Thoughts From Dave Dave Maples Executive Vice President Sale day for my family was June 14th. We sold our steers in Tim White’s Profit thru Performance feeder calf sale. Our steers averaged weighing 685 pounds this year and the average dollar per head was $1041.48. They sold at Blue Grass Stockyards in Lexington during the regular Monday sale. This was the most dollars per head that we have sold our calves for in six years. Just a little background on what we are doing. We only sold eleven steers as one got injured the week before the sale, so we still have him. Also, we still have the heifer mates and will sell them this fall. I was talking with my neighbor Charles Miller about the sale and how our calves had performed well and that was reflected in the price. Mr. Miller was telling me about a cattle buyer that worked out of the Richmond Stockyards back in the day when he got started in the business and the gentleman gave him the advice that, “you have to think and act like you are a big cattleman”. Maybe the best advice I have had in a long time. I know I only had eleven steers but we manage our farm and our cattle like the big farms do and by doing this the outcome is often better. The average cow herd sizes in the surrounding states of Kentucky including Indiana, Ohio, and West Virginia range from just over 12 cows per farm to almost 19. Kentucky has the most of any of the neighboring states, averaging about 31 cows. Therefore, my families cow herd is smaller than the state average. The reason I bring this up is that none of our neighboring states, including Kentucky, with the average-size herd have the capacity to ship even a mixed sex, pot load of cattle themselves, much less a load of all steers or all heifers. I have listened to Dr. Kenny Burdine, University of Kentucky ag economist share his data many times where he has shown an $11 per cwt advantage
when calves could be marketed in groups of at least five as opposed to singles. Then he explains that when that group of calves grows to 10 head, the advantage becomes $15 per cwt. Kenny can demonstrate that when you tighten your calving season and get the calves born early in the calving season along with selling in larger groups one can easily exceed $100 per calf. With cost share funding from the Kentucky Ag Development funds my family was able to purchase some nice cattle handling facilities several years ago. With the ability to handle our cattle in a safe easy process that has allowed us to use estrus synchronization and AI along with pregnancy checking, timely vaccinations, castration, and all the management practices that need to be accomplished. With the use of timed artificial insemination, it has allowed my family to create matings to the best bulls in the world. With that we have a tighter calving window. Our calves that were born in the first 21-day cycle weigh 741 pounds compared to the calves that were born in the second and third cycle at 646 pounds. The other positive is that we now have a cow herd that is made up of cows that were only born in the first 21-day cycle. I have had time to think about the sale as well as many of the issues that our industry is facing. There has been so much in the ag media about the industry only having four packers doing 85% of the business. But when I think about the choices that I had when it came time to sell our feeder calves the options were really very small. It was less than 4 options. But seldom and somewhat to my surprise, hardly anyone ever says anything about the concentration on either side of the packer. My other surprise was the fact that there was no CPH-45 sale in central Kentucky this year for fall born calves. We have always sold our calves in the June CPH-45 sale. But no one called to voice their displeasure of no CPH-45 sale. With my job at KCA I do get calls about the packers. I want to thank Tim and Amy White for allowing my family to participate in their sale. Also, I want to compliment Tim for doing the work and being the leader with this sale. In reality he is helping his neighbors and friends stay in the cattle business. There should be more of these types of sales. But that is going to be up to you to decide if you want to think like the big ones in this highly complicated, complex industry.
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