On today’s Cow-Calf Corner, Kellie Curry Raper, Oklahoma State University Extension Livestock Marketing Specialist in the Department of Agricultural Economics writes about making decisions concerning cull cows.
In Financial Opportunities of Cull Cow Marketing (Cow-Calf Corner – 9/23/24), Mark Johnson discussed the cull cow market, the importance of cull cow revenue to cow-calf operations, and the potential of adding value based on seasonal patterns in cull cow prices. As Dr. Johnson discussed, cull cow prices tend to bottom in the fall and peak in the spring, presenting a range of opportunities. Let’s take a deeper dive into the culling decision along with post-culling management and marketing with a focus on spring-calving herds.
Cow-calf producers with spring calving herds typically wean calves in late summer or early fall and subsequently make decisions about culling cows from the herd. The culling decision is based on many factors related to fertility, productivity, management ease, and health, as described in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Multidimensional Decisions in Beef Cow Culling and Marketing (Source: K. Raper)
Alongside that culling decision is the marketing decision – the decision to market cull cows immediately or retain them on the farm for marketing at a later date (Raper and Biermacher, 2017). Many factors influence this decision, including individual cow health, cash flow needs, on-farm resources for retention and feeding, current market conditions versus market expectations, and time. If a cull cow is not healthy enough or structurally sound enough to stay in your herd, she likely needs to go on the trailer for immediate marketing, as the risk of carrying her for 4 more months outweighs the opportunity for added revenue. If a cull cow carries too much body condition, she should also join those on the trailer, as adding or maintaining weight will likely be more costly than any revenue gained from the seasonal price upswing. On the other hand, if a cull cow is sound, reasonably healthy and not over-conditioned, AND if you have the resources to do so, there are multiple retention strategies with the potential for increasing cull cow salvage values in a profitable way. These strategies focus on taking advantage of the typical spring upswing in cull cow prices without spending all of the revenue gain on feed intake cost.
This article will focus on feeding strategies and leave the conversation about selling culls as bred cows for later.
In the previously referenced studies, 162 cull cows over a three-year period were assigned either to a native pasture or to a low-cost dry-lot retention program. Market value and retention costs were assessed at October culling and again at one-month intervals from November through March and used to calculate net returns. Net returns from cull cow retention measure the difference in revenue at culling and revenue when marketing at a later date, less the associated retention and feed costs, written as:
Net Returns = Revenue at Marketing – Retention & Feed Costs – Revenue if sold at Culling
Cows retained in the dry-lot setting had higher weight gain, on average, than cows retained on native pasture, but cumulative feed costs also increased at a much faster pace, even with the low-cost strategy. Cows with BCS≤6 (thin and medium) were profitably retained in the native pasture system, regardless of the retention period, with net returns ranging from $20/head in November to $70/head in March. Many of these cows actually lost some weight during the retention period, but the seasonal price upswing ‘outweighed” the lost weight. However, in the low-cost dry lot system, only the 4-month retention period was profitable for thin and medium cows, with net returns of $20/head and $10/head, respectively, as feed costs consumed most of what would be gained from the seasonal price upswing. Net returns for cows with BCS>6 were negative across the board in the dry lot system, with minimal profitability in the pasture system as well.
So…as my family says in dominoes, get rid of your big ‘uns! And then carefully consider how to manage and market the rest.
Raper, Kellie Curry, Jon T. Biermacher, and Zakou Amadou. Marketing Cull Beef Cows: Does Body Condition Score Matter?, Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service, Fact Sheet AGEC-627, March 2017.
Raper, Kellie Curry and Jon T. Biermacher. Beef Cull Cow Management and Marketing Alternatives, Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service, Fact Sheet AGEC-629, March 2017.
