- Good morning everyone.

I'm Lyndall Stout and we have a great show lined up for you today on Sunup.

An encore of Dave Lalman's recent and popular series, analyzing how much it really costs to raise a cow.

From genetics to feed, and everything you need to know to cut expenses and boost efficiency, setting you up for a successful new year.

Grab that hot cup of coffee because Sunup starts right now.

- Well, we're joined by our OSU extension beef cattle specialist, Dr.

Dave Lalman.

And Dave, you know, about 10 years ago when I pretty much started at Sunup, you did a segment about, you know, the cost it takes to run a cattle on some land.

How, you know, what's changed since then?

- Good question.

A lot to answer your question actually, Kurtis, we did one 16 years ago.

Oh yeah.

It was the first time I went through these numbers and so yeah, it's fascinating to think about, you know, the context of, of what has, what has changed prices for cattle, obviously dramatic change and then, and then the cost to run a cow has changed quite a bit.

So let's dive right into it.

What's been the biggest kind of change?

I imagine it's probably feed, am I right?

- Yeah, I mean that's, that's certainly one of 'em.

That still is the biggest portion of the budget each year.

The, the cost run a cow, of course pasture and external feed cost.

But when I arrived at OSU, I remember Dr.

Sally Northcut always used to say it costs about a dollar per day to run a cow.

So $365, not so much.

No, no.

The good times 2010, it was $615 per year to run a cow.

Now that includes all of the cost fixed variable costs.

The only thing we didn't include in that is, is the operator labor.

If you were gonna pay yourself and you had the good fortune of, you know, owning the operation or being the primary manager of it.

2024, so about 67 ranches summarized in 2024, that cost was 1348.

So within $2 of being exactly double of what it was back in 2010.

So that's, that's pretty interesting.

- Yeah.

- You asked about feed in 2010, feed was about $360 of the annual budget, again includes pasture and purchases or harvest feed.

In 2024, it was $684.

So if you do the math, that's not quite 50%, not quite double.

- Yeah, - Right.

And so actually the pasture and feed costs hasn't gone up as much as all the other expenses have.

Now.

They've gone up a lot, don't get me wrong, but, you know, double would be 720 and it's 684 right now.

- And what about pasture?

Is it pasture conditions at all like that are in, that are, you know, impacting this?

- Well, they, they will, I mean, in drought years you're gonna have higher feed expenses, which includes pasture and purchase, harvest feed, you know, because you, you may have to go buy hay to get your cows through or, or concentrate feed or whatever.

But it's interesting if you break out the pasture portion of the budget since 2010, the pasture costs, if you're leasing pasture to graze, haven't gone up as rapidly as the other feed costs and interest and labor costs and machinery costs and so on.

So that's interesting.

It seems like the leasing rates are maybe a little bit behind the other, the other costs associated with cow calf enterprise.

Now here is the real shocker, I think in 2010 average weaning weights and back then they had about 107 operations in the data set.

So it's a nice big data set.

The average weight of calves sold now that includes steers and heifers that were sold right around the time of weaning was 576 pounds.

In 2024, the average weight of calf sold was 5 53.

So they've gone down, gone down, maybe not much because they bounce around from year to year.

But if we look at the data over time and you plot every single year calf, we weights in many parts of the country, particularly our part of the country, they're not increasing at the, at the ranch level.

If you just look at phenotypic weaning weights.

- And why is that?

'cause I'm, I'm, you know, obviously even with high feed costs, that doesn't mean that producers aren't gonna supplement feed and get their cows to the weight that they need to be at.

So what, what do you think is happening?

- We have more and more data over time that that W ranch environment is limiting the genetic expression of growth, at least at weaning.

Now I think the buyers know that when those cattle get to the feed yard, they just explode in terms of growth because you've taken the lid off of the environment by providing them with a high quality diet 24 7.

- Well, you know, there's a lot of change as you said, and a lot of it's just kind of seems somewhat negative, but there are some positives as well.

- Well, of course.

And, and price would be the number one.

Absolutely.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- So we, here we are, you know, dealing with the, - I'm thinking 10 years ago I should have got myself some cattle.

- Yeah.

I mean, shouldn't we have, we have all, yeah.

But yeah, that, so yes, or last week at OKC West and if we average the steer and heifer price, much like these, these largest data sets I'm telling you about, the average price last week would've been $412 per hundred weight of cal.

We, in 2010 that was $110.

So they nearly quadrupled in, in calf price.

And then in 2024, just last year, they were only two 80, so four 12 today.

So, you know, obviously, you know, we're, we're sitting right here at, at all time record high cattle prices, but this will not, this will not go on forever.

- Yeah.

- And so I, I think Kurtis, one of the big take home messages is for people to know what's going on at their operation, know your cost of production, know if your calf winning weights are going up or if they have stabilized and if your calf winning weights have stabilized over time, it's probably time to shift your focus more to controlling cow costs rather than focusing on trying to swim upstream and increase cal weaning weight because that's gonna be more expensive.

