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Previous issues of the BEEF Cattle letter
Issue # 650
Forage Focus: Harvesting 'Forage Oats' . . . When and How? - Stan Smith, PA, OSU Extension Fairfield County
Oats planted since wheat harvest across much of Ohio are off to a great start. With the ample rainfall and below normal temperatures which much of Ohio has experienced this summer, stands are near perfect and growing aggressively. The only challenge we're finding is that the weather conditions have allowed rust to flourish some fields. Regardless, the most asked question we've received in recent weeks is, "What's the most efficient way of grazing oats . . . is it one time later this fall, or multiple "strip grazed" times throughout the balance of summer, fall, and winter, and, how soon can I start?"
While we have limited data from past years to support it, our observations suggest that we experience by far the most total tonnage from oats when they are only grazed one time after they reach about 75+/- days of age from planting. It appears once they reach 24-30 inches tall (~ 50 days post planting) their total tonnage may double over the following 20-30 days. In the past, quality has remained high until the oats are at least 60-75 days into their growth. Unless one must harvest earlier due to lack of any other feed, or possibly in a grass based dairy situation where quality may be most important, the benefits of the abundant tonnage from a single harvest at 75+/- days seem to far out weigh the benefits of a little extra quality gained by strip grazing oats multiple times throughout the balance of the year.
If one prefers to graze or harvest multiple times, Bob Hendershot, NRCS Grasslands Conservationist, suggests that beginning to graze at about the 6 leaf stage is likely best. Regardless if the plan is to graze once, or multiple times, strip grazing will certainly optimize consumption of the available tonnage.
We've heard several times from producers who's oats are "down the road" and thus will need to be mechanically harvested. What's the best way? This answer gets a bit more complicated.
Oat hay is slow to dry, and it's never easy to try to "dry bale" forages in late September and beyond anyway. Short and cooler days and heavy dew over night causes it to take a week or more before drying of oat hay is complete for baling. Add to that the volume of production we've been experiencing from oats, and it becomes much more challenging than trying to get a heavy first cutting of grass hay cured in early May. If there is a saving grace to baling oats, it's that they retain their quality very well while curing out in the weather.
Given all that, if mechanical harvest is a must, chopping them for ensilage is likely the best choice. If a silo or silage bagger is not available, green chopping and direct feeding them daily is an alternative. Next option one might consider is wet wrapping bales or ensiling them in bale tubes. Another alternative for some might be to mow a two to five day supply, bale them daily, and feed them directly each day. And finally, as an alternative to trying to find a 7+ day window in October to dry bale them, we have had some local producers who waited until a cold dry stretch in late December and January when the oats had died and dried standing, and then mowed and baled them.
Photographed on August 18, these oats were planted in northern Ohio on July 29, and ranged in height from 4 to 8 inches.
One Out of Five Is Not Good Enough - Kris Ringwall, Beef Specialist, NDSU Extension Service
As fall approaches, producers are thinking about selling calves. This involves the associated management and health programs that go along with preparing calves for market.
The empty pens mean cows and calves are still on grass, but that will change soon. Speaking of change, things change a little each year a producer brings the calves to town.
This year is no different. Current topics center on animal identification, as well as other managerial and marketing thoughts.
As noted previously, four points emerge from these discussions. The four are food safety, seamless regionalized calf-to-feedlot health connectivity, implementation of improved RFID (radio frequency identification) technology and value capture for the producer.
One could ask if those thoughts are in order because they could be reversed, so returning value to the producer could be first. However, the order is quite dependent on who is in the room. Priorities for each segment of the beef industry are different, but the dollars are still competitive within the industry.
A few years ago, the Dickinson Research Extension Center began documenting the flow of cattle from one segment of the industry to the next in an effort to better understand the current state of the beef industry regarding electronic cattle identification and the ability to track cattle.
The research has yielded considerable data on tracing cattle. The center asked two questions. First, how effective is the current system to track cattle movement? Second, how effective will the electronic identification of individual calves be?
The center distributed 23,229 low-frequency tags. After the calves were tagged, individual producers conducted business as usual and the center's team initiated an extensive trace-back effort once the calves were sold.
Tracking involved extensive contact with producers, stockyards, brand offices, buyers, backgrounders and feeders. To date, the estimates of calf movement indicate that approximately 23 percent have been retained on the producer's place and are assumed to be herd replacements. (The center has not tracked cull heifers, cows or home harvest).
