Cattle Starter

Category: Cattle Industry

  • Testing and Measuring the Quality of your Cattle’s Winter Hay – PART 2: Testing Hay Quality

    Welcome to Part 2 of our blog series on Testing and Measuring the Quality of your Cattle’s Winter Hay. Please be sure to read Part 1 – Why should we care about hay quality?

    Today’s post will focus on the methodology of collecting a forage sample, the tools/supplies needed, and where you can send your forage sample for analysis.

    We live in Northern Maine and send our hay samples to Dairy One and their Forage Testing Laboratory, based in Ithaca, New York.

    Their website is extremely user-friendly, and their instructions for collecting a forage sample are thorough and easy to understand. Further, they even provide forage analysis kits and other supplies to help with the sample collection process.

    Forage Sample Submission Form
    Collecting a Forage Sample

    Their Forage Sample Submission Form is available online, as well as a step-by-step guide to Collecting a Forage Sample.

    Forage samples need to be submitted in a quart-sized plastic bag within a Dairy One Forage Analysis Laboratory mailer envelope. For our purposes, we will be discussing the methodology of collecting a HAY sample. Please see the guide for Collecting a Forage Sample, for all other forage types.

    Steps for Collecting a Hay Sample

    Hay Probe Tool

    If you don’t already own one, you will need to purchase a Hay Probe tool. This tool will allow you to bore (or make a hole), through each hay bale. Using a hay probe to collect a core sample will allow for the most accurate nutritional breakdown of each of your particular sample lots. Also, the hay probes on the market today are extremely user-friendly and can be used to collect many samples, both efficiently and effectively by a single person.

    Determining Different Sample Lots (if applicable)

    Be sure to determine your sample lots.

    Let’s say you purchased hay from two different hay producers, and their hay bales are from two different cuttings, a month apart:

    We have Producer A, with cuts from July and August, each from a separate field, and we have Producer B, also with cuts from July and August in two different fields. That gives us 4 LOTS to sample.

    For the most representative and accurate analysis, the lab recommends that you sample 12-20 bales per lot, picked at random.

    Collecting the Hay Samples

    Supplies/Tools Needed:

    Hay probe

    Clean bucket to collect hay samples

    Clean, quart-sized plastic zip lock bags

    Permanent marker to label each bag with Lot Name (e.g., Producer A – July Hay)

    Use your hay probe to bore into each bale in the appropriate location (see here for instructions for square and round bales). Empty the hay probe’s cleanout rod into your clean bucket, and then move to your next bale, adding each sample to the same bucket as you go along. After completing each lot, you should have 1 bucket with all of your samples. Mix the samples by hand in the bucket and fill your sample bag with approximately 1 pound of material (the lab recommends 2-3 good handfuls). Squeeze out as much air as possible and seal the bag. Repeat this entire process for each of your lots, being sure to keep your samples labeled.

    Place each labeled, quart-sized plastic zip lock bag sample into your Dairy One Forage Analysis Laboratory mailer, along with a completed submission form and place in the mail. The lab will test your samples based on the type of forage testing you select. We always select the Forage NIR testing, which is $18.00/sample. This analysis provides us with Crude Protein and Total Digestible Nutrition, as well as a wide plethora of other nutritional information on a Dry Matter and an As-Is basis. Results will be sent to the email that you provide on the submission form. You can also receive copies by fax or mail.

    Please see our final post in this series: PART 3: Receiving and Understanding your Forage Analysis Results

    Also, if you missed Part 1, please check it out here: Part 1 – Why should we care about hay quality?

    Thank you for reading!

  • Testing and Measuring the Quality of your Cattle’s Winter Hay – PART 1: Why should we care about hay quality?

    This will be a 3-part blog series on: Testing and Measuring the Quality of your Cattle’s Winter Hay.

    Today’s post is Part 1 – Why should we care about hay quality? (Part 2 of our series is ready to read as well! Please check it out!)

