Cow Calf

Knowledge Nuggets

By separating your business into profit centers, you can allocate associated costs and profits and evaluate winners and losers. This separation will give you direction when deciding on future ventures or how to scale down your operation.

Commit to identifing and writing goals for each profit center. Resource management goals, personal goals, and business goals are three specific goals to be written for each beef business. By writing these goals down, future management decisions become much easier.

If you are only doing the work of a hired hand, don't expect a manager's wage. If you want a manager's salary, spend most of your time doing the work of a manager.

Don't forget that feed produced on your land, whether it is grass, hay, silage or crop residues, still has a value. Assign these costs to your cattle business, so you can begin to evaluate the value of your forage business.

When entering any lease agreement, it is important for both parties to decide how much risk and responsibility each is willing to take. Make sure agreements are in writing. Sometimes it is more important to have trust in your leasee and leaser than to have the best possible price.

Try to find the best market for your cull animals. Rather than dumping culled cows into a market, placing them in a feeding program to increase marbling, tenderness, flavor, body weight and whiten the fat may result in higher returns.

Track the profitability of your herd size. Bigger is not always more efficient. Knowing what herd size creates the most efficient use of your resources is important to increase profitability.

Deciding how to replace breeding stock is an important decision. Raising replacements requires separate management, labor, facilities and feed. However, purchasing replacements can also be expensive and animal performance is less known. Evaluating which method is best for your business is important before making a decision.

Risk is a part of every business. Identify and understand the risks your business faces and plan how you will deal with them.

There are five main types of available markets that producers can access. These include direct sales (farm gate and feedlot direct), commission sales (auction market), direct sales with commission (e.g. ranch sales, electronic auctions), forward contracting, and satellite video auctioning. Understand what is involved in each of these methods and decide which works the best for the product you offer.

There are seasonal effects on the pricing of different ages of cattle. Be aware of this and try to match the animals you sell to the best season for the price for that class of animal.

Fact Sheets

Alberta Cow Calf Cash Forecaster

Basic Design of a Lease Agreement for Cows

Beef Calculator Expense Worksheet

Budgeting Tools

Calculated Yardage Expense

CHAPS 2000

Cow Calf Share Lease Agreement

Cull Cows - On-farm Feeding and Marketing Options

Custom Cattle Feeding Agreement

Custom Pasture Agreement

Do Larger Cow Herds Mean Increased Returns? - available in PDF format only

Drought Options: Basic Design of a Lease Agreement for Custom Feeding Cows

Economics of Change for Beef Operations

Economies of Size in Cow-Calf Production

Factors Affecting the Profitability of the Cow Calf Enterprise

Guidelines For Estimating 2003 Cow-Calf Production Costs

Improving Cow-Calf Profitability through Enterprise Analysis

Key Success Factors In Cow Calf Enterprise Profitability

Managing for Today's Cattle Market and Beyond

Managing Your Cow Herd: Strategies to Lower Cow-Calf Production Costs

Raising Beef Replacement Heifers

Rancher's Return Spreadsheet - Cow-Calf and Backgrounding Analysis Tool

So You're In The Cattle Business: Do You Know Where You're Going?

So Whats... So Hard About Managing?

Strategic and Scenario Planning in Ranching - "Managing Risk in Dynamic Times - available as PDF format only

The Costs of Raising Replacement Heifers and the Value of a Purchased Versus Raised Replacement

The Wealthy Rancher Calculator

What Should I Charge to Over Winter Cows?

Research Papers

Critical Control Points for Profitability in the Cow-Calf Enterprise

Time of Weaning: The Economic Implications