Commercial Cattle Producer Newsletter Spring 2023

FEED TODAY FOR NEXT YEARS PROFITS

By: Zeb Prawl, M.S. - Livestock Nutrition Center

Beef cattle producers are both some of the most patient people in the world, and some of the most impatient. When weather and/or market conditions get tough, some producers get so impatient that they immediately abandon their production goals and start cutting costs everywhere they can. Others may be just the opposite and start spending money in places they absolutely do not need. In either case, the nutrition program is often the first to suffer in terms of opting for cheaper inputs, or sometimes no inputs at all as entire portions of the program are cut out. An example of this would of course be a good mineral and vitamin supplement. Having enough patience with your program, if properly formulated, has many long-term benefits to your bottom line. Calf performance tomorrow, or even next year, will be affected by what you feed or don’t feed the cow today.

With the ongoing drought and lack of quality forage for cattle, the nutritional plane for much of the cow/calf herd has gone down dramatically. With any range-based nutrition program for cows or stocker cattle, feed supplements should be viewed to “bridge the gap” between forage nutrient quantity and cow/calf requirements. As forage quality declines, even in the middle of the summer when grass may be plentiful, that gap widens, and more supplementation is needed to maintain desired performance. By not providing that extra nutrition in the form of additional or revised feed supplements, both sub-acute and acute deficiencies can start to occur. For a beef cow, these are differences that may not be seen for many months to come as we are not monitoring the performance of a cow daily. These differences may only show up in whether she is bred or not, and that is something we may not know for several months. As a result, the nutrition program can be cut for short term gain, but long-term consequences are sure to follow.

If the nutrition program of the pregnant cow is lacking, it sets off a chain of often irreversible outcomes that will affect not only her performance and longevity, but also the same for her offspring. Calves experience 2/3 of their pre-term growth in the last third of pregnancy. If cow nutrient intake during this time is compromised or restricted, valuable nutrients are not passed on to the fetus to help prepare it for birth. In addition, cows start to produce colostrum the last 45 days of pregnancy. Inadequate nutrition for the cow at this time will result in lower quality colostrum being fed to the calves at birth. Calves fed this colostrum from nutrient restricted cows have shown to have lower serum immunoglobulin concentrations and thus, compromised immune systems.

The long-term effects of cows not receiving adequate nutrition while pregnant continues to show up in their offspring

for most of those animals’ lives. This phenomenon is termed Fetal Programming and it can be expressed in both positive and negative ways. Protein and energy shortages in utero result in calves that do not gain as well, do not breed as well, and tend to get sick more often as they get older. It is also known that protein and energy restrictions during pregnancy negatively affect overall muscle and fat cell number and mass as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Effects of maternal nutrition on bovine fetal skeletal muscle development. Dates are estimated mainly based on data from studies in sheep, rodents, and humans and represent progression through the various developmental stages. Nutrient restriction during mid-gestation reduces muscle fiber numbers, whereas restriction during late gestation reduces both muscle fiber sizes and the formation of intramuscular adipocytes.

done in Oregon suggests that cows with restricted trace mineral intake during the last trimester of pregnancy have calves that do not gain as well throughout their entire lives.

Aside from protein and energy requirements, minerals are also particularly important during fetal development. While macro minerals such as calcium and phosphorus are essential for skeletal and muscle development, trace minerals have also become widely known to be essential for optimum development and health of animals once born.

Research has shown that fetal trace mineral requirements have a higher priority than the dam, and nutrient partitioning suggests that the cow will pass on trace minerals to the growing fetus before meeting her own requirements for those trace minerals. Thus, if trace minerals are in short supply in the diet, not only will the fetus be lacking before birth, but the cow will also experience deficiencies as she is passing all that she can on to the fetus and leaving none for her own maintenance or production.

Furthermore, several of the essential trace minerals we use to fortify our feed blends and Fortigraze™ minerals are key to numerous cellular processes throughout the body, including immunity as shown below in Figure 2.

Figure 2. Essential trace minerals and some of their roles related to the immune system in beef cattle.

Mineral supplementation for both the cow and her unborn fetus is not only vital to immune function in unborn calves, but also extremely important to weight gain and performance of those same offspring. Work

Table 1. Effect of trace mineral supplementation to cows during the last third of pregnancy on weight gain in the subsequent offspring.