As these calves left the place of birth, the DREC research team estimated that more than 21 percent of the calves were traced all the way through to harvest so carcass data could be retrieved. More than 33 percent were traced to the feedlot, but the center was unable to trace the calves to the place of harvest. Just more than 8 percent only could be traced to the backgrounding facility. Just more than 14 percent were not traceable from the first point of sale.
The results have not changed much during the years of tracing. The principle point of loss was during the marketing process.
Calves moved through or were commingled with larger groups of calves, so the ability to follow the calf to the next destination was not available or not recorded. The current systems for tracking cattle only are moderately effective. The systems are not 100 percent effective.
At what point additional tracking systems are required still is unknown. Additional diligence in the current tracking systems certainly will cut down on the calves not accounted for.
In the end, only one out of five calves returned carcass information to the producer. Although the reasons vary, the door remains open for producer frustration.
As has been noted before, the value discussion and subsequent return to the producer is real. The dollars just need to flow as is indicated with the range in carcass value at the rail. The opportunity is evident in the value spread at the farm or ranch gate and the rail.
We talk about value, but impact and opportunity never will be realized for the producer until, as a cattle industry, we measure what we want to improve, identify what we measured and market what we identified. One out of five is not good enough.
To Castrate Or Not To Castrate?? - Glenn Selk, Oklahoma State University Extension Cattle Reproduction Specialist
A question commonly discussed around small town coffee shops would sound like this: "Is it worth the trouble to castrate male calves at 'calf working time' or should I just leave them to sell as 'cutter bulls'?"
A survey conducted by Oklahoma State University of eastern Oklahoma livestock markets in 1997 and 1999 showed that on average, bull calves were $2.00-3.00/cwt less expensive than steers of similar weight. Other studies in other states have suggested that bull calves are currently being discounted even more. In fact, last week at the Oklahoma City National Stockyards, 416 pound feeder steer calves sold for $127.00/cwt while 400 pound feeder bull calves sold for $121.00/cwt. Both groups were graded medium and large frame, number one muscling score. Therefore the bulls that weighed only 16 pounds less, returned $44.32 less per animal. The discount gets even wider as the cattle get older and larger. A group of 626 pound feeder steers sold for 109.24/cwt in the same sale that 635 pound feeder bulls brought $94.00/cwt. In this situation the bulls, that weighed 9 pounds more, brought a whopping $86.94 per head less than the steers.
However, some of the discounts may still not be enough. Until the last few years, there has been very little information available to Oklahoma producers on the additional production costs associated with purchasing lightweight bulls vs. steers for use in a stocker operation. Therefore, the objective of several OSU studies was to evaluate differences in performance and health status of steers vs. knife-castrated or band-castrated bulls.
Stocker calves castrated well prior to purchase (steers) had significantly improved daily gain (2.35 lb/day vs. 1.77 lb/day) and dry matter intake (8.85 lb/day vs. 7.59 lb/day) for 42 days compared with calves castrated after purchase and at processing (bulls). No difference was observed in the feed:gain ratio. The number of times removed from the pen for disease treatment was significantly less for steers versus bulls, suggesting a healthier appearance. In addition, the number of treatments and time of recovery tended to be lower in steers versus bulls. One third (33.3%) of the steers were treated at least once; whereas 59.3% of the "cutter bulls" were treated at least once. None of the steers were treated more than one time; whereas 23.5% of the newly castrated bulls were treated more than once. (Berry, et al. 2001 OSU Animal Science Research Report).
Although more experiments comparing the effects of purchasing steers vs. bulls on performance, health, and economics are needed, data suggests that the lower costs per pound associated with purchasing bulls are out-weighed by the additional cost of decreased performance and increased sickness. Medical costs were much higher for bulls compared to animals purchased as steers. Medical costs escalate when cattle require more than one medical treatment. As the cattle markets put more and more emphasis on value-based marketing of feeder calves, cow calf producers can expect to be discounted increasingly for leaving male calves un-castrated.
In The Cattle Markets, August 24, 2009 - Darrell R. Mark, Ph.D., Assoc. Professor, Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Feedyards Filling Up: USDA's Cattle on Feed report released last Friday revealed that cattle feeders took advantage of lower feed prices in July by placing more cattle on feed. The monthly average of nearby corn futures was $0.79/bu lower in July relative to June, and distillers grain prices dropped proportionately with corn prices from June to July. This helped move projected closeouts on July placements into black ink. As a result, net placements of cattle into feedlots with 1,000+ head capacities were 12.3% higher than July 2008 and 8.8% higher than the previous 5-year average. This was at the high end of trade expectations and well above the 6.5% average increase that was expected.
