Pre-conditioned feeder cattle sale a big success
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These calves have all been weaned, vaccinated and taught to eat feed. There are more opportunities to sell these calves in Tennessee now. They can hit the ground running when they get to those western feedlots. Dr. Emitt Rawls, UT Extension Livestock Marketing Specialist, came to town last week for the Pre-Conditioned Feeder Calf Sale at the McMinnville barn. What follows are Dr. Rawls comments on the sale.
McMinnville Pre-conditioned Feeder Calf Sale Is A Major Step Up To Meet Market Demand:
With today’s high cattle market, the value of preconditioning programs for feeder cattle is greater for buyers than ever before.
Why?
With feeder cattle selling at record prices this year, the cost to a buyer of an animal that gets sick or perhaps dies is very high. Feedlots report that calves which have had a good health and management program will have less than one half the sickness and death loss, and be more profitable than calves which have had no known health and management program. Therefore, if buyers have an opportunity to buy calves which have been weaned, know how to eat from a trough, drink from a water trough and have been vaccinated against respiratory diseases, they will pay a higher price for those calves.
This was very much the case at the first pre-conditioned sale held at McMinnville on Sept. 8. The management at the McMinnville sale made the commitment last April to hold a preconditioned sale. They held a meeting for interested producers at which they learned what would be expected in order for calves to sell in this sale. Examples were given ofhow other groups had achieved success with pre-conditioned sales.
The goal of the management was to have 1,000 to 1,500 head of cattle. A number this large is needed to be able to package the calves into 48,000 to 50,000 pound loads. University of Tennessee research has indicated that full loads of calves bring a price about $4 per hundred pounds more than calves sold as singles.
This is one of the principles of graded feeder calf sales which McMinnville and other locations have used to help beef producers increase their income from beef cattle. The market management also made the commitment and requirement to use all one brand of product.
It happened to be Pfizer Animal Health, though several good product lines are available. The prices received at the Sept. 8 sales surpassed all expectations. Compared to weekly auctions that same day and weekly auction prices for the week, prices at the pre-conditioned sale ranged from $6.60 to $17.21 per hundred pounds or $65.41 to $112.04 per head higher.
Realize that University of Tennessee research has shown that about 86 percent of calves at weekly auctions sell as singles, though since that mid ’90s research many markets work at selling calves in larger groups.
Many of those calves as well as many at regular graded sales are weaned the day of sale, creating stress for the calves during the transportation and marketing process. The lack of “bawling” calves was evident at the pre-conditioned sale, as the calves had already been weaned.
If calves know how to eat and drink from troughs rather than streams ponds and green grass, they can better adjust to the movement from Tennessee farms to feedlot and grazing programs, many of which are 1,000 miles from Tennessee
The demand for pre-conditioned calves is very likely to increase at least as long as this cattle market stays strong. In previous cattle cycles when prices declined dramatically, buyers did not pay as much attention to such programs. However, where a group of producers working with a market demonstrated their ability to produce and properly prepare calves for a pre-conditioned sale, buyers have actually increased the amount they would bid for such calves. If two buyers know how good the calves are and trust the health and management program, they will step up and pay more for the calves, especially when sold at auction.
McMinnville plans another pre-conditioned sale in January. Based on this early success, other sales may be planned in coming months. It is a commitment on the part of the market management, but also requires significant commitment on the part of the beef producers.
Dr. Rawls is pretty high on these special sales as you can see from his comments.The first thing that I noticed last Wednesday was that there were no lines of trailers waiting to unload. David Simpson and his crew at the barn knew who was coming and how many calves they would have. Cattle were unloaded and processed as soon as the truck arrived. Before the sale Wednesday evening I walked through the barn to look at the cattle. They were all standing quietly. No bawling, no stirring and moving. They were weaned at least 45 day before so none of them were bawling for their mamas.
After the cattle were graded and before the sale started all the cattle were grouped in load lots of similar grades and breeds.
Even though cattle were down across Tennessee early last week these cattle went for high prices. Dr. Rawls told the folks before the sale that buyers would often pay higher prices for pre-conditioned cattle. He then said that the history of other such sales here in TN had shown that it usually took a few years for the buyers to be satisfied that the cattle would performs as advertised. The buyers Wednesday night must have decided to rely of David Simpson and other experience with Warren County Sale cattle and other Pfizer vaccinated sale cattle.
Looking at cattle sales in Dickson, and other sales early in the week the cattle that sold Wednesday night in McMinnville brought $8-12 more per hundred weight. That’s several dollars on a 600-700-pound calf.
The prices from the sale are listed below. Take a look and them and consider your on operation. Calve can be weaned from their mamas and fed and make producers money because they are worth more money to the fellow that is taking them to the feed lot.
There’s another pre-conditioned sale at the McMinnville barn in the latter part of January.
If you have a bunch of spring calves that will be ready for market soon take a look at putting them through a short pre-conditioning program. It will increase what the calves are worth and a group sale like our local feeder sale will help you capture that extra value. Give me a call here at the Extension office for more information on pre-conditioning your calves. It’s a growing trend in the cattle business.
Steers Med & Lg 1-2
400-500 lbs 129.00-134.00
500-550 lbs 117.00-129.00
550-600 lbs 117.50-123.25
600-700 lbs 115.75-119.85
700-800 lbs 110.10-112.60
800-900 lbs 106.35
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Heifers Med & Lg 1-2
400-500 lbs 118.00-123.50
500-550 lbs 110.00
550-600 lbs 108.00-118.50
600-700 lbs 111.60-113.00
700-800 lbs 104.50