In this study by Marques and others at Oregon State University, they fed similar diets to cows while pregnant, with control cows getting no trace minerals during the last trimester while inorganic TM cows received sulfate forms of trace minerals, and organic TM received the same level of trace minerals coming from an organic source. They found that cows that were fed a compete mineral supplement while pregnant had calves that gained better throughout their entire lives compared to the offspring from cows that had their mineral programs restricted, even for just 90 days. In addition to this, the calves whose dams received the organic forms of trace minerals performed even better than the inorganics, suggesting that form and quality of trace mineral can also make a difference in animal performance.

When developing a nutrition program for your cattle herd, it is important to keep in mind that it doesn’t have to be permanent. There will be times when it needs to change based on a multitude of reasons. When this happens, patience will pay off when you take the time to calculate the end results of those changes. Some changes will pay off, and some changes may cost you money. Make sure you take the time, be patient, and evaluate your options thoroughly. Reach out to one of our nutritionists at LNC and we will help you make those decisions that are best for your operation.

From Du, M., J. Tong, J. Zhao, K. R. Underwood, M. Zhu, S. P. Ford, and P. W. Nathanielsz. 2010. Fetal programming of skeletal muscle development in ruminant animals. J. Anim. Sci. 88 (E. Suppl.):E51-E60.

COMMODITY OUTLOOK

By: Jon Leonard, Director, Supply Chain Management

Grain markets have eased of late, without any significantly bullish information to continue supporting the trek upwards. Concern still exists over the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which is set to expire on March 18. Thus far, vessels have been able to leave the region without much incident. The U.N. are Russia are expected to meet soon to discuss renewing the grain deal. After a year of conflict, the World needs orderly flow of exports to occur, or markets will react swiftly to the upside. South American production too is in focus, as less than favorable weather has trimmed Argentina’s output significantly. Brazil has had a much better season, but it remains to be seen just how much their production can offset a lack thereof in Argentina.

On Wednesday March 8, USDA released their World Agriculture Supply & Demand Estimate (WASDE) for March. They revised the U.S. balance sheets by reducing corn exports by 75 million bushels, long expected by the trade. Consequently, corn ending stocks for 2022/23 were modestly raised to 1.342 million bushels. USDA cut soybean ending stocks by 15 million bushels to 210 million bushels, slightly more than the trade expected. They accomplished this by raising soybean exports by 25 million bushels, while reducing domestic crush by 10 million bushels. No changes were made to the wheat balance sheet. Turning to South America, USDA aggressively lowered Argentine corn and soybean production estimates, with perhaps more downward revisions to come. Ultimately, all led to a slight build in World stocks for corn, almost unchanged for soybeans, and a slight reduction in wheat stocks. Logistics have continued to be challenging for agricultural products throughout the winter. Thankfully, the U.S. economy was able to avoid a nationwide rail strike in December, as the results would have been disastrous for all. That said, rail performance has suffered mightily for all Class 1 railroads. Still trying to recover from the pandemic to meet current demand, they continue to struggle to hire enough workers for the crews needed to operate. Though we’ve experienced a mainly mild winter across our region, many of our inputs originate from across the Northern Plains and Upper Midwest, where several winter storms did impede the ability for rail cars to move. That’s a normal occurrence most years, but crewing issues only compounds the problem. While there are signs that velocity improves in the months to come, the recovery effort is still in process. As we mentioned in our last outlook, U.S. inland waterways were at near record lows following the continued drought across much of the U.S. and Mississippi River basin. It took until the New Year to see tensions ease as water levels recovered, and we still see some untangling being done as barge lines work to get back into position after a major disruption. As luck would have it, recently we have seen river levels almost too good. Current water levels on the Mississippi River can see flood stage at Memphis and flows on the Arkansas River were hot enough to impede barge traffic in the last few weeks. Spring rains are welcomed, but we can have too much of a good thing. Fortunately, we have also seen some improvement in availability of truck drivers, helping the inbound pipeline of grain and ingredients. Diesel prices have declined over the