- Yeah.

And of course there's so much to get into and you're actually gonna be part of, you're gonna be starting a new series about this topic and we'll have you on in a couple weeks and this will be hopefully something that just like kind of can, continues on just to help producers, right?

- Yeah, you bet.

It's time of the year.

We're starting to think about what are we gonna do to supplement our cows and try to hold those feed costs down.

So You bet.

Happy to, happy to get - Into that.

Alright, thanks Dave.

Dr.

Dave Lawman, OSU extension beef cattle specialist here at Oklahoma State University.

- Now we have an idea of how much it costs to raise a cow, but what are the true differences between high and low earning operations?

Once again, here's Dr.

Lawman.

- There's tremendous variability from one ranch to another in terms of their, of how much money they're able to make.

And a lot of that variation is actually under the producer's control.

And so I thought it might be useful to go through some, you know, kind of dig into that, break it down a little bit and just so people would know what keys are that might really have an opportunity under their control where they, they might be able to make some progress in that profitability.

- Alright, let's stop right in.

What, what do you have for us?

- Well, so, you know, again, I'm gonna use the Kansas Farm Management Association data set.

It's, they do a really nice job and they had a publication that was actually published in 2021.

So we'd like to have a little more recent publication because, you know, the, the business structure has changed with these extremely high cattle prices.

Nevertheless, it points out those, those keys that I just mentioned, first of all.

But the way they break up their data is really nice because they look at the, the top one third profitability operations in their data set and compare it to the bottom one third or the least profitable operations.

Yeah, okay.

And the difference in those two groups in terms of net profit, net return to management was $460 per per - Cow.

Yeah.

- Okay.

If you look at it on a per cow basis, huge difference.

And then if you break that down a little bit, you know, $176 of that 460 is due to more income, but the bigger portion, $284 of that difference is due to controlling costs or, or, you know, pushing those costs down.

And so, boy, that's, that's, Dr.

Doy had told me for many years that that was the key to profitability and cow calf operations, much as, I hate to admit it, she was right.

- So what are some other things that, that you've noticed too is variabilities in the changes in how that impacts, you know, on from ranch to ranch.

- So the total difference in top one, third to bottom one third is about $460 a big deal.

And $284 of that difference has to do with costs.

So let me just mention a few of those key costs and, and most of these, again, people kind of have control of.

So you asked me in another one of these sunup programs and suggested that probably feed was the most expensive part of raising That's, that's what I was trying to - Think.

Yeah, - And you were right because in that dataset, it's, it's about $145 more spent in the least profitable group compared to the most profitable group, $145 more spent on purchased or harvested feed per cow.

- Mm.

- Okay.

Does that make sense?

That makes, - Yeah.

- Falls right in line.

The other thing and really interesting thing is that in their dataset, people who spent $15 or, or the, the, the more profitable group spent 15 more dollars on pasture costs.

Mm.

$145 less on feed costs, $15 more on pasture costs.

So they're kind of, you know, maybe renting, leasing, owning a little more pasture and having to rely less on purchase and harvest the feed.

And that turns out to be more profitable.

Three other things I'll just mention right quick that go into that $284 increased cost.

One would be depreciation more on the lower profitable operations, about $32 more per cow machinery cost.

And so those highly profitable producers are more careful about just purchasing machinery that depreciates and minimizing, you know, steel on the ranch or on the farm steel meaning machinery And then labor $63 per cow, less labor spent in the more profitable operations.

And so, you know, interesting that, you know, maybe those folks have better working facilities that they, their cattle are easier to gather, they're just more efficient in handle and their feeding system is maybe efficient, convenient, so on and so forth so that they can spend less money on, on hired labor.

In terms, in terms of the feed cost, I mean, it it is the devil is in the details, right?

Yeah.

Just like you're talking about, do you know how much you intend to deliver?

Is that what you're really delivering?

What you are delivering?

Is it appropriate and is it the best fit for the forage in the cattle stages of production?

And we'll get into that next time.

- I look forward to it.

Dave, Dr.

Dave Lalman, OSU extension beef cattle specialist here at Oklahoma State University.

- It's that time of you, again, the annual Sunup viewer survey.

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Let us know what you like about the show and what you would like to see more or less of.

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- We're continuing our conversations with our OSU extension beef cattle specialist Dr.

Dave Lalman on the costs to run a cow.

And Dave, the past couple weeks we've been talking about the things that producers can do and especially, you know, the difference between the top one third earning producers and the bottom one 30 earning producers and what separates them.

And one of the things you mentioned before we let off last time was nutrition.

- Yeah.

It's always a big part of the budget and those top one third profitable producers do a good job of, of controlling that cost.

