Page 34 - MWC 4-21-2022s

YOU CAN HAVE But you need to make sure it’s The Midwest Cattleman · April 21, 2022 · P34
continued from page 32 not costing you too much to get
there.” Too many YG 4s and 5s vironment, feed efficiency is by produce a Choice or better car-
than the plant average” Jim being a good metric. far the most important. cass? The short answer is yes.
says. “You have to exceed the For discussion purposes, as- Cattle health and death loss If you look at the U.S. Meat
baseline in the plant (for quali- sume a $30 per cwt premium will vary from pen to pen, but Animal Research Center (US-
ty grade) and you’re paid on the on Prime. Then assume you let’s say death loss is at 2 per- MARC) data and data from Eu-
portion that exceeds that base- moved the needle from 8 per- cent. That’s roughly $20 per rope, where researchers have
line.” cent Prime to 18 percent on a head, spread out over the pen, been collecting individual ani-
So, it becomes a game of pen of 100 steers. At a $30 pre- Wulf says. Again, just a slight mal feeding data for years, Con-
diminishing returns. “When mium, you added $3 per cwt to improvement in feed efficiency tinental breeds have generally
we’re getting up there to 80% or each animal in the pen. On a can make that less painful. shown better carcass-adjusted
better Choice and Prime, how 1,350-pound steer, that comes What about carcass premi- feed conversion than British
much room for improvement do out to $40 per head across all ums? “You look at cattle with breeds, Jim says. “And amongst
you really have?” the steers in the pen, Wulf says. a half-pound difference in feed the Continentals, Limousin cat-
Now consider feed efficiency. “I can pick up $40 per head efficiency, it’s probably a $75 tle consistently show better feed
“The difference with feed con- by improving feed efficiency by per head difference,” Wulf says. efficiency, mainly because the
version is it’s a trait that the a quarter of a point,” he says. “The likelihood of you picking dressing percentage is higher.”
cattle feeder constantly gets That’s not hard to do if you up a $75 premium on an entire In other words, while two
paid for on the entire popula- work at it. “With some effort pen of cattle on a carcass grid, breeds may be similar in terms
tion of animals each time,” he and stretch, we’ve improved that’s tough.” of feed intake to live weight
says. “And it’s connected to corn it by upwards of 20 percent.” And you have to factor in gain, those differences become
or feed grain price. So if we’re That’s a combination of genetic how many YG 4s and 5s are in wider when you analyze feed
in a relatively high feed grain improvement and better feed- the pen, Jim says. “You can in- intake to carcass weight gain—
environment like we are today, ing strategies. deed get into a scenario where and carcass weight is what
a 10 percent improvement (in For cattle feeders, the three you’ve increased carcass grade, most feeders get paid for on val-
feed efficiency) is more than a main factors that drive margin but you haven’t gotten any- ue-based grids.
10-cent improvement in cost are health, feed efficiency and where because your 4s and 5s “So, we’ve taken a breed that
per pound of gain.” carcass value. From a health have come up too much. And as a whole is inherently more ef-
Here’s how Jerry Wulf does perspective, that’s why feedy- the discount on those cattle can ficient, and we’re making even
the math. ards will pay up for feeder cat- be severe.” more improvements there,”
“You can neglect feed efficien- tle that have been weaned and Genetics For Both Wulf says. “And we’re doing it in
cy and just chase marbling and preconditioned. Can you have feeder cat- balance with paying attention
breed cattle that blow past the But, agreeing with Kee Jim, tle that convert feed at bet- to the carcass traits that drive
averages on Prime and CAB. Wulf says in today’s feeding en- ter-than-average gain and still continued on page 38