past few months, easing the strain on carriers, and giving them the confidence to hire. At LNC, our ability to source ingredients through different modes of transportation is just half of the equation. It’s ultimately the outbound side that impacts our customers the most. LNC made a tremendous effort over the last year to bolster the ranks of our driver workforce, while investing significant dollars in more trucks and trailers. Customer feedback has shown that it has enhanced our ability for the timely delivery of feed to better serve our customers during peak season. Though much of the U.S. has seen improvement in drought conditions, unfortunately it persists for too many of our customers. The latest U.S. Drought Monitor released Thursday March 9, continues to show improvement across much of Texas and Oklahoma. Just three months ago, 57% of our serviceable area had been classified as moderate drought or worse. Today, the latest maps show that we’ve decreased that by 20% moving towards abnormally dry, or even to no drought at all. Unfortunately, drought remains intense for much of Kansas – very concerning for pasture conditions, but also impactful for grain and forage production this Spring. We remain hopeful that the weather pattern continues to shift, and we start to recover our moisture profile to support rebuilding the cow herd.

Over the course of the past year, we had been expecting feed prices to remain high to very high, and they did just that. Whether it be the war in Ukraine, U.S. Drought, sub-par U.S. Crop production, or concerns about South American crop production – we’ve had too many supply disruptions for markets to relax. Today, we still have some of those same issues in play, but the market has solved for at least some of them. Much higher interest rates combined with “high prices curing high prices” has reduced demand for grain and ingredients both export and domestically. Recently, corn futures have declined some 70 cents, while soybean meal remains quite high from a historical perspective. Though it may take some time, we expect ingredient prices to decline moderately, resulting in lower feed prices as we enter Spring and transition into Summer.

SUMMER PASTURE MANAGEMENT

By: Cody Welchons, Ph.D. - Livestock Nutrition Center

With increased input prices in recent years the importance of reevaluating hay and pasture management, just as many have done with feed management, is of value to a cattleman’s operation. Utilizing summer pasture correctly can dramatically impact the bottom line whether through increased body condition in cows going into winter, increased weight gain of stockers, or harvested forages with higher nutritive values. Additionally, actively managing pastures allows a producer to reduce their dependence of purchased feedstuffs during the winter. The goal of this article is to discuss several topics that influence how a producer can optimize the use of forage production in a way that generates the greatest return to an operation.

Evaluate Your Pastures – The first step in ensuring success over the summer is to evaluate pastures prior to the growing season. This is especially important following a drought year. In evaluating pastures, pay extra attention to ones that were overstocked. Look out for areas that are bare or thin and identify forages and weeds present. By evaluating individual pastures you can determine a grazing plan that allows you to rest the pastures that are in poorer condition until they have had a chance to recover. Additionally, the control of weeds is of critical importance as they steal nutrients and can out compete desirable grasses. Following drought, pasture regrowth can be delayed, so controlling weeds early on will influence the health of the stand going forward.

Grazing Management – Specific grazing management strategies can affect forage quantity and nutritive value along with both individual animal performance and animal production per unit of land. The goal of any grazing management strategy should be focused on applying proper grazing intensity relative to forage production to achieve a desired outcome. Management of grazing intensity is achieved by altering the stocking rate on a given unit of land. To manage stocking rate, different stocking methods can be utilized. Pastures can be either continuously stocked or rotationally grazed. Much has been written about potential benefits and trade-offs of these stocking methods, but for the purposes of this discussion, think of them as ways to manage grazing intensity.

Continuous grazing is characterized by the grazing of one area over a long period of time while rotational grazing in its current form (short periods of grazing followed by longer periods of rest) was introduced in the early 1980’s as

a way to ensure that the plant has time to regrow after being consumed and had the potential to improve harvest efficiency and subsequently animal production for a given unit of land. While continuous grazing can result in increased individual animal performance relative to rotational grazing, there is also an increased chance of uneven pasture utilization. Thus, while individual animal performance can be reduced in a rotational grazing system, animal production per unit of land is often increased. The correct stocking method is entirely dependent upon each individual operation as you consider time, labor, capital expenses, and animal production goals.