And so today I thought we might just kind of talk through, you know, kind of the, a logical sequence to think about when it comes to making, making informed decisions about the nutrition program to not only meet the requirements of the animals, but control the cost.

- And so like for the top one 30 earning producers like you mentioned, what are some things that they do to control that cost when it comes to feeding?

- Well, first of all, they, they know their cost, right?

And they, and they really do their homework to see where they can fine tune and, and, and cut back or, or, or land in that sweet spot of not spending too much, but meeting the requirements of the animals so that they'll be productive.

- And a lot of this is like with producers maybe in that bottom one third is they just really don't know exactly how much or how less they're feeding.

- Yeah, well, it could be the amount they're feeding or the, or, you know, the content of what they're feeding that might not fit as well as it could.

And so maybe a, maybe a good point for today's session is, is, you know, if they're not comfortable working with a nutrition program or something to hit that sweet spot between the cost and the requirements, the animal will then seek out a professional that that's got a lot of experience doing that.

And our extension educators certainly can do that in our area Livestock specialists.

We provide a lot of tools through extension to help people work through those.

- So do you have an example about how a producer could actually work this into their production to figure out how much they're feeding?

- So, you know, the first thing is to know your cost and let's take a, a native range example and kind of work through those costs.

So let's say in this part of the state, a, a common yield on native pastures, maybe around 3,500 pounds.

Harvest efficiency, we'll use 28%.

So we'll multiply 3,500 times 0.28.

That gives you 980 pounds of forage per acre consumed by the cows.

Okay.

If we pay $30 total rent plus maybe $5 of, of a cost, that would give you about, it's about 3 cents per pound of forage consumed, or $60 per ton of dry matter consumed on that acre of land.

- Okay, but what about the quality?

- Yeah, so that's a good point.

We've had our native pastures tested here just recently this time of year.

And normally our native range pasture would be around 7% protein and around 57 to 58% TDN in early October this year it's six and 55.

So it's a little bit lower quality this year than it has been.

So, you know, again, it points out the need for producers to know their cost and know the quality of their forage.

- And that's a lot of information that could probably seem overwhelming, you know, to a producer who's like ready to put pen to the paper.

But there are, like you mentioned, there are a lot of extension resources available to help producers, you know, like the feeder about calibration clinics that sun ups covered over the years and things like that.

- The, the calculator program.

And that's what I used this morning to calculate those numbers and I did it in about 10 minutes.

So yeah, producers contact their extension educator, get familiar with all the resources that we have and, and make good use of them.

And yes, it's not that difficult though to, to make solid decisions that minimize the cost, but meet the animal's requirement.

- And as you mentioned as, and as Dr.

Peel mentioned it, this, you know, in these type of circumstances with high cattle prices, knowing exactly what you're feeding is extremely important.

Very important.

Dave, last time we talked, we were just kind of talking about costs and how to hit that sweet spot, but when it comes to that sweet spot for supplementation and fee costs, how do you know where that sweet spot is?

Yeah, - Well you have to do your homework and we talked about the resources available last time, you know, issue calculators, software program, fact sheets, nutrient requirements of beef cattle, which we can post those on on the setup website, but that would be, that would be the way to start.

But you know, I thought we might just work through an example - And you actually have some cowboy math for us right here to go through.

- Indeed, I do.

All right, let's dig into it.

Yeah, so you know what I'm gonna, what I'm gonna give you just a quick example of balancing a supplement or evaluating a diet for about a 1200 pound cow, we're gonna assume she's maybe a little bit on the thin side, so maybe a body condition score four to four and a half and we'd like her to be in a five.

Well if she's a spring calver and just weaned her calf, she's in about the middle of gestation approximately, and that is the best time of the production cycle to put weight on a cow.

Okay.

Assuming you have a proper supplement.

Last time we talked about this, Curtis, I mentioned that our native range forage around steel water Oklahoma is testing about 6% protein and 55% TDN.

So we're gonna use that as a base.

Okay.

For this 1200 pound cow, we want her to gain about a pound a day.

- Yeah.

- Okay.

So her requirements to accomplish that weight gain, she needs about a pound of three quarters a day of protein, and she needs about 12.3 pounds of TDN or energy.

Okay.

If she's eating about 20 pounds of that native range forage, 6% protein 55 TDN, she's gonna be consuming 1.2 pounds of protein from the forage and about, what is that?

11 pounds of TDN from the forage.

Okay.

So if we do the quick math on that, that leaves her a little over half a pound short on protein and a little about a pound 0.3 short on energy.

So now we'll just go find a supplement to meet that supplemental need.

- So how much range cubes would you actually need to cover all that?

- Well, that's good questions.

I mean, range cube's a very popular supplementation source.

So if we assume that we're gonna go purchase a 25% protein range cube, two pounds a day, get you right at half a pound of protein, so that would just nearly perfectly fill that protein deficiency.

