Farm Help

Every producer would like to find ways to reduce their input costs or improve production and quality of their product – if not both. Fluctuating feed and fuel costs, and uncertain market conditions make it necessary for farmers to adapt.

The word “ethanol” has created quite a buzz in years past, but the rise of the ethanol industry has affected more than just our choices at the pump. The results have also opened up some opportunities to cattle producers. When considering feeding ethanol by-products, how distillers grains are purchased, stored and fed by the farmer is the nuts and bolts of making this process work.  

"If you're not paying attention to every bite of food your cattle take in," according to Lance Kirkpatrick, "it's costing you money."

Do you know what it costs you to keep a cow for a year?  Very few producers actually do. Research has shown that what typically separates profitable producers from unprofitable ones is their cost of production, in particular — feed costs. While weaning weights and pregnancy percentages are all important, the producers who can achieve these while also keeping their costs down are the ones who remain profitable year in and year out. The easiest way to lower your costs is to graze more days. Every day that cattle can be harvesting their own feed rather than you feeding them from a hay bale or a feed sack is one more day you can be making money. Stockpiling fescue for winter grazing is the easiest way to do this. So take some time this winter and calculate what it’s costing you to keep a cow during the year. See if there might be some ways to manage your forages better and cut your costs of production.

The two main components that determine profitability from livestock production are production costs and marketing. Money must be saved on the production end, acquired on the marketing end, or a combination of both, in order to insure a profit. Through marketing products directly from the farm to the consumer, producers are better able to control prices and not have to share profits.  However, not all livestock producers are interested in using their time and effort to develop the skills necessary to sell their products to individual customers.

Someone has wisely stated, “the cheapest land you’ll ever buy is increasing the utilization of your own.” But how does one do this? This article explores strategies cattle producers can employ to increase productivity of existing pastures.

Managing volatile input costs for forage and feed inputs requires some thought and a sharp pencil,” said Ted Fry, Regional Agronomy Specialist for the University of Missouri Extension. Fry suggested remembering four points when taking inputs into consideration.

Enteric diseases are of major economic concern in the poultry industry. While genetic improvements have increased productivity of broilers, increased rearing density has concentrated and increased disease challenges. Problematic pathogens include enteropathic microbes such as E. coli, Salmonellaspp., Clostridium perfringens, and Camplyobacter spp.

1. Learn about Goats
So many producers fail during the start-up period in their goat ranching enterprise due to lack of knowledge. Find out all you can about the animal. Goats are a little different than your run of the mill farm animal. They are intelligent, mischievous and they're great escape artists. Sheep are very docile and very timid animals.
Goats and sheep are unique in their management requirements and foraging habits.

1.  An area for a lot of cow/calf producers to focus on is getting set up to wean your calves on the farm before market. If you aren’t currently able to do this, make a point to work on this for 2009. This will add value to your calves and give you more options on marketing. There may still be times when it’s just as economical to sell off the cow, but you need to be set up to hold them for a while if you need to.  This adds flexibility and gives you more control of farm income.