These days a lot of Canadian producers are feeling overwhelmed by the control of industry by big players. This includes input suppliers who are becoming fewer and gaining market power, as well as purchasers of live cattle who are becoming more concentrated all the time. For most producers the opportunity to take part in market […] Read more
Good, Bad And Opportunity
Using Carcass Data
CCIA 124000123456789 Lot # 367 Sex M HCW QG 765 AAA Kill Date 12/21/2009 Grade Date 12/23/2009 YG 1 Yield 59.8 When a producer receives back their carcass grades, either through retained ownership to the rail, or through programs such as the Beef Information Exchange System (BIXS) once it is fully operational, many of us […] Read more
Good reproductive fitness of the cow herd is still #1 for profitability
BEEF MANAGEME NT Carcass Weight Lbs Trait Units AN Rib-Eye Area Back Fat Marbling In2 In MS 0.04 0.008 0.14 Reproduction Production Product Traditional Value Chain Integrated 10 2 1 2 1 1 1 1 2 Trenkle & Willham, 1977 Melton, 1995 Melton, 1995 Breed Group Percentage Choice and % Retail Product (Adapted from USDA […] Read more
What Is A Carcass?
There is a lot of buzz in the business right now about carcass data. For a lot of us at ground level with cows, the concept of carcass information is pretty far removed from the day-to-day activities on a farm or ranch, yet the carcass determines a large part of the ultimate end value of […] Read more
Feed For Thought
Through much of the prairies and the rest of the country this fall and winter there has been a tremendous feed crunch. Some areas have been able to produce and sell excess feed, but often feed price and trucking costs prohibit the efficacy of this solution. A lot of cows have moved to locations with […] Read more
Managing Your Resources
A farm or ranch is made up of a given set of resources. This includes land, labour and capital. Capital consists of financial capital, but also knowledge and emotional (or attitude) capital. One of the miraculous things about ranching is that it is one of the few investments where fixed capital such as land can […] Read more
Double The Farm (Debt Free)
I saw a Shopping Channel commercial the other day for a product with the tagline “set it, and forget it.” This advertisement describes many of the grazing regimes in use today. It may seem a bit early in the year to be worrying about grass, however I have not run across many cow/calf operations where […] Read more
Some bulls do 80 percent of the work, while others get a ‘free ride’ at breeding
First we should tackle the two things that make an application practical: cost and benefit. Cost is affected by the type of DNA test ordered and the number of tests, but it is also affected by available farm labour. A simple parentage or sire verification will be less expensive than a complete suite of tests […] Read more
What’s more reliable in selection, DNA, EPD or actual performance data?
DNA is in much of the popular press these days, even in agriculture. In the cattle business DNA testing is being marketed under various banners. One of the key features of this technology is its’ incredibly rapid pace of change. Of cattle producers using DNA in the past, the majority would be seedstock breeders using […] Read more
Don’t be mislead by the notion that a bigger value is always better
This time of year many producers are busy sorting through bull sale catalogues and buying next year’s herdsires. One extremely useful tool that is often overlooked (or even disparaged) in this process is the use of EPD or expected progeny differences. The primary advantage of EPD over adjusted weights for the commercial cattle producers is […] Read more
Cyber-Savvy Farmer
