A scary little myth

By: Miranda Reiman

October 31, 2011

I will be dressing up like a pirate tonight. Why? Because my 3-year-old son is going as a pirate and he insisted that I should dress up with him and who can tell this little matey no?

So although my evening will be spent with PG-version spooks, I thought I’d bring up this myth that frightens grown men and women. (It’s sort of a follow up to last week’s suggestion that you check into retained ownership.)

Myth—Finding a feedlot is scary.

Fact—It is a big decision, but it can be painless and pretty easy. If you’ve decided you want to feed your calves, partner with a feedlot or just build relationships with one you can market to directly, it just takes a little homework.

I could go on and on, but really our own Paul Dykstra and Oklahoma State University’s Greg Highfill tell it better: Continue reading “A scary little myth”

On Tuesday Laura shared a video on the breakeven calculator we created to help you estimate the value of your high-quality feeder cattle. You can download it for free here, then follow along as I walk through it.

A breakeven calculator is not a new tool and every feedlot manager uses one. It takes expected selling price of finished cattle (as in Live Cattle futures) and the estimated cost of feeding them to calculate what the feedlot should pay to cover all costs or “break even.” These tools work great for cattle of “average” performance and carcass merit.

What’s unique to this calculator, developed by our own Paul Dykstra? It can apply expected carcass merit and grid pricing results to more precisely value any set of feeder cattle with an eye toward beef quality.

Here’s the key: If you produce above-average cattle, you must know what they’re worth to benefit from your extra effort. Continue reading “How to break even, Part II”