At the Cattle Industry Summer Business Meeting, Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster, Ron Hays, spoke with the president and CEO of the Texas Cattle Feeders Association, Ben Weinheimer, about the state of the business in the Southern Plains. Weinheimer represents feedlots in Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico.
Coverage from the 2024 Cattle Industry Summer Business Meeting in San Diego is being powered by Farm Data Services of Stillwater.
“The attitudes of cattle feeders in the TCFA region are really good,” Weinheimer said. “We’ve been very pleased with the level of on-feed numbers that we’ve been able to maintain through the course of the end of last year and the first half of this year.”
While he still anticipates that those numbers will fall in the second half of this year, and when heifer retention increases, feedlot numbers will decrease until the heifers reach maturity and become productive.
“It is always a process as we go through major impacts such as these extended drought conditions. It just takes some time for those pastures to become more productive, and for producers to have more confidence in how they are stocking those. It is always a long-term decision. It never happens from one day to the next,” he remarked.
About the USDA’s implementation of their adult cattle identification program that was discussed at the meeting, he said, “Dr. Alex Turner did a nice job of summarizing the various aspects of that final rule that is going into effect on November 5th of this year so that producers can really have some certainty about what is expected of them.”
He said for the short term, producers who already have tagged cattle can leave their tags in place, and after new cattle and calves join their herds, they can bring them into compliance with the new identification requirements.
On the subject of beef-on-dairy cattle, Weinheimer said, “As you look at the dairy industry and their current tagging requirements, there are a lot of things that have already been in place for a number of years. Some of those requirements already extend into the beef-on-dairy calves. I think that will be some of the nuances that the USDA and the state veterinarians in the industry, will have to work through and see some Q & A documents develop and some fact sheets around regarding what the requirements and expectations are. It will definitely be a work in progress even as the rule begins to be implemented going forward by all of the parties involved.”
The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the region on the Radio Oklahoma Ag Network and is a regular audio feature found on this website as well. Click on the LISTEN BAR at the top of the story for today’s show and check out our archives for older Beef Buzz shows covering the gamut of the beef cattle industry today.