    Forage costs are arguably the highest expense for any cattle operation, especially for those farmers whom feed-out hundreds of hay bales each winter. When you are budgeting for, and estimating your winter hay needs, it is important (nutritionally and financially) to know the actual quality of your hay. Each hay bale purchased is a small investment into your operation. You are putting forth money (and a lot of it for many of us) into forage/hay purchases and in turn, you hope that your forage/hay will provide the right rations of nutrition for your beef cattle. Ultimately, your “pay-off” will be represented by those same beef cattle thriving throughout the winter hay feeding season and then producing a healthy calf come calving time, and continuing to thrive and produce, year-after-year.

    When I talk about a cow thriving and producing, I am thinking in terms of this: “thrive and produce” = a gestating cow that can maintain her body condition (as best as possible) during the winter, by consuming forage/hay that is a high-enough quality to allow for healthy fetus development of her calf, lactation production, and delivery of a healthy, strong calf. Then, post-calving, she needs to come into estrus/start cycling and be bred-back, all the while nursing her calf. AND for first-calf and second-calf heifers, we expect them to do all of this, PLUS continue to grow themselves. A tall order, indeed!

    We expect a lot out of our beef cows, and therefore, we need to provide them with the quality of forage/hay/feed they need to thrive and produce.

    So, how do we test our winter hay? (Please check-out Part 2 of this blog series, where we discuss this in more depth)

    How do we measure the quality of all those winter hay bales out in our fields or barns? (Please check-out Part 2 of this blog series, where we discuss this in more depth)

    Does quantity equal quality? No, it does not. You can have all the hay bales that you require according to your calculations (see here for calculating winter hay) but if the hay quality does not meet the nutritional demands of your animals, you very likely will need to feed out more forage/hay/feed supplement per day/per head than you initially calculated for.

    And, what do we mean by the term “quality”?

    Have you ever looked a bale of hay and wondered, “what really is in this hay?” “How nutritional is this hay? And how does my hay meet the nutritional demands of my animals?

    We have only been in the beef cattle business and thus, dealing with hay, for six years. As such, we continue to learn and grow in regards to what we look for when buying hay. We have started to get a very small sense of the quality of our hay by sight and smell. Hay that has more of a “fresh-cut smell”, than a “musky, moldy smell.” We have had some bales with mold all the way through. Moldy hay will likely provide your cattle with little, if any, nutritional value, and more importantly, may not be safe to feed your your pregnant cows (moldy hay has been known to cause fungal abortions in pregnant cows). The more hay bales you look at, the more you can start to develop a visual basis, for which you can compare to bales from different producers/fields/times of year. We can look at two different hay bales, from either two different producers or the same producer but different fields and/or different cut, and visually see a difference in what we perceive is the quality of those bales. Then, we can discuss those differences until we are blue in the face. In the end, we could think we feel confident that we are feeding our mama cows hay with the right nutritional break-down but are we really????

    What nutritional break-down are we looking for in a bale of hay?

    Throughout this 3-part blog series, I will be referring to several nutritional terms:

    Dry Matter (DM): Simply put, the term dry matter is the amount of hay, that when tested, is moisture-free. When a hay sample is tested, you will receive a forage analysis report, and one of the variables quantified, is the amount of moisture in the forage sample. Say that a particular sample of hay is 15% moisture and 85% dry matter. When making beef cow feed ration calculations, you need to use the dry matter composition. We will discuss this in more-depth later on in this series. I will refer to Dry Matter as DM.

    Crude Protein (CP): Crude protein is another variable quantified in a forage/hay analysis. The percentage of crude protein tells us how much nitrogen is present in a given sample, representing both true protein and non-protein nitrogen. For example, a 1200-pound beef cow, in the pre-calving stage (60-90 days before calving) will require a diet of approximately 8.6% crude protein. (https://www.pubs.ext.vt.edu/400/400-012/400-012.html). This value will vary depending on the age of your cow (first-calf heifer versus mature cow, time of year, weather conditions, and where they are in the production cycle (pre-calving, postpartum, lactating (nursing a calf) and pregnant (bred-back after calving), and gestation (pregnancy stage after weaning calf, not lactating). This publication, by the Virginia Cooperative Extension, provides an extremely detailed and very useful guide for nutritional requirements (CP and TDN) for beef cows throughout the entire production cycle for mature cows, 1st-calf heifers, and more.) I will refer to Crude Protein as CP.

