment like pens or trailers. Right now there is 47 in the program. There are almost allways a dozen or so. The largest part of the group was weaned 80 days. At the 1.85 lbs per day they gained 148 lbs.
Two rounds of shots, worming and implants and materials to give them is about $20. Feed at 10lbs a week for 12 weeks is $25. Where i have no idea is labor, equipment costs, fuel or an amount for pasture usage. Its a good question, I am just not setup to track it that close. A group all bought or all weaned at the same time would be much easier.

Kenny, Our local barns also all work on percentage. OKC Stockyards and OKC West are the only ones I know that do it by the head and there are no set rules. Each commission company acts independently but from the couple that I have used and what I have been told is they are all very close. OKC West has slightly lower commisions because the yard acts as there own commission firm. The actual fee per head to the commission company per my paycheck was $10.10 each.

That area is also the only place I have seen commission companies. How widespread is that?

 

[bird dog]

Kenny from what I have been told, its a holdover from all the old stockyards which have pretty much all disappeared. OKC Stockyards has been there and operating continuously since 1910.
I know they had them at the Ft. Worth stockyards but don't know about the others like Kansas City or Chicago.

They do there job well at OKC. I have seen multiple pot loads come in from a big ranch that has calves from 200 lb to 1000 lbs. These all have to be sorted in like kind sex, size and quality and then get them counted and set up to go through the ring. It seems like a logistic nightmare but actually runs pretty smooth and each company helps out the others when needed. The scale house is set up before they enter the ring. it runs smoothly even though one draft will go through with the minimum of three animals while the next one in line may have 300. Its interesting to watch.

 

[Allenw]

That area is also the only place I have seen commission companies. How widespread is that?

Here is a short read about how the unique setup at OKC stockyards came to be. Dad has talked about selling hogs there and they sold out of the pens, the commission agent you used negotiated the price.

https://www.onsy.com/about-us/

 

[kenny thomas]

Pretty nice read. I have been there but it was on Sunday. Guess it's about time to go back.

 

[J+ Cattle]

The largest part of the group was weaned 80 days. At the 1.85 lbs per day they gained 148 lbs.
Two rounds of shots, worming and implants and materials to give them is about $20. Feed at 10lbs a week for 12 weeks is $25.

So, it looks like your input costs were $45 per head, plus labor and pasture costs to gain the extra 148 lbs. per head.

7 steers averaged 660 and brought $1.76, 6 steers averaged 698 and brought 1.56, 5 heifers averaged 651 and brought 1.48.

The weighted average selling price of the group was $1.57 times 148 additional lbs. equals $232.36 more for backgrounding.
I know my labor has never been worth much on the farm so that leaves pasture costs as the biggest expense. $232.36 minus $45 for inputs equals $187.36, now if I divide that by 80 days it comes out to $2.34 per day. If someone has a pasture cost of $2.34 per day or more for a calf, then they probably aren't going to make any money in the cattle business.
Now it's up to everyone to decide if they think backgrounding is worth it in their operation. If you don't that's fine, someone will be happy to buy your calves and make that money for themselves.

 

[Lucky]

You are only feeding these calves 10#'s a week? Are they on really good grass? I feed mine 6-8 pounds a day from November-April.

The #1 thing I see about being setup to background calves is that you aren't at the mercy of the market. Right now you may be better off selling right at weaning time but that might not be the case come November. I hear people say all the time how the market was down but they had to get the calves off the cows. When your setup to background you have time to watch the market and sell at a better time. 90% of the time you will at least recoup your feed cost. We all know our labor is free on the ranch

 

[GoWyo]

For backgrounding calves, I try to make sure they don't get too fleshy. On decent grass hay, they only need about 3-4# of mixed grain per day to keep framing up without getting too much condition.

 

[bird dog]

Yeah Lucky the grass is pretty good. Its getting thirsty like all of it around the state. Its a mixed bag of Bermudas, Blue Stems and Klein. I take pretty good care of it and be careful not to over graze it.