Planning for Winter – In most cattle operations the cost of winter feeding represents a large proportion of annual animal costs. In cow/calf operations, hay represents a large part of this feed cost. Included in the cost of feeding hay are not just the cost to produce or buy it but also the cost of feeding it. This includes shrink, hauling, feeders, and time. Therefore, one way to make the most of the fixed costs (not taking into account fertilizer costs) associated with putting up hay is to put up hay with a higher nutritive value. For example, an increase in protein of two percentage units can provide an additional 0.5-0.6 lb of crude protein when feeding 26-30 lbs of hay. This is the equivalent of feeding 2.5-3 lbs of 20% cubes.

Another way to potentially decrease winter feeding costs is by extending the grazing season. In the southern plains this means grazing to a targeted height (dependent upon if the pasture is native or improved) or haying by late summer and allowing for the grass to regrow until the first killing freeze. The stockpiled forage can then be grazed into the winter as forage production and weather allow.

How Does Forage Affect Costs? – Regardless of how we pay for pasture (annual lease, monthly rate, on the gain,

etc.) Our forages are a variable, yet limited, feed resource. Much like a pile of corn silage, both variable and fixed costs associated with the production of that forage affect nutrient cost. Our goal is to estimate seasonal forage consumption so that expenses, like fertilizer, lease, and mineral costs (and/or opportunity cost) can be expressed on a per-ton basis. Furthermore, we evaluate these costs relative to some measure of nutrient intake so we can compare grazing to harvested or purchased feedstuffs to optimize profits. For perspective, when corn costs $8.50/ bushel, the cost of net energy for gain (NEg) is roughly $0.25 per Megacalorie (Mcal); depending on accounting systems and forage quality and production, costs per Mcal of NEg can be less than $0.10, making grazing the obvious winner, in terms of feed value.

While grass is often the most cost-effective ingredient in inventory, we also encourage our customers to consider how dilution of fixed costs may affect overall land profitability, much like diluting our supply of haylage in a grow yard. Similar to supplementing wheat pasture, under certain circumstances stretching warm season pastures with feed can improve profits by increasing production (gain) per acre and per animal. The value of this additional gain can even be more pronounced when we start bawling calves on grass because the value of preconditioning can be added to gain production. As feed demands decline into the summer, we expect byproduct feed prices to decline, relative to the flat price of grain. Because we typically value ingredients like soybean hulls, beet pulp pellets and corn gluten feed equal to or greater than corn in forage-based systems, we believe this decay in relative price will present opportunities to leverage these ingredients at a discount to traditional grain-based feeds. Evaluating the balance between minimizing cost of gain and maximizing profits per acre can be a difficult process, but it is certainly an exercise worth considering this year.

These are just a few of the many things to think about to assure that you can make the most of your summer forage production. By having a summer pasture management plan that clearly outlines your goals for the season, you can be proactive in managing your productions outputs rather than reactive when external factors throw a wrench in your operation.

MEET THE TEAM

LNC takes great pride in sourcing our employees. Each issue we will introduce you to one of our own.

Zeb Prawl Nutritionist Saginaw, TX

Zeb Prawl joined LNC in November of 2022 as Senior Nutritionist. He has a BS degree in Ag-Business from Northwestern Oklahoma State University, and a MS Degree in Ruminant Nutrition from Oklahoma State University. Since graduating, Zeb has been involved in all aspects of the commercial livestock feed industry in the southern US. He has worked as a nutritionist at a major feed company, as director of nutrition for a regional feed company, and as a beef cattle consultant, working with cow/calf, stocker, backgrounding operations, and feed mill operations in Oklahoma, Kansas, and Texas. Zeb provides consulting services and support for beef cattle clients across the southern US as well as technical support for sales and customers across LNC’s area. Zeb, his wife Melissia, and their children reside just outside of Weatherford, TX.

JOIN OUR TEAM

Do you know someone that would be interested in joining our team?

At Livestock Nutrition Center we are always looking for qualified, hard-working individuals. All of our positions offer a competitive salary, full benefits and uniforms. https://www.lnc-online.com/careers/

Resources: Redfearn, D.D. 2017. Reducing Winter Feeding Costs. Oklahoma State Extension PSS2570, Redfearn, D.D. 2017. Pasture Recovery Following Drought. Oklahoma State Extension PSS-2592, Sollenberger, L. E., and Y. C. Newman. 2007. Grazing management. p. 651–659. In R. F. Barnes et al. (ed.) Forages: The science of grassland agriculture. Blackwell Publishing, Ames, IA

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