    Total Digestible Nutrients (TDN): The TDN percentage in a forage analysis tells us all about energy: The total amount of the digestible protein, lipid, carbohydrates and fiber components present. Knowing the TDN percentage allows us to better decide if our forage is meeting the energy requirements of our cattle, and further, is a key component in determining and balancing winter forage rations. I will refer to Total Digestible Nutrients as TDN.

    Continuing with our example from above (Crude Protein needs) of a 1200-pound beef cow, in the pre-calving stage (60-90 days before calving), this cow’s diet should be comprised of approximately 54.6% TDN. Our hypothetical, 1200-pound beef cow, in the pre-calving stage (60-90 days before calving) will require around 24.4lbs Dry Matter intake/day, with a nutritional break-down of approximately 8.6%/2.07lbs/day Crude Protein and 54.6%/13.2lbs/day Total Digestible Nutrients. (https://www.pubs.ext.vt.edu/400/400-012/400-012.html).

    How we approach the management of our cattle herd is an ever-evolving work in progress, and there will never be a one-size-fits-all mold. What worked last winter may not work this winter and so forth. Thus, I think part of the draw and challenge for us is that there always is and always will be new things for us to learn. The all-important topic of Winter Hay/Forage/Feed Quality is always on our minds, no matter the time of year. On that note, I thank you for taking the time to read this post. Understanding the importance of – and how to test for – the quality of our cattle’s winter hay is critical in ensuring top performance and production of our beef cattle. I encourage you to please check out the rest of this 3-part series, as we post it. Thank you!

    Please head over to PART 2 in our Testing and Measuring the Quality of your Cattle’s Winter Hay blog series and take a read! PART 2: Testing Hay Quality

    Please see our final post in this series: PART 3: Receiving and Understanding your Forage Analysis Results


  • Why Are Lighter Calves Worth More Per Pound?

    If you keep an eye on cattle prices, you’ll notice the large disparity in prices paid for calves of different weights. For instance, 700-800 lb steers in Nebraska are currently selling for around $1.60/lb, but in the same market, 300-400 lb steers are up around $2.20/lb. Now that’s a huge difference! So what’s the deal?

    To better understand the disparity in prices of different sized cattle, you need to think in terms of incremental cost of gain. Simply put, it costs much more to get a calf to 400 pounds than it does to get it from 400 to 800.

    Let’s take a step back and think about the production chain from calf to fed steer (remember the cattle industry is split into three main sectors). One of the wisest men I know in the cattle industry is Allan Nation, editor of the Stockman Grass Farmer magazine. Nation understands cattle markets better than most, and he advises to think in terms of the fat steer price. According to him and other experts, cattle prices across all segments of the market eventually correlate to the price of a fed steer. So if you look at the fed steer price and factor in the different costs to get a calf to that end product, you can better understand why light calves sell for so much.

    Today the slaughter steer price is hovering around $1.30/lb. So a 1200 lb steer should command about $1550 at the slaughter plant.  A typical feedlot will purchase feeder cattle at, say, 750 lbs and grow them to that 1200 or so lb target.  They have a $1550 selling target, so that feedlot must purchase feeders and put 450 lbs on them for a total of less than $1550 to make a profit.  Keep in mind that the nature of the free market results in those feedlots continuing to bid up the price of feeder cattle as long as any profit remains on the table.

    Our 750 lb steer in Nebraska at $1.60/lb is a $1200 animal.  That means the feedlot must put those 450 lbs on at a total cost of $350 just to break even.  It’s no wonder feedlots are losing money right now!

    Regardless, the main reason feedlots can bid so much for calves is the extremely low current price of corn, and other feeds that follow the corn price.  Low corn means cheap gain, and cheap gain steepens the per-pound price hike as calves get lighter.