If we assume that that supplement is about 75% TDN, you know, that gets you about one and a half pounds of the TDN or energy and we needed 1.3 and so we're there, right.

And that, you know, costs, my costs on that is about 39 cents a day, give or take.

So, you know, we encourage people to go through the quick math like that themselves.

You know, if you need help with what the requirements are based on the stage of production or how much gain the cow needs to make, that's where you would contact your extension educator, your area livestock specialist download the the calculator software evaluation program.

That's exactly the kind of math that it's designed to help you work through.

- And obviously, as you were mentioning throughout this series, that fee costs is one of the biggest control, like aspects of control that producers have with their productions.

Yeah, - Yeah, it is.

And you know, the reason to go through that math is to have confidence that you are finding the sweet spot, meaning we're gonna meet the animal's requirements but not overdo it and waste money on unnecessary feed.

- And it's always just good to know where you're at regardless in your production.

- Oh, well, I mean, I mean that's the key is we talked about when we started this series, you know, the take home message was know your cost and then work to control those costs.

- Finally, today Dr.

Lalman tells us all about EPDs, which are another factor that can influence the long-term cost of raising your cattle.

- We're joined now by Dr.

Dave Lalman and we're wrapping up his series on how much it costs to raise a cow.

And Dave, over the past few weeks, we've talked about the historical, you know, price changes, you know, from the past like 16 years, we've talked nutrition and how that impacts things.

But EPDs are also something, you know, long term that producers can think about of how to, you know, measure cost cutting.

- Yeah.

I mean the, the genetic potential of the cow herd comes through the sis that are purchased or maybe the, you know, the semen that's purchased and used through artificial insemination and so on.

And that, you know, so long term controlling cow cost really is, I mean, that's your opportunity to influence that over time.

- And there's a lot of research too.

You know, we have a lot of research applications out here that's been telling you a lot and there's some things that you have some really interesting findings and, and a lot of cattle producers know that if you have two cows, you know, two heifers, they're gonna be eating maybe the same thing, but gaining in different, you know, one's gaining a lot and one's gaining nothing off.

- I mean, every contemporary group of either heifers or cows that we've, we test, and we've talked about this on sunup in the past, but every contemporary group we test, we find big differences in how much they'll eat, you know, in a cow 20 to 40 pounds, some cows eating 20, some eating 40 heifers, maybe 12 pounds up to five pounds of difference.

So yeah, that, that is, and then, and then as you mentioned, also tremendous difference in their ability to perform.

In other words, if we're thinking about a replacement heifer perform just means weight gain on a strict forage diet with mineral, which is how we are testing our cattle here.

- So talk a little bit about some of the findings that you have and you actually have an interesting graphic that you can kind of show those, the, the different that, you know, just the differences of what could happen in an operation.

- Yeah, I'll, we'll share a couple of different ones, but you know, the one that is really exciting to me and makes that point very clearly, in 2024, we tested a contemporary group of heifers and we had, so let's, so on, on the y axis in this graph, you've got average daily gain, again, nothing but hay in mineral.

Okay?

And on the X axis or the bottom axis there is their feed intake.

And these two heifers that we're gonna point out have radical differences in their weight gain.

One heifer's gaining 1.4 pounds a day, one heifer is losing weight.

And the incredible thing is that over that nearly 90 day experimental period, those heifers are eating almost exactly the same amount on average.

So tremendous opportunity there.

I mean it is just, it's just one example, but it, but tremendous variation in their ability to perform on that strict forage diet, which is where a cow is expected to make her living.

Secondly, in this other, other graph, you know, there's another thing to point out and that is the same, same setup here.

We've got average of the gain on the Y axis, we've got intake on the, on the X axis in every contemporary group there's this set of heifers at the bottom that are just basically telling us that they have no business becoming a cow because they cannot perform on a strict forage - Diet.

And a lot of that just goes back to genetics, right?

- Right.

Well, we think so.

We think so, and we're trying to, to get to the point where we can find those cattle more practically because a producer's not gonna be able, not gonna be able to do this kind of research that we are doing.

- And there are a lot of resources available when in regards to EPDs, Dr.

Johnson has spent many of cow-calf corners talking about EPDs, right?

- Oh yeah.

And, and our data also points out that those EPDs are working, working pretty well.

We think the combination of that dry matter intake EPD and and the mature cow weight EPD in combination is a powerful tool to control cow costs - Over time.

Alrightyy.

Thanks Dave.

Dr.

Dave Lalman, OSU Extension beef cattle specialist here at Oklahoma State University.

- That'll do it for our show this week.

A reminder, you can see Sunup anytime on our website, follow us on social media and stream us anytime at youtube.com/sunup tv.

I'm Lyndall Stout.

Have a great week everyone.

And remember, Oklahoma Agriculture starts at Sunup.