Agricultural News
Peel Urges Producers to Rethink Cattle Production Decisions
Wed, 10 Sep 2014 17:16:16 CDT
If you are a cattle producer, then you are on the receiving end of record high cattle prices. Cash prices are strong across all classes of cattle. On today's Beef Buzz, Oklahoma State University Extension Livestock Marketing Specialist Derrell Peel said this may mean its time for producers to rethink their management decisions. You can listen to today's program by Clicking on the LISTEN BAR below.
"High prices doesn't guarantee high profits, but it certainly makes it easier, it gives you a better chance for that," Peel said. "What it does it really allows producers to focus on the cost side of that revenue equation. Markets are going to be there for the foreseeable future, we're going to have good prices, so what can we do to manage costs and production decision behind those costs to take advantage of this situation."
For the stocker end of the business, the biggest area of risk for producers is death loss, Peel said right now market risk is market risk is relatively less important, so producers need to being paying more energy into management.
"It might suggest some marginal changes in say your health management protocol," Peel said. "..If you use a temperature protocol, it might make sense to lower that a little bit, half a degree, you pull those animals a little sooner, you're going to spend a little bit more money on treatment costs, but what you are doing is changing the odds that animal either gets sick or dies."
As for the cow-calf side, Peel said producers need to focus on making sure they have something to sell by putting a greater emphasis in monitoring conception rates.
"When you are thinking about the relationship between breeding rates and conception rates relative to cow body condition, you don't want to take any chances there that you compromise your conception rates," Peel said. "So maybe its worth it in this environment to spend a little bit more money to push that cow's body condition by half a body condition score or something at the time of breeding to ensure that you get the kind of reproduction performance that gives you best opportunity to take advantage of these market conditions."
These high prices will stay around for an extended period amount of time. According to Dr. Peel that is something producers should be factoring into their management decision as well.
The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the region on the Radio Oklahoma Network- but is also a regular audio feature found on this website as well. Click on the LISTEN BAR below for today's show- and check out our archives for older Beef Buzz shows covering the gamut of the beef cattle industry today.
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