    So what about those 350 lb calves selling for $2.20/lb?  Those calves are selling for $770, meaning the backgrounder can theoretically profit from putting 400 lbs on them for less than the breakeven of $430.

    In summary, low feed costs are allowing backgrounders and feedlots to bid up the price of calves, and a limited supply of calves with higher demand means a higher price per pound for light calves. Only a certain number of calves are born each year, and a farmer or rancher typically has a minimum of several hundred dollars invested in a calf before it even hits the ground.  So the light calf is worth a lot of money right now, and the low cost of gain means that calf will be worth incrementally less the heavier it gets.

    It hasn’t always been this way.  When the fed steer price drops and corn prices skyrocket, the incentive for feeders to bid up light calf prices disappears.  At that point, the price-per-pound disparity, often called price rollback, gets much lower, and sometimes even goes away.  In fact, there have been times when fat cattle have been worth more per pound than feeders!  That’s when it is prime time for a cattle owner to hang on to their calves to heavier weights, because each pound of gain becomes that much more profitable.

    Current conditions in the cattle market do not provide much incentive for the cattle owner to hang onto their calves for very long, especially in areas of the country with lots of feedlots bidding up cheap calves.  Similarly, there’s little incentive to buy light calves, put them out on grass and sell them heavy.  But when corn prices go back up and the price-per-pound disparity tightens, it’ll be prime time to put calves out on grass for big profits.

     

  • From Pasture to Plate: The Three Sectors of the Beef Cattle Industry

    Like most mature industries, the beef cattle business is broken up into different segments in the production chain. Why? Because as the industry developed over the past century, it became more efficient for a particular business to focus on a smaller segment of overall production. Efficiency means lower cost and more productivity, which is why the beef business is segmented like it is today.

    The segmented industry means that a calf born on a farm will likely make three moves before it is slaughtered and ends up on the supermarket shelves or restaurant plate. Most calves start on a cow-calf operation, move to a backgrounder, are finished at a feedlot, and then go to the packing plant. It seems that this should cost more than a simple permanent stay on the home farm, but efficiencies of production at higher scales make this the lowest cost option.

    The three sectors of the beef cattle industry are as follows:
    -Cow/Calf
    -Stocker/Backgrounder
    -Feed Yard/Finisher

    Cow Calf
    The cow-calf operation is the typical family farm or ranch most people imagine when they think of cattle. The farm/ranch maintains a number of mother cows and breeds them each year. Calves are born and raised by the cows until a determined age. The calves are then weaned and sold via private sale or at auction. Average age at weaning is about 7 months, or 205 days. Calves typically weigh around 550 pounds at weaning.

    Stocker/Backgrounder
    While most of the nation’s cattle are finished at a feedlot, freshly weaned calves are often too small to go straight to a feedlot and need more time to grow frame and develop their digestive systems. The majority of weaned calves go to a stocker or backgrounder. While these terms are used interchangeably, the stocker typically brings in weaned calves and puts them out on grass for a couple hundred pounds of gain. When I think backgrounder, it’s usually a term reserved for a type of feedyard that specializes in feeding small calves in the stocker phase, but on a more concentrated diet.

    Feeder/Finisher
    At an average of about 700-800 lbs (but this can vary significantly), young cattle enter the finishing phase of their life. They are usually finished in a feedlot on a high energy diet of grain to allow them to gain weight quickly and fatten easily. While the health aspect of eating grain-fed cattle is often debated, it’s tough to argue that cattle with lots of fat and marbling taste great!

    Conclusion
    So that’s the American cattle industry in a few paragraphs. No doubt there are many variations, but this general model is the one that produces most of the country’s beef. The grass-fed cattle movement is growing fast, but still makes up a miniscule part of the industry. The beauty of cattle is that there is still room for the family farm to make a living with a few hundred cows. In contrast, the pork and poultry industries have become so industrialized that the factory farm is the norm. There’s still a level of personal attention, adaptive management, and TLC needed to successfully maintain a productive cow herd, and the family farm continues to be one of the best models around.