Pre-Coditioning Programs

[HOSS]

Last night I was at a meeting of our local Tennessee Cattlemans Association. The topic of discussion was on pre-conditioning feeder calves. The guest speakers were of course reps for the Co-op feed stores and also a animal medicine company. The slides that they showed made sense mathmatically in net $ gains from pre-conditioned calves at sale. I currently do not pre-condition or participate in the special pre-conditioned sales. I normally sell at the local graded feeder calf sale and my steers have graded choice.

I know that some of this was sales pitch to sell more vaccines and special feeds so I am always a little skeptical when sales guys are the presenters. My question is.....how many of you participate in recognized pre-conditioning programs and sales and is the return on the investment what is claimed? I think their study showed an $89.00 per head average premium.

Thanks

 

[denoginnizer]

I had about 50 calves pre-condtioned last year. Some things I learned . First , I waited to long to sale the calves . A friend and I were suppose to be working together in order to sell a full load. He wouldnt make up his mind to sell after the 45 days because the market was off slightly. This ended up costing us big. 45 days is plenty of time . Second , I put some light weight calves in with the others and they didnt gain well. Also, if you lose one or two it will put a hurting on your profit. Acidosis was a big issue .Finally , my calves gained well but a neighbors didnt gain well at all. After i subtracted out the feed cost, yardage, meds ,hay for sick animals, I didnt see it being a 89 dollar profit. Just some things to think about.

 

[Stocker Steve]

There are a number of previous posts on this and the majority opinion was that you do not get enough of a premium to make it worth while. I have seen a couple studies on this and done a lot of "post conditioning" myself.

One study calculated that preconditioning was worth about $50 a head to the feedlot. So you should get about a $10/cwt. premium on a 5 wt. calf if the buyers agree...
Some other studies (google Harlan Hughes) calculated that a major variable was ADG. They assumed you weaned the calves, managed to have a small death loss, and got over 2 lb/day to make a profit after covering your costs.

 

[Stocker Steve]

I put some light weight calves in with the others and they didnt gain well. Also, if you lose one or two it will put a hurting on your profit. Acidosis was a big issue. Finally , my calves gained well but a neighbors didnt gain well at all.

What is "light weight"?
Do you have an idea why the neighbor's calves did not gain well?

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

We precondition ALL CALVES. Don't participate in a program, but now sell all our calves to one feedlot. Takes anything we have - sight unseen - weights over our scales. Didn't start out that easy, but our calves our performed his own & any he purchased, so he loves them. Plus, his wife loves them because they don't bawl

 

[denoginnizer]

I put some light weight calves in with the others and they didnt gain well. Also, if you lose one or two it will put a hurting on your profit. Acidosis was a big issue. Finally , my calves gained well but a neighbors didnt gain well at all.

What is "light weight"?
Do you have an idea why the neighbor's calves did not gain well?

350-375 pounds. The guy that was doing the pre-con said that the genectics werent good in the neighbors calves.
When the neigbor brought her calves in , about 30 , there was about a three week stretch of heat in the 90's that didnt help in my opinion.

 

[denoginnizer]

We precondition ALL CALVES. Don't participate in a program, but now sell all our calves to one feedlot. Takes anything we have - sight unseen - weights over our scales. Didn't start out that easy, but our calves our performed his own & any he purchased, so he loves them. Plus, his wife loves them because they don't bawl

Reading this reminds me of the advantage of using the scales on the farm where the calves were pre-conditioned .We were able to reduce shrinkage. I felt my calves weighed more on the scales at the farm as compared to loading them up the day before the salebarn would auction them and then weighing them there. If you get time do a search on shrink and the amount of weight loss from handling/shipping.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

denoginnizer
I DO realize about shrink. That's why I KNOW it's a great deal selling on our scale weights.

 

[denoginnizer]

denoginnizer
I DO realize about shrink. That's why I KNOW it's a great deal selling on our scale weights.

I was not saying that you didnt understand shrink. I was only pointing out your quote to help the original poster who may or may not be as informed on shrink.

 

[HOSS]

Most of my concerns revolve around initial investment to effectively run the program. I am not sure how long it would take to recoup my investment dollars. I have capacity to run about 50 head so I am not sure I could get a decent ROI without waiting a long period. It may work out with bigger numbers. Most of the things in the program I do with the exception of the high dollar feeding program, water trough training and vet tracking of the meds.

 

[S.R.R.]

What do you folks consider a pre-conditioning program? For me it is wean, vac. start on a bit of feed then sell.

 

[HOSS]

S.R.R.,

The program that was discussed at the TCA meeting comprised of fenceline weaning, water trough training, deworming, vaccination by vet (signed documentation) 45 day feed program and selling within a recognized / sanctioned pre-conditioned feeder calf sale. That was just the basics of course tagging, NAIS, and extensive data tracking was included.

 

[S.R.R.]

S.R.R.,

The program that was discussed at the TCA meeting comprised of fenceline weaning, water trough training, deworming, vaccination by vet (signed documentation) 45 day feed program and selling within a recognized / sanctioned pre-conditioned feeder calf sale. That was just the basics of course tagging, NAIS, and extensive data tracking was included.

Wow! It seems to me that doing all that would cost more in labour, time, feed, vet bills, headaches, ect. then you could get out of it!

 

[Stocker Steve]

I put some light weight calves in with the others and they didnt gain well. Also, if you lose one or two it will put a hurting on your profit. Acidosis was a big issue. Finally , my calves gained well but a neighbors didnt gain well at all.

What is "light weight"?

350-375 pounds. The guy that was doing the pre-con said that the genectics werent good in the neighbors calves.

I also have had an issue with poor ADG on light calves in the past. I have been buying some 230# to 330# calves this spring, and then pushing them will a ground cob corn based ration that seems to be working well. They are about 350# now which is still too light to do well on all grass. My feed salesman is pushing Accuration as a way to keep them gaining after turnout...