To add to what GoWho says, they don't need much. Fleshy calves get discounted and you have increased shrink to boot. The goal for my home raised calves is to get them weaned, keep them healthy, get them eating good from a trough. Adding a bunch of weight is not one of them. I am trying to get them through this process with the least amount of expense. The sale barn calves are treated the same.
The weight gain per day of this batch was good but this is calves on pasture thru the spring flush. For the rest of the summer they will not gain this. If I can average 1.5 lbs per day from March until November I would be thrilled. 1.25 is more likely. This weight gain is fine. It means the calf is increasing in value $2 per day. Not much for two or three but not bad for 50.
Your labor and equipment expense is about the same no matter if you are taking care of 5 or 50

Edit to add---My program does not work very well through the winter. They just don't gain much on my sorry hay. I try to get rid of most of the calves by Christmas. I will start buying a few in late January.

 

[Lucky]

Sounds like the same results I have. I wean in November so trying to get them through the winter is costly but normally only about $100 a head. I feed them grain and very little hay. They build frame and are ready to gain on spring grass. Are you around Corsicana?

 

[bird dog]

Yes I am Lucky.
About 10 miles west of town.

 

[anewcomer]

J+ Cattle and bird dog, thanks for those figures. The recovery of the shrink from a 300 mile gooseneck haul is impressive! Remember that the VOG (value of gain) from the weaning weight to the sale weight is not the sales price. The weaning weight would bring more per pound, that total dollars subtracted from the sale day total dollars, divided by the 148 pounds of gain would tell you what the value of the gain you put on. Then you can compare that to your COG (cost of gain). That would change these numbers, but the concept of preconditioning is still valid.

 

[Lucky]

Yes I am Lucky.
About 10 miles west of town.

I went through there on the way home a few weeks back. Couldn't believe the wind turbines they'd put up south of you. North of Hubbard I believe. Very pretty country through there.

 

[bird dog]

Part Two of this for those interested.
Load two was shipped at 3AM July 10 and sold early the morning of July 11. The sale starts at 6:30 AM and they were the 10th and 11th groups sold. I was told they would go through the ring real early and was worried about this but the commission man said not to as he had buyers looking for these types and there would be plenty of buyers there. This group was smaller weight wise but the quality was better so the total amount brought home was near the the same as the first group even though the whole group was over 1000 lbs lighter. Shrink was higher at 5% which didn't surprise me as the weather was much warmer. I fed the calves the night before and they didn't show the usual vigor when eating but it was still 102 degrees at 7PM.
Anyway I had 9 steers that sold in one group at an average of 593 and brought $1.85. Nine heifers in the second group weighed a average of 607 and brought $1.68.
Like the first group the starting weight was low becasue of the dry winter and spring with no cool season grass and not very good hay.

Yard fees all in were $33.99 pr head.

The calves were on the same feeding program of getting fed twice a week about 5 lbs pr head of 14% creep and on good pasture.
They were weaned as follows, 4 @ 40 days, 4 @ 74, 9 @ 101, and 1 @ 145. Average was 18 calves at 83 days.
Gain per head per day was all over the place like the first group but averaged close to the same at 1.77 lbs per day. I was pleased with that.
Two calves were bad at 1.18 and 1.24 lbs/day. Two were very good at 2.65 and 2.70.

These were all home raised and had two rounds of vaccinations and implants. 15 were black or bmf. two were red, one was white.

All in all I was pleased with the results. I won't be back until late in the year. What weaned calves I have left are mostly sale barn calves and not uniform enough in size or quality to send up there.
One thing nice about the facility is the no waiting. The whole unloading process takes less tthan five minutes and the calves were walked to their pen before I could park and get up on the catwalk. The commission man saw them coming and sorted them immediately, pumped the feeder full and they settled in. Thirsty of course and fresh water is always just a couple steps away.
Its a long drive but the local barn I use is an hour drive one way plus at least a hour waiting in line. So really not so bad when you look at it that way and its way better for the animals and your paycheck.