July marketings were about one percentage point lower than the average pre-release estimate, also lending to the bearishness of the reported figures. At 1.928 million head, July marketings were down nearly 6% from July 2008. As a result of higher than expected placements and lower than expected marketings, the August 1 cattle on feed estimate dropped less than expected to 9.644 million head, 2.3% lower than last year.
Placements of cattle could be higher than year-ago levels through the remainder of 2009. Placements for the last five months of 2008 were below average levels. Plus, the recent drop in feed prices has substantially improved projected feeding margins. Steer calves weighing 550 lbs. placed on feed now, and finishing in mid-April, could see a profit of $40/head using a conventional corn-only ration, based on feed prices and feeder cattle prices in the table below and average feeding performance. For a WDGS ration (with cheaper feedstuff prices and improved performance projections), this profit jumps to $112/head. Heavier weight placements don't pencil out quite as well right now. A 750 lb. yearling steer going on feed now and finishing in late January has a projected loss of $5/head for a conventional corn-only diet, but switching to a ration containing 40% WDGS (on a dry matter basis) results in a $47/head profit. While these costs and performance expectations will differ for all feeders, it does suggest that many feeders can be profitable and lock in a positive margin for current placements, an opportunity badly needed after 2+ years of mostly negative closeouts.
The Markets: Last Friday, the fed cattle market traded $1/cwt higher on both live and dressed sales in the 5-Area market. The bulk of the live trade occurred at $82-83 and dressed prices averaged about $131. Choice boxed beef prices averaged almost $1/cwt higher last week, lending some support to the fed cattle market. Feeder cattle prices were generally lower across Montana, Nebraska, and Oklahoma last week as cattle feeders face uncertainty about the corn market. Yearling steer prices in Nebraska and Oklahoma at $101-102 were $1-4 lower than last week, while steer calf prices at $109-113 were more than $5 lower in Nebraska and $2 higher in Oklahoma. Last Thursday, corn prices in Omaha averaged $3.07/bu, about steady with the previous week. DDGS prices continued dropping another $2.60/ton last week to $95.50/ton. WDGS continues to be a good buy for cattle feeders right now at $27/ton, less than 60% of the corn price on a dry matter basis.
Weekly Roberts Agricultural Commodity Market Report - Mike Roberts, Commodity Marketing Agent, Virginia Tech
LIVE CATTLE futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) were up mildly on Monday in a continuing sideways pattern. The AUG'09LC contract closed up $0.175/cwt at $85.175/cwt; $0.875/cwt higher than a week ago. DEC'09LC futures closed at $88.225/cwt; up $0.075/cwt and $0.375/cwt higher than last report. Several deliveries were noted on the August contract. Friday's USDA Cattle on Feed report held back prices at the opening but recovered on support from higher cash beef prices and better outside markets. Demand is expected to be better in the fall. USDA reported August 1 feedlot cattle supply at 98% of last year, slightly above the 96.6% the market expected but still a low not seen for several years. July placements were noted at 113% of a year ago. The market expected a 107.3% on average. July marketings were placed at 95% of last year at this time vs. average market expectations for 95.1%. Cash cattle traded $1-$1.50/cwt higher at auctions. USDA put the 5-area price at $82.10/cwt; $0.18/cwt higher than this time last week. USDA on Monday put the Choice Boxed Beef cutout at $143.14/cwt, up $0.74/cwt from the previous close and $0.49/cwt higher than this time last week. According to HedgersEdge.com, average packer margins were lowered $0.70/head to a positive $49.20/head based on the average buy of $81.96/cwt vs. the average breakeven of $85.74/cwt.
FEEDER CATTLE at the CME were off on Monday. AUG'09FC futures finished at $100.100/cwt; off $0.050/cwt and $0.575/cwt lower than a week ago. The August contract will expire on August 27. The OCT'09FC contract closed at $100.450/cwt; down $0.175/cwt but $0.225/cwt higher than last report. Grain markets, seasonal implications, and USDA's report pressured prices. Cash feeders in Oklahoma City were steady to $2/cwt lower. The CME Feeder Cattle Index for August 20 was placed at $100.66/cwt, down $0.29/cwt. Cattle held to heavier weights were more sought after Monday.
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BEEF Cattle is a weekly publication of Ohio State University Extension in Fairfield County and the OSU Beef Team. Contributors include members of the Beef Team and other beef cattle specialists and economists from across the U.S.
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